So will it get warmer? Or will it get colder? Historically, the earth is much more likely to get cold than warm.
We are in-betweeners, and just barely — we live in (gasp!) year 10,000 or so after the end of the last ice age. But for our good fortune, we might have been born in the next Ice Age.
I lean towards “colder” because as shown above, it happens more often. But also because of warmer or colder – colder is worse for human life. I like to plan for the worst.
Since we don’t know, and probably can’t know, what the climate will do, how do we plan for change?
How about we do things that help no matter what happens? How about we look at who is most affected by change of either kind and make them less affected? How about we look at this practically rather than emotionally or driven by ulterior political agendas?
Because their lives are already at the edge, poor sustenance farmers seem most at risk from climate changes in both directions. What would help them? Not being sustenance farmers anymore. So what would do that? Massive aid hasn’t done it. They have cultural and political reasons they remain so poor. Will current “green” policies help any of these obstacles?
What about for us “rich” folk? My thoughts turn to energy. If it is cold, I want to turn up the heat. If warm, turn up the A/C. If we have less farm land, energy can make what we have more productive. So a reasonable policy to address any version of climate change is “MAKE MORE ENERGY”.
Practical, pragmatic, “what if” thinking leads directly opposite from what most people concerned about climate change want to do. Windmills won’t grow our energy supply dramatically. Nor will solar. Alternative energy techniques, while useful in some situations, do not cut the mustard to grow to meet our lifestyle maintenance (or improvement) should the climate turn unfavorable.
Climate change worriers would get my full cooperation if they recognized the uncertainties of the science and approached the dilemma posed by climate change more pragmatically.