Fresh from a great trip in the California Wilderness I feel guilty as usual for challenging Global Warming alarmism from folks I respect and admire and who seem to spend a lot more time than I do on this topic, such as Al Gore and a lot of respected scientists participating in the IPCC.
However it’s really hard for me to view the catastrophe claims without feeling that 1) the major concerns don’t come from the science, rather from emotion and narrow focus and 2) clearly poverty, hunger, and disease are far more pressing human concerns – all being present catastrophic human conditions, solvable with simple technologies and at relatively low cost.
Of course humans are not the only thing to worry about when you’re looking at problems on our earth. However the case for expensive Global Warming “remedies” vs other methods of protecting the environment seems to get much weaker the farther you go from the human consequences. For example Kilauea in Hawaii could care less about GW. In fact Volcanos spew considerable CO2 into the atmosphere naturally (though not as much as humans, contrary to some GW denier claims).
SO…. maybe the best way to figure this out is to take a little more time to carefully examine the main catastrophe claims and compare them to what the actual research suggests. Luckily, the Climate Crisis website, a companion to the film “An Inconvenient Truth” gives us a clear starting point in our quest with these catastrophes they clearly feel are 1) a big deal and 2) looming on the near horizon:
If the warming continues, we can expect catastrophic consequences.
Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years — to 300,000 people a year.
Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.
Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense.
Droughts and wildfires will occur more often.
The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050.
More than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by 2050.
…. TO BE CONTINUED ….
Joe Duck 
I agree that expensive global warming solutions are not a good idea, however there are many things we can do that are simple and easy. Plus, solving global warming related problems will actually help address a host of other major problems at the same time.
So, while I agree that sometimes the problem of global warming is over hyped in some ways, overall I think it is very important and worth addressing.
Nathan good points. It appears Global Warming is likely to cause problems and therefore we should work on solutions. My beef is primarily along the lines of making sure that we prioritize global problems rather than just throwing money at the sexiest one, which at this time is warming.