I understand completely what you are saying. just listen to a scientist expound on String Theory and you quickly relaise that nothing they are saying can be proven, it is all based on faith in the theory, a new kind of theology.
So. everything in the universe is made up of invisible strings that vibrate, and there are different dimensions, like slices in a loaf of bread and we are on one of these slices called a brane, and matter can move from one brane to another, thus explaining why gravity is so weak, (try telling that to someone who's falling from a great height) and there may be a day when two branes touch and create another big bang similar to the one that created the universe, (thus explaining how in the beggining there was nothing, and then nothing exploded).
Hmm.
Well lets think logically about this. No one was there when the big bang happened. so anything anyone has to say about that is, and always will be, theory. Until String Theory can be incontrovertably proven it is only a theory, and as such, will have no benenfit to humankind unless some way of utilising it can be devised. Learn the theory, look at any developments with interest, but don't waste time worrying about something that may, or may not hold water. You can know what is written in the Bible, you don't have to believe it.
As for Climate Change, there is too much evidence to dismiss it as an unproven theory. True, we have had warming periods before, but what is happening is unprecedented. The warming has risen in line with the vast increase in CO2 emissions and it has become clear to the majority of scientists that the theory is correct. Deniers have pionted out that sunspot activity can affect temperatures and they have done in the past, but for the last 20 years sunspot activity has decreased, while temperatures have gone up (NASA data, look it up on their website).
There was a programme called the Great Global Warming Swindle, but it was proven that the programme makers had doctored graphs, used out of date data, and misrepresented the scientists consulted by editing their interveiws in such a way as to make it appear that they said the opposite of what they meant. The senior oceanographer at MIT, who took part in the programme, is considering suing them. Martin Durkin, who approached Channel 4 to air the programme was paid a substantial amount of money by vested commericial interests to make the film. You have to remember Global Warming is bad for business.
However, at the moment, that is the least of our worries. Another theory, formulated decades ago, is now slowly coming into the public consiencness and we are finding ourselves powerless to do anything about it. In the 1950's M King Hubbert predicted that the USA would reach its peak of oil production in 1970, and that the world's oil production would peak around the year 2000. Well he was right. USA oil production DID peak in 1970, and production of light, sweet crude peaked in 2005. Now we are being forced to utilise more of the heavy, sulphorous crude, which needs more processing before it can be used, thus driving up the oil price.
New discoveries of oil are being made, but they are in such difficult places that it is very expensive to extract them, so the price of the oil will be higher as a result. The University of Reading Peak Oil study group has, after careful analysis, conculded that we will reach the peak of all oil, worldwide, by 2011-2012. Most world governments have recognised there is a problem, there is even a Peak Oil group in the British Parliment.
So why is nothing being done? Why are we not conserving what is left? Well we can't. We have developed an economic model that depends on exponential growth. Capital is no longer the accumulated proceeds of labour, it is speculative, money being lent on the promise of profits not yet earned. The whole system is dependant on cheap, abundant oil. Without it, any slowdown in the economy would lead to recession. One only has to look at the Stock Market crisis unfolding around the world to see what happens when the economic railway train hits a snag. No government wants to be bamed for destroying the economy of their country by imposing restrictions on the use of energy.
It is now clear that although they may fluctuate, oil prices will never come down, they will only increase. This has reprucussions on a human level, as when oil prices increase, so does the cost of food production, as it is dependant on oil based fertilisers and pesticides, and transport and distribution systems. Your average plate of food in the western world has travelled 1,500 miles before you eat it.
But getting it to your plate is only half the story. The use of feritilisers has vastly increased crop yields, and thus a world popluation increase from a steady, but stable 2 billion, to 6 billion today. Without oil, these levels of population are unsustainable.
What about alternatives? There are none. There is nothing else as energy rich as oil, and every alternative that you can think of is actually a derivitive of oil. You need oil to make Hydrogen fuel cells (which, by the way are energy carriers, not a primary source of energy), you need oil to make solar panels and wind turbines, you need oil to mine uranium, (which is also running out), and even if Thorium can be used you still have to build Nuclear power stations and transport the fuels to it and store the waste.
Bio fuels? Well apart from needing oil based fertilisers, even if the entire grain crop of the USA was converted to making bio ethanol, it would only satisfy 16% of the demand for fuel. The same could be achieved by forcing motor manufacturers to make their cars more fuel efficient by say, 20mpg. With General Motors having such a huge influence in the USA government, that's unlikely. The same amount of corn that can make one tankful of biofuel could feed someone for a year.
Now we have the situation of food vs fuel. Already corn prices have doubled. That will effect the price of everything in your fridge, as corn is used as animal feed and so the production of milk, cheese, eggs, ice cream. yohurt, chicken, and beef is dependant on it.
So the cold hard facts are these. Fossil fuels are finite, the governments of the world are unwilling or unable to do anything about the looming energy and economic crises, and we don't have the social networks and community skills to help each other out of the mess, as we have been trained to believe that every man should be out for himself. The opinion of some (very clever) but detached mathmatician telling me about other dimensions will have no bearing on my future. My neighbour bartering carrots for my cabbages, will.