Climate Change is Really Happening - and Really a Problem

What makes me think climate change is a real problem?  Besides those people with the funny degrees in climatology, that is. 

Well, climate change keeps getting mentioned in all kinds of places by all kinds of people as a serious problem.

From The Economist a surprising admission:

It is healthy ....to recognise that even in an age of high technology, our propserity and well-being depend upon our natural environment, which furnishes us with air, water, food and teh natural resources on which indutry relies.

In other word, the economy is a subset of the environment - not the other way around.

Then there was the entire issue they dedicated to climate change back in the spring of 2010.  The article concluded:

The doubters are right that uncertainties are rife in climate science.  They are wrong when they presen that as a reason for inaction.

The US Navy seems to be worrying its head about climate change as well.

"Even the most moderate predicted trends in climate change will present new national security challenges for the US navy, marine corps, and coastguard," said Frank Bowman, a retired US navy admiral and co-chair of the committee that produced the report....The report, four years in the making, reflects growing concern in US military and strategic circles about the security implications of climate change.  In addition to the looming security challenges in the Arctic, the report warned that $100bn in navy installations were at risk from rising sea levels.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/10/arctic-struggle-climate-change

Insurance companies are fretting about climate change too.

In 1990, when the first report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change came out, Swiss Re decided that sea-level rise, desertification, and other risks of climate change are real. If the company failed to take them into account, it risked losing money. Now, Swiss Re is in the vanguard of companies and organizations that are raising the alarm about climate change. Last year, it released a detailed scientific rebuttal of the arguments climate skeptics make against anthropogenic warming.

http://blogs.physicstoday.org/thedayside/2011/01/climate-change-insurance-companies-and-criminals.html

So why isn't the Canadian federal government instituting carbon rationing? The public doesn't want them to, that's why.   That's right - you and me - we're the problem.  We think climate change doesn't affect us  - and maybe we don't worry a lot aobut our kids or grandkids.

Well - we're wrong about not being hurt by climate change.

Extreme rainstorms and snowfalls have grown substantially stronger, two studies suggest, with scientists for the first time finding the telltale fingerprints of man-made global warming on downpours that often cause deadly flooding. Two studies in Wednesday's issue of the journal Nature link heavy rains to increases in greenhouse gases more than ever before.Both studies should weaken the argument that climate change is a “victimless crime,” said Myles Allen of the University of Oxford. He co-authored the second study, which connected flooding and climate change in Britain. “Extreme weather is what actually hurts people.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/science/extreme-weather-getting-worse---and-climate-change-to-blame-studies-say/article1910066/

Maybe you and me should write to the Prime Minister and instruct him to take some significant steps to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.