There has been a lot in the news recently about the heatwaves in southern Europe and the wild fires in Canada. These events are scary in their own right. 40+ degree temperatures aren't funny.
What isn't so prevalent in the news though are the trends surrounding ocean temperatures and ice formations at the poles. On Twitter there are some smaller accounts reporting on big changes in these conditions. The waters around the UK (and many other places around the world) are much higher this year. Record breaking in many cases. The ice in the arctic is at its lowest levels ever and lightening strikes (causing wild fires) are increasing.
Is this year a fluke and things will return to the slower (rising) trends of recent years, or are we seeing a sudden and catastrophic tipping point?
This may seem a bit glib, but I think that climate change is cyclical, in that it happens regularly over eons, and today's modern world has more interaction over the globe, and more ability to see changes.
But if you take that progression into the past 500 years, 1000 years, 2000 years, I think that the people in those times would have seen or reported on climate changes as much as we do given our ability to in the modern world. But because humanity was very secular and did not see the whole picture our understanding of previous changes, and how the entire globe and ecology was affected by cyclical alterations, we have no history to go on aside from what is evident in testing of ice cores or previous scientific records.
I do not disagree that climate change is happening, and that modern humanity has not escalated these changes, but I feel that it is all a global process that has happened time and time again, as a way of ensuring that the ecology has a 'refresh' for want of a better phrase, over eons. Evidence suggests that high soaring temperatures often precluded an ice age from my very basic understanding of the science, so are we just seeing first hand what happened millenia ago?
But I'm no scientist, and don't pretend to be, but I am not overly worried and await the purge if you like, the world will turn again. And as humans we have to understand that our selfishness about the planet and our place in it should come from a place of accepting possible near extinction as part of a process that occurs, in the grand scheme of universal millenia, quite regularly... Perhaps that's a little depressive, but humans are not the be all and end all of existance. We're a mere blip, when you look at the reign of the dinosaurs.
That being said, I don't think we can look away from the effect humanity has had in such a short existance on the planet, and as we made rapid changes, we need to affect a rapid response. But of course what is 'rapid'? 50-100 years to a human is a nanosecond to our planet.
As long as the right steps are taken now for the future, we can rest easy. Not in our lifetime, or even our children's or even their children's children. But I certainly hope that the small changes that are being made now will continue and selfishness will recede. If not, perhaps global extinction, and then a fresh start.. After all, life.. uhhh... finds a way.