Consider an electric motor. When you connect more load to it, it draws more power. It always had that power available to draw, but it tapped into it only when needed. So the motor knows when its needs have increased and takes action to meet the increased need.
Consider your computer and its power supply. The powers supply (SMPS) of my computer is rated 450 Watts. But that doesn't mean it forces 450 Watts into my computer all the time. My computer draws power from it, only as much as needed, and up to that rated limit of the power supply. When much hard disk input/output is happening, the drive draws more power. When much calculations are happening, processor draws more power. The computer and its sub parts know their needs and draw power to meet it.
The picture at high level is the system draws in more power as its need increases. The exact mechanism may be slightly different for the motor and the computer, because they are different in their exact functioning too.
But still, both are based on electromagnetic properties of materials. So when I make a broader generalization towards end of this post you might argue that I am making generalization out of a very specific situation of power consumption by devices running on electricity.
Lets see a more complex system - You! When you take up exercising, your appetite increases. Your body knows it is using more, and so asks you to send in more. The mechanism here is all sorts of complex biological process.
Or let us look at even higher level example. When you know you are spending more, or are going to spend more in cash, you draw more cash from ATM/Bank.
And to go even further, suppose you feel your bank balance and current income isn't going to sustain your spending rate for too long, you try to increase your income!
In short, every system that needs something, or uses something, has some mechanism to obtain it. And when system needs more, there are in-built abilities in that mechanism to try to obtain more.
Now we come to the Earth. It gets energy from the Sun. We all agree on this. For millions of years, it was coolly collecting energy from the Sun and running its business normally. The CO2 in the atmosphere, was the indicator of energy consumption on Earth, mainly biological consumption. But then since the industrial revolution, we have started using energy at much higher rate. So CO2 has increased. So the Earth knows it needs more energy, so that the current levels of energy usage are sustainable. And this CO2 itself is its inbuilt mechanism for trapping more energy for use!
Now, I have heard some accounts of scientists saying that global warming may actually increase the vegetation on Earth. That further indicates to me that this is a predesigned mechanism of the Gaia or Earth's intelligence. Because outside of the current massive human intervention, higher CO2 would have just meant there are more animals breathing out CO2. Which would mean the upper layers of food pyramid have grown, and so to make it all still sustainable, the base layer of food pyramid - vegetation, needs to be increased.
So Global Warming is the correct 'solution' Earth/Gaia had figured out before us, to deal with increased CO2, or rather to compensate for what she thought the increased CO2 meant.
However by producing CO2 through industry rather than increased biological respiration, we are messing with Gaia's mind. So increased vegetation through global warming is not going to solve the problem or compensate for it. Or maybe I am wrong. Gaia does actually know that this increased CO2 is due to increased non-biological energy needs of the latest kids on the block - humans. But since she hasn't much idea about the sudden new systems made by these humans, she doesn't know the exact systems that will compensate for it. But at high level, she is still providing a solution "Ok guys, so you need more energy? Ok abracadabra here is more!" And poof! Global Warming!
But since it is us who figured out new ways to consume more energy, we ourselves need to figure out more ways to harness this extra energy trapped by global warming. My power supply can give power to the computer. But computer must know or figure out how to use it!
In fact right now a hazy picture is forming in my mind. Maybe, we will figure out how to use the extra energy of global warming. And then we will invest a sophisticated control system for adjusting rates at which solar energy is trapped. Sustain the industry by the global warming energy most of the time, and when we progress and need more energy, burn some more fossil fuels! Of course I am assuming that the technique to harness 'global warming energy' will keep Earth temperature to normal livable levels by using the energy up. And since fossil fuels would need to be burnt only to get more global warming energy, we wont exhaust them!
