ABSTRACT
Climate change is the term used by scientists to describe the above-normal variations in present global weather patterns and temperature ranges caused by human activity. These variations and their effects are manifest in a measured increase in carbon emissions, the rate of ice cap melting, growing quantities of toxic waste, desertification, loss of biodiversity and alarming deficits in life support resource systems such as fresh water supplies. But the problems discerned by scientists are not theirs to solve alone: climate change is too important, too multi-causal for its effects to be dealt with by any one body of people or interests. Neither can the issues it raises be properly attended to by ignoring the role science has played in creating them; nor by simply tinkering with existing industrial technologies, economic systems or political strategies. Paraphrasing Einstein, we shall not solve climate change problems using the same sort of thinking that caused them in the first place.
