Climate Change?

It’s in the news. Everyone is talking about it. Climate change is happening. The Earth is getting hotter. Is that a problem? I don’t think so.

With glaciers melting at record rates, sea levels are rising, which means there’s more water around to swim and frolic in. Rising sea levels also mean low-lying land areas will be submerged, so people will have more room to dock their boats and go water- and jet-skiing. Homes become waterfront property, and their value vastly increases. And, with the seas getting hotter, there will be an opportunity for ocean bathing throughout the year and enjoying the therapeutic benefits of warm water to ease sore and stiff muscles.

More frequent wildfires are another climate change plus, as such conflagrations can provide exciting breaks in the monotonous routines of everyday living and lead people whose houses have gone up in smoke to appreciate their good fortune in that material things are replaceable but human life is not. If they’re insured or have sufficient money, victims of wildfires may get the chance to construct newer and better houses than the ones they lost. If they build in the same place as their destroyed homes, they probably can live in them for a few good years before the next round of fires.

With increased water vapor evaporating into the atmosphere, there is more fuel to produce powerful storms. Such storms are a godsend, given that climate change ups the odds of drought in many areas. The trick is to match the storms to the droughts, which shouldn’t be hard to do if you get the science right. Once that’s done, droughts can be eliminated worldwide by shunting hurricanes to dry areas. Does climate change get any better than that? 

Climate change is projected to commit over one-third of the Earth’s animal and plant species to extinction by 2050 if current greenhouse gas emissions trajectories continue. This would be a significant loss that would irreversibly reduce biodiversity across the globe, which is nothing short of fantastic, as there are way too many animal and plant species on the planet, and who knows what all of them are up to? Can we be sure the Covid pandemic was not caused by an exotic plant genus that had it in for human beings because it felt humans were menacing its existence by heating its habitat? Is a weird class of lichen on the ocean floor conspiring to kill off fish they don’t like and endangering our food supply? We don’t know half of what’s going on in the world, and the more we can eliminate possible threats to our lives before they become more than threats, the better.

Climate change will result in America’s landlocked states having ocean beaches, Anchorage becoming a warm place to travel in December, and no more snowbirds with climate change, which translates to lots of money saved on building second homes and gasoline used to get away in the winter. Perhaps most importantly, as people come to understand the benefits of climate change, the temperature will go down in climate change debates, as climate-change alarmists realize they’ve been barking up the wrong tree—a tree that wouldn’t be able to grow in places like Siberia and the Yukon were those land masses not exposed to global warming.

Rather than deny or fear climate change, we should embrace the new weather norm that is fast upon us. We should revel in the rising global temperatures and the many positive developments that will ensue. Climate change: it’s hot and cool in more ways than you can shake a melting icecap at.