Climate Change - How it affects all of us, and what can we do?

I pick the title 'Climate Change' rather than 'Global Warming' for a very specific reason. Facts. Fundamentally, climate change is a natural process, the earth gets hotter and colder in a steady fluctuation as thousands of years pass, and subsequently global warming is natural - or at least in its usual sense.  However, since humans began developing and industrialising, climate change has seen a change.  It has accelerated.  Before discussing this, here are some facts.

From NASA's Global Climate Change site (http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/): "For the 650,000 years, atmospheric carbon dioxide has never been above this line" (see graph below).

As you can see from the graph, up to 1950, the Earth's natural climate cycle has been pretty predictable, and we were entering a warming period regardless of human intervention or not. But, come 1950, when industrialisation really took off, just out of WW2, the human race was ready to rebuild itself and it would use any resource it could get its hands on to achieve this.  In the last 64 years atmospheric carbon dioxide has soared high, and it isn't slowing down. Some argue that this is just an anomaly in the fluctuation, I have to ask those people to look at the graph above and tell me again that this is 'just an anomaly' - it isn't.  We are having extreme affects on the atmosphere and it reflects in the Earth's patterns. For example, "Global sea level rose about 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) in the last century. The rate in the last decade, however, is nearly double that of the last century" (same source). I can list a whole load of other affects that accelerated climate change (in this case global warming) has but you can look into those yourselves.

So what though right?  We are the alpha species and we can do anything we want?  We want development right? Well, let me put it like this: It affects us ALL. Regardless of species, and regardless of differences within a species - whether you are from the Americas or from Africa, it will affect you.  And if you aren't feeling it now, if we continue with the 'business as usual' approach, you will, and it will be far too late.

But, is it too late now?  Have we gone too far?  Different people will tell you different things, but in my opinion, just from looking at the facts, the figures, the statistics, the statements, we are on the brink of going too far.  If we don't act now, we won't get another chance.  The media and the government will focus on your individual actions - promoting recycling, turning off your lights etc.  This is important, and it is worth getting in the habit of doing these things now.  However, to stop this acceleration and to allow the world to return to its natural fluctuation, it is not us as individuals that are the problem.  It is the big companies, the powerful countries, but also the developing countries.  It is their use of fossil fuels, and their reluctance to move to sustainable resources.

So there you have it.  We need to push the companies to change, we need to make them realise we want them to change.  How to do this?  Sign petitions, go on marches, organise marches, boycott services, whatever it is to get the companies' and the governments' attention across the globe.  Sustainable resources (wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, etc) are expensive, yes; but if the governments stop spending our money on things which are ultimately going to become pointless, if we let this acceleration continue, then we can invest in huge projects which can provide FREE energy to the population of the world. Think about it, you have the power to make the people that need to change, change.