First and foremost, the earth's climate has been warming and cooling naturally for hundreds of millions of years, and has been both much cooler and much warmer that it is now. (Greenland got its name in the tenth century because it had a far milder climate than it does today!) The causes of this natural variation in climate temperature are several, but obviously human activity such as buring fossil fuels and thereby increasing the carbon dioxide (CO2) content of the atmosphere is not one of them since they have been occurring long before humans were around! Bottom line, therefore, is that there is nothing we humans can do to stop the climate from changing. The earth's climate has been very slowly warming since the last ice age some 20,000 years ago, with successive multi-decade long ups and downs in average temperatures. It actually has been cooling slightly since 1999, and appears to be in a slight downward trend, the duration of which is, of course, uncertain.
Unless the current slow upward trend in average global temperatures should continue for the next several centuries, there is little to no cause for any concern. Study of historic variations in climate suggest that a continued rise in average global temperature for such a prolonged period is unlikely. Predictions of massive melting of the polar ice caps by the end of this century, resulting in dangerous rise in sea levels, are unfounded and irresponsibly alarmist.
There is no reason to believe that our current global climate is the optimium one for humans. Actually, there would be a number of benefits that would come with a warmer climate, such as increased crop yields and lower death rates (presently colder weather causes more deaths than warmer weather world-wide).
What are your thoughts on the matter.
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