Diagnosis Hypecolodria

It certainly behooves humanity to follow the trends and assess the contributors to changes in the global environment, but increasingly, there seems to be an environmentalist version of hypochondria at play:

In one of the report's most worrisome findings, the agency estimates that in light of recent ice sheet melting, global sea level rise could be as much as four feet by 2100. The IPCC had projected a sea level rise of no more than 1.5 feet by that time, but satellite data over the past two years show the world's major ice sheets are melting much more rapidly than previously thought. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are now losing an average of 48 cubic miles of ice a year, equivalent to twice the amount of ice that exists in the Alps. ...

Scientists also looked at the prospect of prolonged drought over the next 100 years. They said it is impossible to determine yet whether human activity is responsible for the drought the Southwestern United States has experienced over the past decade, but every indication suggests the region will become consistently drier in the next several decades. Richard Seager, a senior research scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said that nearly all of the 24 computer models the group surveyed project the same climatic conditions for the North American Southwest, which includes Mexico.

Throughout history, mankind has watched weather patterns change in regions around the world, but they used to talk about "dry spells" or "warm spells" (or their opposites). Now everything is plugged into incomplete models (the more honest of whose keepers acknowledge that prognosticating to a date as far out as 2100 represents mere speculation), and we're all instructed to panic and make dramatic changes to our ways of life.

Our planet is organic, and it is in the nature of organisms to change. As with our own bodies, we do well to be aware of signs and symptoms, but too much fear of illnesses can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.