The current population is easily sustainable. There's plenty of food in the world to go round.

If it keeps growing, that will be the problem. And it's not the developed world that's the problem either.

Who's up for colonising the Moon and Mars?

I'm not so sure. At present, humans are using about 25% more resources than the Earth's biomass can provide. By 2050, if our current rate of consumption continues (and with a growing population it's only likely to get worse) we'll need the equivalent of two planet Earth's to sustain ourselves.
http://earthtrends.wri.org/updates/node/96
This is an issue all of itself, regardless of climate change. There are simply too many people asking too much of the system.

This is the biggest threat, allong with pollution. Educating people about birth control and reducing the horrifically toxic waste we create and spread about the environment will be more beneficial than banging on about C02.

I'm sure the people likely to be one of those billions will have something to say about this. The fact that you can have that attitude suggests you don't believe you will be one of them.

My attitude towards global warming is that "I am not an expert, though the consequences if it were real are horrendous so we should err on the side of caution." So I have the low energy bulbs do what I can to save energy, use public transport as much as possible, shop locally, walk to the shops, recycle or reuse everything if possible, if not compost. I do not think that it is a lie. Just because someone says that is the case does not make it so. I see that the winters are stormier and our summers hotter. Years ago we moaned if the temperature hit 85F, now we get 95F much more regularly.

You're right, I don't. But here's the kicker - nature doesn't care.
Maybe I will be, maybe I won't. My emotional involvement in the matter doesn't matter one way or the other.
Personally, I'm not terribly worried by the idea of death.

It's our government (elected by the people and all that jazz), at least in theory.

I'm talking about using the perceived threat of GW and any potential effects to raise money for the current elected government's policies and intentions, many of which we know to be absolute bunk in the first place... It's immoral if nothing else, though I'm hardly surprised at that

I'm with Prof. Nature doesn't care, it just needs to get rid of some of the parasites which are destroying it. In this case, the human population.

Germs and bacteria exist in the human body, as long as the level remain at a "good" level, the body co-operates, it needs some of them. When they over produce, the body reacts and kills off the excess to get things back under control.

The Earth may not be doing it conciously, but the amount of gases produced are exaggerated through over population and over use of the planet's resources, so that the planet can't cope any more. The planet "reacts" in that the natural cycle hiccups to the point where the majority of the parasites will be killed off, the cycle will slowly return to normal and the parasites can start building up again.

It is, for those affected, unfair, but it is the natural order of things.

Yes we are clearly over consuming and until governments come up with a new way of measuring quality of life issues we will jut continue ravaging the planet. We need to have much higher levels of reuse and recycling. If that means banning many products or creating whole new industries repairing them that is better.

You should be because death would mean you can't post on this site anymore

This is a variant of the Gaia hypothesis, and the idea has a lot to commend it. Where I take issue with you is that billions starving or living in poverty, whilst a minority consumes the planet from under them is hardly the "natural order" of things.

The people who will be most discomoded by the sorts of huge disruptions that are possibly coming won't just be the Bangladeshis, or the sub-saharan Africans. They may be right in the firing-line, but our technological eco-system is very finely balanced and showing signs of failure and over-stretch already. The USA suffers regular brownouts in various states as aircon or heating is cranked-up. How long before a mjor nuclear installation is flooded? and so-on.

Even assuming that we are loosely "OK" do you seriously think that the poulations of the affected regions are just going to sit at home & starve or drown, while we do nothing? The lessons of history suggest otherwise....?

What is the "natural order" of things then?
Are you suggesting we exist outside of the "natural order"?

We have this wonderful stuff called technology that normally takes care of the "natural order" pretty well.

And chimps use tools.
The internet and the mobile phone and the MRI scanner doesn't mean we're not all a part of the natural order.

Sorry Prof, but that REALLY IS the point. We exist in nature, but our technology allows us to occupy environmental niches that would be unsustainable without it. Sadly the same technology allows us to destroy the planet through greed and stupidity. "Nature" will strike back (wheteher as a consequence of Man, or simply by chance) and we'll nedd to concentrate on different skills to those of greed and exploitation to survive