I suppose by now one must accept that global warming is a reality. What I can't tell is whether it really is all our fault, and just how bad the effects are going to be.
 
What I do know is that in the mists of pre-history something seems to have precipitated a rise in sea levels, and that this found its way into the bible as The Flood. And it was, of course, all OUR FAULT - God sent this curse as a punishment for mankind's wicked ways.
 
Later on the plagues that visited Egypt can, in the light of modern science, be interpreted as natural phenomena but according to the bible they were, again, OUR FAULT - they were sent by God, this time to punish the Egyptians' intransigence towards the Israelites.
 
In our modern world one of the less appealing trends has been the birth of the litigious society, where once again, everything has to be someone's FAULT. Nobody carelessly slips over any more, nobody trips up, nobody stupidly takes a drink from a hot cup and burns their mouth, nobody wanders onto the rocks at Lands End and foolishly gets swept away by a giant wave - it's all SOMEONE'S FAULT.
 
So it's not too surprising, is it, that when we observe a change in the world's climate - and science shows us that these have always taken place, sometimes slowly and sometimes with devastating swiftness - our automatic reaction is to assume that it's OUR FAULT.
 
Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. I wonder if a thousand years hence historians will look back at the beginning of the twenty-first century and see a world gripped by medieval quasi-religious guilt?
 

 
A couple of more-or-less relevant links:
• EnviroSpin Watch. Common sense about environmental issues? Now there's a first.
• Don't like the weather? Don't blame it on global warming!