Global warming and climate change, my views

There are millions of pages covering the Global Warming and Climate Change subject, I think it is important that everybody should contribute to solutions and discussions, this is my way.

Climate Change
Is happening, that's a fact. Evidence from many parts of the world confirms sea and ocean temperatures are rising, rain fall patterns are changing and more extreme weather is effecting many areas. Opponents to Climate Change will point out that the world has had many such changes in the past, this is just one such change, this is true.

What makes this change in the climate so important, is the speed of change and the extent we have already change so much of the environment. Never before in the history of the world, have so many lived and consumed so much of natures resources. You probably saw that I recommended a book called "The Weather Makers" This book so startled me with a wealth of facts, some of it was a little hard to comprehend, but the message was very clear. We are changing our climate by the use of fossil fuels. Coal is almost certain to be the worst fuel we could use.

Our World
Like many people, I read newspapers, magazines and a wide selection of books. Over the last 5-6 years there has been more and more coverage given to global warming, climate change, carbon foot print and many other buzz words. I have formed the basic opinion that the world is a self regulating organism. This is the basic idea proposed by James Lovelock in his Gaia Theory. Other organisations have more thoughts on the theory of Gaia

Climate Change is the idea of cause and effect. When the world was unpopulated by humans, self regulation took place over millions of years, if the planet is just material, why did changes take place that produced just the correct amount of oxygen CO2, water etc. for human life to develop? Was it just luck, a one in a million chance, or maybe it was God? What we now have is the effect that humans are having on a finely balanced eco system in a very short period of time. We are approaching a tipping point sometime in the future that we will be unable to control, the effects could be rapid as our world adopts its self defense mechanism to protect itself, like it has done in the past.

What can we do?

First must be to pressure our elected representatives to bring strong laws to protect the environment and reduce use of all types of fossil fuels. We then have to think about turning off unneccessary electrical products, take less car journeys etc. You know it make sense, we are like all the smokers, they know it is bad for their health, but they cannot stop. We are the same with fossil fuels.