I would say that statment is "not relevant." Seeking new knowledge and discovering new and better ways of doing things, in and of itself, is not the problem but in fact could actually help lead to the solution. Unfortunately, "progress" oftentimes creates new sets of problems that may not have been initially realised.

Sanusi Fola;

I am in complete agreement with you. The root cause of all problems which we are facing presently is the product of politics and cost-benefit analysis of each decision taken by our respective political leaders. But these representatives of ours who takes even human life in a venture as cost are not real power-holders. These are persons and institutions that fund elections or provide arms and ammunitions to topple a legitimate government. They take election funding and war waging as investment to reap a good harvest to install governments which would grant them favours and concessions or topple the governments which in any way may be hindrance in their design. Naturally, these people are interested in short term gains and have nothing to do with the rest of the humanity. Since a trifle trickles down to their members of their nations who are not ready to compromise their existing standard level of living or so called advance life-styles without taking into consideration environmental costs, threat to existence of humanity and loss of their own co-nationals and others elsewhere to maintain their lifestyles.

In the case of new discoveries you are right to the extent of point where the energy cost of these discoveries is very high and products (inventions/technology) based on these discoveries are adding to the demand of energy and giving more efficient instrument to plunder the planet in the hands of those who believe in short term gains.

But, there is none to invest in promised backstop (to stop pollution/emission/effluents at source) and cleaning (to gather pollutants/greenhouse gases etc. from the atmosphere). It is because corporate have taken over the world. They also invest in R&D to patent intellectual rights if the research and its products will accrue huge profits. They don’t see such an opportunity in the venture of this field as there is huge investment and therefore enormous cost in these technologies and developing or emerging economies which form bulk of the market are not able to purchase them besides a joint effort on the part of the world nations many of them would not like to join as once the atmosphere is cleansed, these technologies would be redundant for thousands of years or millions of years.

In the present day conditions of economic recession and financial crisis there is already an excuse for public funding, therefore, go on polluting and drawing extinction of human species closer and faster.

Climate change since the late eighties early nineties has never been a question of science. It is a question of economics, politics, and the concomitant perception of safety and security that individuals feel from day to day - isolated within each, but common in ALL nations. I live in a 'developed nation' (whose government hushed its own scientists - CSIRO- in the late eighties on global warming) yet the so called elected democratic governments (state and federal) continue to bail out companies and the firms that invest in these when such produce machinery and equipment that is more polluting (CO2-eq) now than its equivalent 20 years ago. It took about ten years to remove every car off the road in this country that used lead based fuels - easy done - didn't hurt any corporate profits. Try to help new companies establish a market for cheaper, more 'friendly' transporatation - or change the habits of those already dominating domestic and world markets, have a look at my nations record on public transportation over the last 100yrs - good luck with the revolution. Our roads are now dominated by AWDs, driven by those with abvsolutely no need for such ridiculous, wasteful, and dangerous vehicles. Will the greatest coward of all time be correct with the statement (to paraphrase), a single death is tragic, a million is a statistic. Perhaps we should now change that to 'a billion'.

Our socialist, or even Keynesian, governments are no more. These are mere shadows of conservative economic rationalist goverments dictacted to by corporate industry. Our education system is so antiquated that the 'citizens' it produces believe that any measure is and should be economic - not social. HR companies thrive in a market place where workers have lost most of the rights that took 200yrs to gain. 20 yrs ago these 'people' didn't exist - they were called 'payroll keepers'. Even most slaves in colonial U.S. had the basic entitlement to a daily meal, a partner, shelter, and minimal rest (no offence to those who suffered under such barbrism). What is the difference today? Lose your job and ask how long could you keep that vehicle, feed your family, pay the rent to private property owners who too are convinced of the rational of current economic policy. I live in the 7th most affluent nation on the planet, yet my hard working son-in-law, my daughter, and their 1yr old child can not obtain shelter (a house to rent) WHY?? Because the goverment 20 yrs ago decided to create a building/housing boom by introducing huge unregulated concessions to those buying a 'first home'. The unregulated banks loved this. The government, that is the people' pay the deposit on a yet to be built home, the market booms, prices soar as demand increases. Investment increases - rent increases to cope with the higher mortgages demanded by the (landlords) boom until the whole edifice comes crashing down. No more investment in new homes - a housing shortage further increasing property values..so and so on. I am sick to death of existing in a world where people who can't afford to cloth their children walk around talking to a $700 metal/plastic gadget because the market dictates that they should.

Our next election for a federal government will occur soon. Our conservative opposition proposes to abolish a newly instuted tax on carbon emissions - the opposition will win. Day to day fear and security will always win. It just takes the lowest common denominator to appeal to it.

I don't think your statement is irrelevant but I respectively disagree. Like it or not, our world is completely dependent on energy, the majority of which we now get from fossil fuels. As a result of this fact, we now have unprecedented levels of CO2 in the atmosphere (compared to levels in the last 420,000 yrs). You will be hard-pressed to find people who are used this carbon-intensive lifestyle choose to give it up. Therefore we absolutely need continued discoveries to improve energy efficiency and to make renewable sources of energy more affordable and efficient. We need better ways of constructing homes and offices, vehicles, power plants, etc.

Inevitably, what we do about climate change is also a political, economic, and social justice issue. I don't disagree that politicians are often corrupt, or that big-business often buys its way into our laws when science or social conscious would dictate otherwise. This must change too, but in order to reduce the human impact on climate we definitely need investigation and innovation into new ways to fuel our world.