**3. Who (or what) is to be blamed?**

Who or what causes breaches of planetary boundaries that trigger climate change? Some authors have blamed natural phenomena. Solar proton events inject nitrogen oxides that destroy ozone in the stratosphere [22]. In 2010, natural aerosols affected the global energy balance more than anthropogenic aerosols [23]. In 2021, the amount of sulfur dioxide (SO2) emitted into the troposphere by the La Palma volcanic eruption (≈ 1.8 Tg), exceeded the total anthropogenic SO2 emitted from the 27 European Union countries in 2019 [24]. Thundercloud coronas may be a major source of greenhouse gases [25]. Other authors assert anthropogenic activities are culpable [9, 26–28]. A classic example that illustrates this dichotomy surrounds the extremely hot summer of 2010 in Russia. One group of scientists concluded that the intense heatwave was mainly due to nature [29]. Another group, with 80% probability blamed human influences [30]. The same event with different determinations that may be both right? [31]. Yet other researchers surmise that natural and human activities are both contributors, with the human inputs perhaps more pronounced in the Anthropocene epoch [8, 32, 33]. Irrespective of the force (human or natural), extreme events may be key indicators of climate change, and environmental responses to its perturbations, such as the effects on glaciers [34, 35]. It also appears that climate change could be precipitated and driven by greenhouse gases and aerosols. A question may be asked, what are the anthropogenic emanators of these drivers, and what strategies might be deployed to mitigate them? If the natural contributors to climate change cannot be controlled, it is imperative or rather obligatory that human-made causes be attenuated.
