Let's Make A Change!

- This portrait looks funny. But the topic it shows isn't.

Climate change, global warming and the greenhouse effect are all names used more or less interchangeably for the same thing, often incorrectly.

Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average.

I don't believe it is necessary to say much more than that the average climate change is causing several effects, some of them potentially severe. It does not really matter whether the change is caused by human activities, it is happening. The obvious ones have been mentioned in the press that we are all sick and tired of hearing them: ice cap meltings, atolls and low-lying land disappearing, increased desertification, biota changes, increasing violent weather phenomena etc.

The only statement that can result from this is:
if the changes are due partially to human activity, as seems most probable, then we should do everything in our power to reduce their effect as quickly as possible; if they are not due to this, then it will do no harm if we try to reduce their effect. In other words, we should do our best to restore the average climate to what it was over a century ago.

It's not too late. Let's make a change.