And now it's time for something completely different

I am in the mood for a debate of sorts. Todays subect:

Climate change.

Global Warming.

Or whatever it is called this week.

Is it a thing that actually exists?

Is the world changing because we humans are killing it?

Or would this all be happening as part of the universal cycle?

My views on this are straight forward.

I believe that while we are not helping with the altering world, extreme weather, pattern changes and all sorts of other phenomena would happen wether we were here or not.

I like to think I am rather scientifically minded and see that each part of what goes in the world is a big cycle.

Let's begin with earthquakes.

A headline reads "Asia's biggest quake since 1924"

This does not mean that this is the biggest earthquake ever, it doesn't mean there's not been others but it's the biggest one in a while. One thing we get alot of in England is statistics on rainfall "The Wettest summer since 1932" etc. "The dryest January since records began!" English weather records started in the mid 50's so we've had the dryest January in over 50 years.

These do not sound such shocking headlines when put in realist non-panic-mongering terms do they?

Another thing I always think about when turning a blind eye to the apocolyptic weather tales, is that we know more than ever about more than ever.

Jump back 150 years.

Would we have known about flooding in Pakistan? What was happening in South Korea? What was happening in the next village?

News was slow and often word of mouth. Newspapers were printed slower and news could be 2-3 days behind by the time it reached press, another 2 by the time it was in the hands of the vendors.

The world has got smaller since science and technology have come into this world on it's grand scale that it is. Communications have got stronger and nowhere in the world is beyond reach with air travel. If something big in the world happens, news correspondents are often there within hours to report live. Nothing is out of reach with the world media. We hear about everything. We know as much about the other side of the world as we do about our own towns.

Some things of course can only be blamed on man.

The oil spill.
Wars.
The shortage of fossil fuels.

But humans never seem to be happy unless they are fretting about something.

Emissions from fuels do have an effect on the environment. The smog of the polluted cities, the state of the rivers and seas.

Now what about the ozone layer?  More to the point that hole in the ozone layer we heard so much about in the 90's that doesn't even get a mention these days? When did you last hear about the ozone layer? So what really causes that? Work of man or a cycle from the sun?

The sun goes through cycles. The sun burns hotter than it did 2000 years ago, during the ice age the sun was on a cooling period. The sun goes through ages and phrases as does the earth. The sun is expected to burn itself out with it's intense burning and eruptions in around 2 million years.

So is it us? Is it the earth? Or even the sun that is to blame for the worlds climate right now?

I've left some seeds for you to think about, so join in and share your thoughts.