The environment has been changing. Not just in the past 20, or 50 years. 10 000 years ago, Planet Earth was in a deep ice age. 100 000 years ago it was warm. Grass didn’t exist 65 million years ago. Dinosaurs did. 4 billion years ago Earth didn’t even exist – it has just a cloud of particles swirling around a small protostar.
So what is so scary about climate change now? We feel guilty that it was us? Vast colonies of organisms have been changing the environment since the beginning of life. Why is it such a big deal that it *may* be us.
So we’ll probably lose a few tropical islands. And a few polar bears. In both cases there will be few extinctions. Malaria will spread a little further.
What about the positives? Opening the northwest passage would be a boon for international trade. Agriculture would surely boom with new arable areas and greater yields. That can pay for mosquito nets, while increasing the supply of food in Africa.
The fact is that the climate is not a static, unchanging portrait. It is a dynamic, everchanging, complex chemical reaction that we, and indeed everyone is a part of.
Stop being indignant about it – think of the positives and embrace the new world that change can bring.
