[Recurring Villain]

With some global cooperation, Africa could become a clean industrial powerhouse. A solar farm over the Sahara could supply the entire of Europe, for example. Of course, you wouldn't expect such a massive farm to be built in one place, but considering how much sun much of the African continent receives, and the comparatively small economies of the African nations, clean energy is a vastly superior investment for them to make, as they don't have to appropriate any kind of fuel except that supplied for free by our Sun, leaving room for them to focus further investments in other areas.

The problem is not that clean energy would hold places like Africa back, but that the western corporate powers directly benefit from keeping the people of that continent poor. Who do you think makes your shoes or shirts? Minimum wage would be several orders of magnitude greater than what these people, the modern equivalent of slaves, receive.

As for past fluctuations in the Earth's temperature, they have been tied to several factors, including solar activity, greenhouse gas levels (released by volcanoes, and by lifeforms predating humanity, believe it or not) and even background radiation depending on the region of the galaxy we are passing through. Right now there is no major volcanic activity (however, Yellowstone park has recently become more active), solar activity is low (more sunspots = hotter. less sunspots = colder) and there is no evidence to suggest that we are passing through a particularly 'hot' area of the galaxy.

So what could possibly be causing this marked increase in heat? Is God hugging the Earth a little tighter than usual?

It isn't that far-fetched that humanity could be having such a drastic effect, despite what they want you to believe. The Earth's atmosphere consists of oxygen only because early life-forms emitted oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis. In the early stages of Earth's history, life (which was very basic at this point, not fish or kangaroos or anything, mostly single-cellular) almost went extinct because the Earth's entire atmosphere was changed, then an ice-age ensued because this new atmosphere was not holding enough heat. Fortunately, small colonies of a mutated strain of the single-celled agent survived, which could perform photosynthesis using oxygen instead of methane, emitting CO2 as a byproduct. This heated the Earth back up, and life as we know it resulted.

Now, if a bunch of microbes can changed the composition of the atmosphere, admittedly over a vastly greater span of time than that of the industrial age of humanity, is it really so far-fetched to believe that 6 billion human beings, all driving cars, using electricity, eating livestock, firing weapons of various sizes at each other, and generally using an immensely greater amount of energy per capita than the rest of the species on the planet combined, could have enough of an impact on the composition of our atmosphere to induce a global increase in heat?

See, if you look into these things, you find all kinds of different areas intersect. The more you know, the less your ideas are 'opinions' and the more they become 'observations'.

It's most likely true that humanity is causing global warming. However, many people seem to be in a panic where no panic is necessary. Should the ice caps melt, massive parts of places like the united states will become flooded, some arid, whilst places like Russia will become newly habitable where one they were inhospitable. Personally, I think the panic is useful for technological progress towards better, less expensive (in the long term) sources of energy. However, I don't see global warming as being the harbinger of humanity's extinction. If we could get off this planet faster using fossil fuels, then I don't really give a shit.

PS. if parts of this dont make sense im sorry, I'm pretty tired atm. sleep now