I cringe every time I read that mankind is causing a "global warming" by adding carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Well, there is that factor. But it is only one possible factor for change in earth's climate. And it is by no means certain that it will cause widespread problems... changes perhaps, but not necessarily problems.
Another pollutant, sulfur dioxide, is having a cooling effect. And lest we get too excited about our part... all it takes is one really large volcanic eruption to top all of our efforts at pumping this gas into the atmosphere.
Let's suppose that the CO2 level is increasing and we all follow the Kyoto protocols... what's the prediction? One view is that the cure is worse than the illness... the benefits will be slight and the cost enormous.
Another piece of information that is overlooked is that the climate we are used to as "normal" (and the 2nd part)... is subject to rapid variations. (Additional reading ) related to an eccentric earth... eccentric orbit, tilt and wobble... that induces climate change.
It is interesting to note that in the past 100,000 years, the ice caps have formed and melted 10 times without man's help. Nothing is ever as simple as it first seems.
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We need to be careful about projecting short-term changes as long-term trends... as this chart shows:
For those of you who can't quite make out the details... this is a trend whose values increased rapidly from 1,500 to 5,000 in a matter of a couple of years versus slow increases prior to that. Projections of 8,000 to 10,000 were being made based on this "new trend". You can see the details here.
There's a bit of hubris in thinking that our micro influence is the cause of major climate changes. Wait... is that another ice age coming our way? Tilt!