Yes climate always changes - when it changes fast, that's not good

Good article from The Guardian:

Humans causing climate to change 170 times faster than natural forces

The article discusses this paper:   The Anthropocene Equation, authored by Owen Gaffney and Will Steffen.

Here are a couple of snippets from the article:

"The authors of the paper wrote that for the past 4.5bn years astronomical and geophysical factors have been the dominating influences on the Earth system. The Earth system is defined by the researchers as the biosphere, including interactions and feedbacks with the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and upper lithosphere.

But over the past six decades human forces “have driven exceptionally rapid rates of change in the Earth system,” the authors wrote, giving rise to a period known as the Anthropocene."

This is something that I frequently tell the denierati in our discussions, now primarily taking place on Twitter.   Which is, yes, Earth's climate is always changing, but except under very unusual natural conditions (like the end of the Younger Dryas), those changes are slow and gradual, and caused by factors that can be identified.  Now, the dominant change factor that can be identified is humanity, and we are causing climate to change much faster than any natural factors.

Which is pretty much what this paper says, too.   Here's another snippet.

"According to Steffen these [astronomical and geophysical] forces have driven a rate of change of 0.01 degrees Celsius per century.  

Greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans over the past 45 years, on the other hand, “have increased the rate of temperature rise to 1.7 degrees Celsius per century, dwarfing the natural background rate,” he said.  

This represented a change to the climate that was 170 times faster than natural forces."

So, as might be expected for the vastly dominant lifeform on the planet, we humans are changing the climate too fast for nature to adapt to it.  It would behoove us to figure out a way to slow this down as much as possible.