Man made global warming - reality or a convenient argument?

Here are my high-level take-aways from OpenForum discussion on man-made global warming:

1. It does make sense to conserve energy and resources - after all, it results in money savings too!
   
2. BUT, most of the "green" talk that took on a feverish pitch of late is a direct result of businesses realizing that they have "green" products/services to sell. E.g., IT firms such as IBM and Sun talk about Green IT. NDTV regularly runs a "green" ticker sponsored by Toyota. Obama constantly talks about US government funding "green" businesses in order to create jobs.

Running notes from Man-made global warming discussion

• Threats to
  • Cities
  • Developed world
  • Farming
    • Long assumed calendars change
      • Traditional Monsoon
        • starts around may 15
        • rains atleast every 10 days
        • stops around november
      • Monsoons of late
        • Starting late
        • Intensity is high
        • Gap between rains is longer
  • Threat perception is different from nation to nation
  • Submergence of islands
• Benefits
  • Higher the CO2, better photo-synthesis and higher the yield
    • Plants use about 400 litres of water for absorbing 1kg of carbon
    • But will water be available?
• Actions
  • Euro3/EPA
  • Energy efficiency/consumption
  • Carbon trading/CDM
  • Renewable energy
  • Environmental law
    • Enforcement is missing
• Views of participants

  • We seem to be worried more about debunking false theories but let's assume truth will come out eventually in an adversarial system where lobbies on both sides are equally powerful

    There is no argument that there is change

    • Question is can we do something meaningful about it?
    • Militating against consumerism has not been successful so far
      • One insurance company prints 650000 pages per day
      • Economics of energy usage are very important
    • Positioning ourselves in a way that we can survive in many eventualities
      • Access to clean technologies
      • Land availability for solar panels, ethanol production, wind mills
      • Green computing intiatives

    Related to other problems such as health?

    • Not really - SO2, N2O can be reduced without reducing emissions

    Hydrogen storage

    Lobbies and beneficiaries

    • New engine technology lobby
    • Alternative fuels
      • Bio
      • Nuclear
      • Solar/wind
    • Mass transport lobby

    Higher the efficiency, higher may be usage