lets avoid making panic decisions, such as banning oil and coal, but we should be working towards that goal sooner than later regardless of how bad global warming is.
This is reasonable; but rare a green proponent goes that far. At the last AGW conference, for example, African countries just requested $67B "to mitigate the impact of global warming on the world's poorest continent", as they put it. That money will be paid by working people because only working people produce wealth. And this is just one example.
When there is smell of money in the air you'll be amazed how many con artists crawl out of the woodwork. Sure there are a few honest people who talk about valid issues, but their voices are not heard, drowned in the drumbeat. On every even week IPCC releases another dire prediction, and on every odd week this prediction is shown to be a fraud. At some point, perhaps, IPCC needs to either institute some quality control or to classify themselves as comedy performers.
No one is stopping those countries from burning wood to keep warm or cook their food.
Lucky you, not living in California. Here the government stops people from burning wood. New fireplaces and stoves are banned outright, and existing installations are prohibited from burning several days per winter. They justify this by wood smoke; I'd believe that if the restrictions only existed in cities; but no, they cover many counties, where you need a telescope to see a neighbor!
If we put more money into research we'll get answers sooner.
I agree about wars, they are a waste. However money does not guarantee a scientific breakthrough. Even if we somehow get to 100% efficiency of panels, it's only 1.3 kW/m2. It's not that much, considering night, winter, clouds. There are other problems too; on a large scale the panels will absorb more sunlight than before and will result in Earth getting warmer (this time for real.) In general, though, I believe solar energy will be successful - there are many lands that will benefit from the shadow (like deserts, for one.)
Nuclear plants in the USA were a bad word for decades. Fusion research gets plenty of money, but even if you shower the scientists with cash they won't think faster. Everything takes time; and if we look back, our science is expanding at amazing rate now.