The Jellyfish Have Spoken

I have become a climate change convert.  The seas are boiling and the moon shall be as blood.  No, sorry, that's from something else but you get the general idea.  The planet is baking and its all because we selfishly insist on living comfortable lives rather than shivering wretchedly in a cave huddled together for warmth.

So what has given me this road to Damascus like epiphany?  Apparently a rather small jellyfish which is one of the seventy billion odd things in and around Australia that can kill you has been heading south.  They're a warm water swimming mortality facilitator so the extension of their range south over the preceding years can be taken as an indication that either the water is warming or they can afford to travel further on their holidays.  I know this to be true because some guy I know mentioned it was happening as part of a more general discussion concerning stuff in the water that can kill you.  My personal level of knowledge about the whole situation can be measured by the fact that I can't even remember the name of the jellyfish in question. 

Up until now my basic viewpoint has been;

a) Is climate change happening?  Probably; the climate has been changing for the last five billion years and I see no reason for it to stop doing that now.
and
b) Are humans causing it?  Maybe; I can't help thinking that you can't continuously pump crap into the atmosphere without having some sort of effect.  Possibly that effect is climate change, or smog.

I have had my suspicions about a lot of the people involved in climate change activism however.  The scientists are probably doing their best with what they've got but I suspect a lot of others are simply using this as the latest opportunity to punish the human race for being wealthy and successful.  I can't help noticing that virtually every solution so far has involved spending a lot of money and making compromises on our comfort.  Oh and giving a lot of power to the people who are saying we should spend a lot of money and make compromises on our comfort.

I do wonder what the climate change lobby's response would be if a combination of Exxon, BP and the nuclear power industry came up with a method of reducing climate change by maximising industrial output.  I can't help suspecting they would be horrified rather than delighted that the planet's corporates had stepped up and solved the problem. 

One thing I do know is that the planet's climate is always changing.  The climate may be a closed system (more or less) but it shows a remarkable amount of flexibility.  In the time this planet has been around we've veered from teetering on the edge of a runaway greenhouse effect which would have transformed us into a copy of Venus (we're still not entirely sure how we avoided that one) to temperatures so cold that they conveniently wiped out most of the animals that could have competed with (or eaten) the small furry things that were our distant ancestors.  What's more its flipped back and forth between these two extremes on several occasions.  There is no "normal" or "optimum" climate/temperature range for this planet.  There is just whatever the climate happens to be doing right now.

Of course when I say there is no optimum climate or temperature for the planet I am referring to the planet as a whole.  There is most definitely an optimum climate for the human race and the band that sits within is frighteningly narrow.  Outside of this band optimum rapidly becomes non viable.  So now, when I'm asked if I think humans are causing, or at least influencing, climate change my answer will be, "I hope so."  Because if we are then there is the possibility that we might be able to do something about it. 

If the planet's climate is just changing as the planet's climate is wont to do then the likelihood is that we're all going to die.