I am a fan of the life-giving plant life of this planet.
Personally I am pleased at seeing the boost that this plant life has been given in recent years by the unraveling of Carbon from the long chain molecules, and freeing it from deep recesses within the earth.
Plants thrive from the extra available Carbon.
This sort of thing (release of Carbon) was eventually going to happen at some point anyway, with the only question being how?
Given the choices of impact event, period of extreme volcanism, or the industrial revolution of humans, I much prefer the latter.
Just as everything else, this period of our technology is of course temporary, and we will move on to newer methodology as things progress in good time.
I do not agree with a forced fast-forwarding of progress, because the cost is too high (on many levels), and it always ends badly as most knee-jerk over-reactions do.
Progress can be great, but when it is mixed with politics (vote whoring) and psychological trickery like scare tactics, then the possibility for bad results is greatly increased.
Practical examples of this abound.
It is easy to see such recent short-term reactions and their utter failure at achieving the desired goal. For example thousands of people have lazily (and irresponsibly I might add) pushed aside any thought of making the effort to take care of an maintaining their older vehicles, for the more glamorous (and politically correct) choice of going out and buying a hybrid such as a Prius. The Prius is very efficient, but the false economy of what these people have done can be mind-boggling.
There's also every chance that these people will take the same approach to caring for their Prius, and quickly trade up once again in a few years before any real maintenance is required.
Granted there are many people out there that bought a Prius under more reasonable circumstances where it is easier justified as a purchase. That's not the situation that I'm talking about above. My example just points out the sort of results you get from politically motivated psychological manipulation of "sheeple". And, what else could possibly expected? The fall-out is easily predictable through reason and experience, and it will no doubt get worse.
I find any suggestions to increase the artificial push on politically selected technology to be incredibly disturbing. This sort of popularized tunnel-vision can be compared to speeding right by a pile of free furniture so you can be the first one in the door of the furniture store to take advantage of a "spend more to save more" sale.
When progress is allowed to proceed unfettered, there is a natural selection of ideas and events that results in lasting success. This is the same pattern of natural selection that occurs in nature.
We have played the game with nature, picking winners and artificial selection to give us what we want in the short term. In each case, we have created something that cannot sustain itself and must be propped up (cared for) by us. We are seeing this today in the relationship between our government and our industry.
I know this was originally about gas prices, but price manipulation has been suggested, and this is all related.
Not mine, but some food for thought:
Individualism vs. Communitarianism - The Post Sustainability Institute