Self Correcting Climate Change

I personally have no doubt about global warming. I read about it in my science class when I was a kid in middle school. I understood green house gases and how they worked and how it could cause mountain ice and polar ice to melt. I got that when I was 12 years old. It's been 21 years since and even now I see people who go around saying "Oh it's just a hypothesis. There's no definitive answer to that question." If you push them harder, they might give in a bit, but then they'll come back with their strongest defense: Earth is too big and it's not possible for humans to damage a planet. And even if they did the planet will correct itself.

I actually totally agree with that last part, Earth will indeed correct itself. And that is the whole problem!! The foundation of the entire global warming and climate change awareness is the idea that we should correct ourselves before the planet starts the correction process. We should NOT let Earth correct itself. Because no matter how we much we call our planet "mother" Earth, after all it is a vicious mother and has no mercy.

With rising temperatures, ice caps will melt, sea levels will rise, many cities will go under water, millions of lives will be lost, there will be more and more irregular patterns in storms, floods, droughts. And this will continue for a while taking a toll on nations and economies. The end result will of course be a lull in human civilization. Humans will be busy trying to fight natural disasters instead of making progress. If your house is burning down (or flooding) you can't sit down to invent new microprocessors. All of this will eventually effect in reduced human activity. Either the planet will find equilibrium in a redistribution of land and water: more water, less land. Or temperatures will start dropping as human activity dwindles, and the planet will enter another ice age. Either way Earth will have corrected itself. Mercilessly.