Well the Berkeley Earth Project's conclusion are that the Earth is experiencing a gradual warming phase along similar lines to the trends predicted by other workers.
This is fine and the debate on whether the trend is a direct function of human activity will continue to rage, even though it's unlikely to reach a consensus or satisfactory conclusion.
Until policy makers and politicians understand and then agree that all human activity needs to be implemented in terms of being environmentally neutral, we will continue to pollute and then pay for the damage later.
For example it has been estimated that the current widespread flooding in Thailand will cost the Thais USD 4 Billion. You could argue that this is a cost for not maintaining an environmentally neutral stance.
We will continue to use energy sources and materials that impact on the environment because they are currently cost effective, particularly when their impact on the environment has no direct cost to the consumer.
The political responses to the Japanese nuclear power plant disaster are quite interesting, in that nuclear energy has minimal impact on atmospheric pollution that is linked to global warming, but because of a somewhat unique disaster, certain countries have opted out of this completely. Yes, dealing with the nuclear waste is an issue, but this is achievable and is unlikely to cause climate change. The full cost of Nuclear power is known, whereas the full cost of fossil fuels isn't because the cost of polluting the atmosphere is ignored.
Factor in the cost of pollution and then selecting the most economic AND environmentally neutral sources of energy, is the way to (potentially) save the Earth from man made change.
If you factor in the cost of dealing with pollution, the cost of fossil fuels will increase, whereas other energy sources such as nuclear, solar, wind etc remain essentially the same. The non fossil fuels become the economic choice and the environment is not polluted to the same extent.
So policy makers and politicians just need to agree that the cost of all sources of energy must include the cost of removing pollutants from the environment, the rest should follow.
I'll continue to enjoy the debate and shenanigans about Anthropogenic Global Warming. This doesn't bother me, because we are clearly polluting the atmosphere, oceans and land; so it is quite likely that the Earth will be affected. This doesn't need proving, it's obvious.
It probably seems too simplistic and I'm certain many people will not accept my proposal; however, focusing on an environmentally neutral basis, with the full cost of pollution included, would allow all countries to move in the right direction.
