I'm very fond of the Earth. It's my favorite planet. I might visit elsewhere if I had the chance, but I'd come back. This is home.

Alas, as fine as Earth is, it hasn't always been the same. It has, for example, warmed and cooled over the ages.

I like green. You know what else likes green? Earth! All the plants. All the animals. All of life on Earth. Green is great! Green is grand! Who doesn't like green? We like green instinctively, because green is synonymous with life itself.

I love global warming!—because I love the Earth. What meth-head came up with the idea that a bit of warming—say, some fraction of 1% C.—is scary? Warm can be uncomfortable, but cold kills. And enough cold would kill everything.

There's very little (which is to say, nothing) we can do about the temperature of the Earth. We could park all our cars permanently, shut down all factories, outlaw mining and fracking, and run our TVs and computers using solar-powered windmills, and none of it would make a bit of difference.

That's a shame, really. We could always use another degree or two of warming.

During the warm periods in Earth history, plants and animals have thrived, because that's when the Earth was at its greenest. New species of everything emerged. Humans wandered all over the place. Greenland was sort of green, and they grew grapes in England and mashed them into wine.

During the cold periods, species went extinct—great hordes of them. Snow and ice covered most of the Earth. It was hard to grow anything to eat. Plants died, animals starved, and humans had it tough.

The Dark Ages (a relatively mild cooling period, as it turns out) weren't just dark because of the bubonic plague and the Roman Catholic Church having its tentacles in every orifice of medieval life. The period was known as Dark because it was cold—which is to say, Dark as in 'an unpleasant time to be alive.' Because it was cold, food was pretty scarce.

In the 1970's the big scare was the "The Coming of a New Ice Age." It was all our fault! DRASTIC STEPS were needed, and fast! Use less oil! Tax the hell out of everything that runs on anything other than sunshine and wind! Send great, glittering gobs of money to third-world sinkholes (for some reason)! Bring all technology to an immediate halt!

It took a decade or two to realize that those predictions were very, very wrong. Today we're much wiser.

That's why today's big scare is "global warming." It is all our fault! DRASTIC STEPS are needed, and fast! Stop using oil! Tax the hell out of everything that runs on anything other than sunshine or wind! Send great, glittering gobs of money to third-world sinkholes (for some reason)! Bring all technology to an immediate halt!

When it comes to solutions to potential global catastrophe, a pattern emerges.