Humans do have the capacity to cooperate. Many countries (with severe ideological differences) came together to defeat the fascist empires. Many countries cooperated to eradicate smallpox. But certainly it is challenging to give something up to work for a common good. Think if your neighborhood is flooding, and the only way to stop it is to help your neighbor stack sand bags. And, it is the neighbor whose dog always poops on your lawn. And, his dandelions are encroaching onto your perfectly manicured lawn. And, he got drunk and insulted your wife at the last block party. However, sometimes competition can be more productive than cooperation. We went to the moon because we wanted to do it before the Russians. We could solve a lot of environmental and global problems if the US got into a competitive race for energy innovation with China or other developed countries.
There have been numerous climate cycles in Earth's geologic history. I am not a climate scientist, but the consensus evaluation of a multitude of data is that global temperatures are rising at a rate faster than ever observed, CO2 rising is the principle cause, and human production of CO2 is the principle driver of the increase. I can't speak to which areas we need more data because it is not my expertise. However, I am always an advocate of data-driven decisions and utilizing the analysis of experts whenever possible (without treating the word of experts as dogma, which is not science).
