I would like to congratulate and join-in with the last 3 contributors: Leigh, Stern and Atman.

Environmentalism was originally born as a protest, a way for individuals to go against the government of the day. Helping the planet was one way in which we could express our generosity at the face of the materialistic mechanisms of society. It was part of the cry "make love, not war!"

Since then, cunning governments perceived and understood the power and threat (for them) of individuals who care, and as a clever trick seized the issue and adopted the same environmental policies into their main-stream fear-politics.

Spontaneous generosity was thwarted, now the environment is no longer a matter for generosity, now it is the law. The act remained, but the spirit was stolen. What used to be done as an act of caring love, has turned into the service of power and fear.

So go to hell then, let the carbon burn, let nature take its course, let this human-race be erased off the face of the earth. The only reason for protecting the earth in the first place was us, individuals who come to this planet as guests, then wish to leave it in good order for those who come after us. Since our individual life and individual efforts are no longer appreciated, our good-will no longer trusted, since all that counts now is "society-building" (including its variant "nation-building"), or rather society-engineering, and since I and most others who are aware to some degree have no inclination for being engineered, then bye bye planet!

Well Leigh, I think you are flogging a dead horse.
The real problem is energy. We are going to have a problem with liquid
fuels and world wide by 2025 the same problem will arise with coal.
We urgently need solutions for energy generation and we have left it 20 years too late.

We cannot make a smooth transition to another energy regime and avoid
dramatic disruption.
You are worrying about what will be an insignificant problem inside
the next 10 years. Forget 2050, start worrying about 2015.