Also, how do you know we are "out of balance"? That is the kind of blah blah blah that makes my side of the argument crazy. What is balance? According to who?
Hi Yankee Girl.
It is tempting just to ignore all the screaming panicking apocalyptic ranting which goes on, because that
is a load of old blah blah blah as you call it. However, it is worth looking calmly to find what seems to be a kernel of truth underneath all that stuff. There are some dedicated scientists, whose work is hyped out of all proportion by the media, but who are doing steady research into the changes occurring.
Firstly though, there is a difference between weather and climate as I'm sure you know, where weather changes every year and has cycles in the order of hundreds of years, whereas climate changes over thousands of years, millennia and eras.
When I spoke of 'balance' it was not any kind of blahblahblah - let me explain. Over geological time, the climate of the earth has changed drastically, as you have said. For most of this time the conditions on Earth have not been suitable for mammals to live - in fact for most of its history Earth has not had 'life' of any kind.
In the current era, climate and life have evolved to a point where mammals - and human beings - can live and breathe, eat and reproduce. To do that, we need certain conditions such as a particular percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere with a low incidence of gases we cannot breathe, a range of temperatures we can cope with, sufficient rainfall to grow our crops - and these conditions must also suit the plants we eat - mainly grass-based cereals - and the animals we eat.
The Earth currently has achieved a balance of these things, and others, which enable us to live here.
If this balance is changed then yes, initially we, or some of us, could adapt and evolve to cope (as those living in the high areas of say Tibet have done, having a higher concentration of red blood cells to enable them to breathe air with less oxygen in it). However, if the climate changes to such a degree, or so quickly, that we cannot evolve or adapt or we reach the limits of our adaptability or evolutionary potential, then we cannot live here so humanity will die out - we don't have anywhere else to go. The Earth will continue as she always has, but our interest is presumably only in our own survival as a species.
So when I use the word balance, I mean a set of conditions which suit
humans - this is not according to what 'someone' says, but simply what is the case (no food - you die. No oxygen - you die. Under water - you die. No babies - the species dies). By artificially altering some of the aspects of this balance, we risk upsetting the whole thing. The only way to 'prove' this will be when we are wiped out, so we - you and I - are not going to know about it, but it seems sensible to me to take the situation seriously and slow down world consumption of those raw materials whose use is leading to a change in our environment.
There are all sorts of changes which may occur, including a rise in sea levels - this is only really important to those who live in the majority of the cities of the world, which would become below sea level. Their loss will not affect the Earth, but will be pretty inconvenient for those living there. A lot of prime agricultural land will also be lost, which will affect our ability to feed our huge numbers, something which we don't seem able to do even now.
So I think the idea of climate change is something we should take seriously, find out the facts as far as we can, ignore the ranters and see what we can ALL do to help.
