Honestly, I don't think the problem is that people don't really know this and are arguing against the human effect of carbon emissions on our planet's environment. The problem is our modern society at its foundation is completely based on carbon based fuel and combustion engines.
Unfortunately, that's not the case; if it were, this article wouldn't have made the news. In the US there is a large fraction of the population that denies anthropogenic global warming. This in and of itself isn't the worst thing ever, since we can't expect everyone to understand everything. However, the fact that many of these deniers are Congressman and Senators is a significant issue, since these are precisely the people who have the necessary influence to direct our society towards alternative energy sources.
A group of brilliant scientists, no matter how intelligent or correct they are, is not going to convince the entire modern world to stop what it's doing, shut down society and restructure it for the long term health of the planet.
No scientists that I know of suggests that industry should be stopped in order to prevent global warming and climate change. There are likely some environmentalists that do suggest this, but they are quite certainly on the fringe. The scientists that I know are prudent people, and they are technologists. They propose a gradual shift towards carbon neutral energy sources such as nuclear fission, wind, and solar.
Two things to note about this: 1) That would have a devastating impact because of the chaos it would create and 2) There's not enough motivation because it's not going to affect anyone currently here in their lifetime. By the time it's a problem, it will be a future generation and it will be too late.
Climate change is not a problem of some distant future. Its effects are here with us now. Climate change is also not an all or nothing shift - it is a gradual change. However, greenhouse gas emissions are growing near exponentially, which means the rate of climate change is going to continue accelerating. Seen from a positive light, this means that the sooner and more vigorously we act, the more pronounced the affect will be.
Now I know this is a bitter bill for geeks to swallow but you'll have to negotiate the win/win, not just use pure logic. Fortunately, you're the smart group and what you should use your intelligence for is to find an economically equivalent or better, cleaner, environment friendly source of energy and propulsion. Get to work! We're depending on you to solve the problem.
Alternative sources of energy are here, and they are constantly improving. Some of these alternative energy sources already are superior, particularly when taking into account the external costs associated with fossil fuels. Even without including external costs, wind is one of the cheapest energy sources available. The switch to renewable energy sources is inevitable. Eventually they will be the only energy sources that are economical. However, that's not really the issue that I think this article addresses. I think it's really about the anti-scientific sentiment that has become so influential in the US media and political sphere. I think this article is an example of the effort needed from the scientific community to educate the public about the science that affects us all. It's much easier in many ways, as a scientist, to write only for the scientifically literate audience represented by scientific journals, but we need people willing to translate the scientific consensus for the general population - particularly when it comes to topics such as anthropogenic global warming.
