I have been following the Climate Change phenomenon for a long time now and the recent argument over whether the reality of Climate Change is man-made or a natural cycle has become much of the focus of the media. To me this is something of an obfuscation of the reality at hand. The opponents of man-made Climate Change go to great lengths to prove that humans are not in any way responsible for the events that we are observing. The man-made Climate Change proponents on the other hand are arguing just as vociferously in support of their model.

I think that in the end it doesn't seem like it really matters. The whole point of concern over Climate Change has always been the effects that will be seen on our planet and on our species. These effects are very real and will happen in one form or another whether or not human beings have any hand in the creation of the problem. Some of these effects will be: more severe weather, floods, droughts, disease, loss of land, displacement of people, extinction of species, crop failure, etc. A fairly complete list can be found here. I would find it much more comforting to know that Climate Change WAS human-induced because that would imply that we could proactively work to change what we had inadvertently created. But if it is a grand natural cycle, that implies that there is nothing we can do to change it and instead we will just have to adapt and "ride it out."

Out of all of these anticipated problems, how many of them depend on human beings being the culprits behind the creation of warmer weather? None. These same things will happen no matter what the cause of Climate Change, and it is these things which we must all eventually come to terms with. That is the big issue that those opponents of man-made Climate Change fail to address. They are so busy trying to use their "It's not our fault" argument to escape responsibility for what is going on that they fail to realize that the results are here no matter what the cause!

When you consider that, it is much more sobering. I think that too many people are somehow deluded into the belief that proving that Climate Change is not human-induced will prove that it doesn't exist. This is not at all the case. Even the skeptics now admit that Climate Change is real. There is just too much science there to deny it any longer. That being the case, it is high time that we all realize that our job now is to learn to deal with the consequences of this and stop wasting our energy trying to lay blame, especially when who is to blame won't matter a bit in the end.