Absolutely.
There is clearly some climate change happening right now. I think the question is how much of it is being caused by man?
I'm sure we're contributing, but following the disastrous 'hockey stick' report a few years back, which virtually predicted Countries being under water by now, I remain open minded.
However, the plastic problem is clear for all to see and we must tackle that and clean up the oceans.
It’s a gamble Col. We know that the Earth can generate massive climate change on its own, without our help. Something serious is happening now just by looking at the ice at the Poles.
Whether or not it’s caused by human activity I can’t see what we have to lose by switching from finite, dirty forms of energy production to infinite, renewable, clean forms (which we will have to do one day when the coal and oil runs out). Similarly switching from polluting, unrecycable materials which are expensive and dirty to make to recyclable ones seems to be a no brainer to me. These things will just give us nicer, sustainable environments to live in, regardless of impact on climate change. The argument against is only about cost and inconvenience, maintaining powerful vested interests, and not caring about the kind of place future generations have to live in.
If current climate change is man made (and I’m inclined to believe it is), I suspect it’s too late to do much about it. Effective action would require fast, effective, expensive global action which has never happened in the past and which I see no sign of happening in the future. The most likely way we can make a positive impact is through a massive worldwide economic recession which cuts energy use and production of crap.
Still, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter. The Earth will recover, change, whatever, regardless of what we do to it or what it does to itself. It’s just a temporary thing that we have a global climate that suits humans anyway, we know that we are in a little gap between ice ages already, and the world has been a lot warmer than it is now in the past, entirely naturally. Humans will be gone at some stage, just like every other species except cockroaches.
So for me it boils down to whether we want a cleaner, more sustainable planet to live on for ourselves and immediate future generations, which might also deliver some positives for climate change, or whether we can’t be arsed. Easy call for me.