BBruce, some of us just wish for something to be done in the right direction. It looks very much like, and the scientific consensus is, that regardless of other influences over which we have no control (the sun, volcanos, etc.) humans are contributing hugely to the problem. What you seem to advocate (even if you aren't doing so in every post) by your insistence on the 'other causes' is that nothing can be done except to mitigate the resulting disasters.

I seriously doubt many people are so sanguine as to think 'Kyoto will fix everything'. Canadians know that serious problems are already occurring in the Arctic (we may need to relocate people, build very high cost roads, abandon some ventures, and not far in the future). There are low-lying tropical islands (damn if I can recall the name of the place) which will have to be evacuated soon, after centuries of habitation, because the sea has already risen enough, along with other factors, to flood them regularly, and soon, permanently. Perhaps people where you live are less informed or less educated, I wouldn't know.

"2. The stopping of CO2 emissions may well destroy the industrial capability that we (mankind) need to SURVIVE the real global warming ( ie, climactic shift) that is taking place.

3. The focus on CO2 has been used by some as a smokescreen to ingore dealing withg the inevitable effects ( flooding, agricultural failure, species extinction) that WILL occur even after we STOP all CO2 emmissions. " - bearded bruce

Frankly, I don't believe either of the above is true. Humans are unlikely to 'destroy our industrial capacity'; if you think about it, you'll realise that's not gonna happen. And honestly, anyone with two brain cells knows we (worse, our children) have a long hard road ahead, and that we will not see many species again, we will lose cities and shorelines, we will need to adjust our agriculture greatly, and even if we are solely responsible for climate change, we will not see any positive results in our own lifetimes.

But to do nothing, to not continue to study the climate, to not try to mitigate our enormous six billion body footprint, would be a complete and cruel betrayal of our own offspring.