The world in a snow globe..............

      A warmer world won't be terrible for everyone, and it's bound to inspire new technologies and good surprises, not just tragedy.  Change is the byword everywhere, and if there's one unchanging fact about humans it's that we loathe change in nature, perhaps because we feel we cannot control it.  We may thrive on changes in technology and local, but we want nature to be permanent and predictable, even when shaken, like the world in a snow globe.  We yearn for continuity, and yet we live in a wildly changing world.  We love life fiercely, and yet we're creatures who die.  These aren't reconcilable paradoxes.

-Diane Ackerman,  The Human Age:  The World Shaped By Us