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We are talking about ecological cycles which are global systems that purify air and water for example, so long as those cycles are not impaired by pollution.
When they become impaired by pollution we see odd things happening:
At a meeting with New England commercial fishermen last December, physical oceanographers Glen Gawarkiewicz and Al Plueddemann from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) were alerted by three fishermen about unusually high surface water temperatures and strong currents on the outer continental shelf south of New England.
"I promised them I would look into why that was happening," Gawarkiewicz says.
The result of his investigation was a discovery that the Gulf Stream diverged well to the north of its normal path beginning in late October 2011, causing the warmer-than-usual ocean temperatures along the New England continental shelf.
(Gulf Stream Aberration, emphasis added). If and when ocean currents change then other things we don't really want to change, such as food sources like fishing grounds, are going to change too.
People everywhere are beginning to prepare for radical changes caused by our industrial civilization's folly:
You can survive the end of the world in this charming nuclear missile silo. The views aren't great, but there won't be anything to see outside anyway.
(Apocalypse-proof Condos Already Sold Out). Millions of dollars for a place to hide out from a disturbed planetary ecosystem (Survival Condo Website).
Perhaps those condo people have been listening to scientists again:
The context for understanding these environmental responses is brought into focus by many recent studies showing that, irrespective of future greenhouse-gas emissions, a mean surface temperature increase of 2 °C (over 1990 levels) is inevitable, and an increase of 4 °C or more is not unlikely by 2100 ...
(Nature, The Impacts of Climate Change, emphasis added). To garner and understand of what this means, watch the short but startling video:
