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Forecasting Doomsday
Boccaccio writes "James Lovelock, the planetary scientist famous for his Gaia Theory, writes in today's Independent of his belief that it is already too late to divert an environmental catastrophe which will see much of human civilisation destroyed. Fearing it too late to be green, he instead suggests communities plan for survival in a Mad Max type world with limited resources ruled by violent warlords. "We have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act, and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can." He suggests we should be writing a practical guidebook printed on long lasting paper containing "the basic accumulated scientific knowledge of humanity.""
First off, the "climate centres" around the world aren't the equivalent to a pathology lab. This is a bad analogy. Pathology is a science that is fairly solid. There is a pathogen or there isn't, we may miss it but we sure are good at diagnosing it if you have it. More importantly, pathologists can agree with each other.
With the status of the environment, no one agrees with anyone else. The world is ending on one end while the U.S. government isn't too concerned with it at the time. James Lovelock is certain we're doomed while Michael Chrichton is giving speeches detailing environmentalism as a religion.
Who do we believe? The physician or the author? I don't think either are adequately qualified to make the call.
I can understand articles urging us to cut back on emissions or asking everyone to support the Kyoto Treaty. What I don't understand is how this article can be constructive. I read it and it tells me to drive to Wal-Mart as fast as possible and buy a gun and five shells so that I can rob said Wal-Mart of all guns and shells for my basement armory.
I'm not sure whether to read this as honest opinion or a hilarious satire reminiscent of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
Can anyone please tell me what Mr. Lovelock hoped to gain from this article other than creating hysteria among his fans and receiving "nut job" status from those who disagree with him? Oh, I'm sure that will be a fair and unbiased scientific look at the state of the environment that everyone will love. Why must people make such polarizing comments? Can't they see how many people they alienate with one fell swoop? He could have gotten the same message across without the drama.
My work here is dung.
And people think us Christ followers are bonkers.
This Revenge of Gaia stuff is pure fiction -- but it does sell books. I've been called a doomer-and-gloomer for my opinions over the past 10 years. I'm an avid gold bug, I hate the idea of working as a salaried employee, and I believe in owning land both in urban areas as well as rural areas. You can buy 100 acres of land dirt cheap still in many parts of the U.S.
I don't believe we'll see a Mad Max style world. There is so much land available in the entire globe that I don't see how warlords can use the strength of weapons to take over. The reason we see "chaos" in Somalia is because there is an existing infrastructure that people want to utilize. In this Gaia-chaos vision, there wouldn't be. People who survive would not be anywhere near the billions we have today, and a family of 10 can easily survive even on a near-desert piece of property.
I don't believe we'll see the water of the world undrinkable, I don't believe we'll see the air of the world unbreathable. Humans are a minor part of the balance -- if we do something so bad that billions will perish, we won't be able to continue doing "harm" and the planet will recuperate itself -- quickly, too. The worst catastrophes that could happen would not necessarily be environmental ones but ones dealing with war. Anything we do slowly to the environment will be quickly absorbed and returned to normal -- the so called circle of life. It is the things we can do quickly that would be the most devastating. Nuclear wars come to mind as one possible catastrophe that we couldn't resolve in less than a century.
Even if we did collapse into an chaotic anarchy (opposite of the capitalist anarchy that I promote), weapons wouldn't last without an infrastructure to maintain them. Once all the bullets are expelled or all the maintenance fluids are used up, most weapons are useless. You can't fight a global war with knives, and you can defend yourself much easier in communities against warlords if you take the machine guns and flamethrowers out of the equation. War is one of the most inefficient ways to gain wealth -- it requires millions of people deciding to give up their wealth in exchange for no profitable gain. In fact, I believe war requires democracy.
I wish Julian Simon was still kicking. That guy would offer Lovelock a great debate (and likely win it, too). Simon showed that more people means more wealth, more innovation and long lives for everyone. Look at China. They were on the verge of overpopulation, but it wasn't the mass numbers that was killing them -- it was government and communism. The freer they get, the longer they live, the happier they live, and this lets them live long enough to get Parkinson's, cancers and other diseases that keep us from living forever. Communism offered them shortened lives with no reason to want to live -- freedom gives everyone a reason to work together to try to live longer together.
In the end, I see the only doomsday here being empire and government. Nuclear war won't happen any other way. I don't believe we'll ever get to the Mad Max scenario unless we allow ourselves to continue to arm the elite with weapons of mass destruction. We should work at arming our own households, investing in bountiful properties, creating communities of people who love one another but are no adverse to profit or personal gain.
The environment continues to fix itself -- yesterday's doomsdayers are silent because they were wrong. Today's will be silent tomorrow -- they'll be wrong, too.
I can't wait! (Omits comment re: warlord overlords)
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
It's really too bad that James Lovelock is perceived as a bit of a nutball in the scientific community...global climate change is a real and accelerating problem (the duplicitious yammerings of the naysayers and industrial apologists notwithstanding), and it needs to have more serious attention focused upon it. I fear that all Lovelock's doomsaying will accomplish is the opposite.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Billions of years ago, when the day was 23 hours long, there was no oxygen in the air and hence no ozone. The surface of the earth would have killed any land based animals pretty quickly.
Over time, life transformed the atmosphere and soon after plants and animals started to come out of the sea and started to prosper on land. Billions of years past and today we're sat here with laptop's contemplating what to do about climate change. I personally think that a large chunk of climate change has been caused by humans. I also agree with the scientist that we've already past the point of no return - so the question is not how we can stop climate change but how we can cope with it.
Personally, I think the climate disaster will be very bad for bio-diversity but have a negligable effect on humanity. I often go to Florida on my holiday from the foggy and cold waste lands of the UK :). The heat in Florida is at times unbearable but it
matters not because air conditioning is in nearly every building. If I get too hot, I just go inside.
As the oceans expand and the sea level rises, people will simply move further up the shore. When islands disappear, people will be unhappy but they quickly build new lives in new countries. When crops fail to grow in some countries they will replace the crops with others that grow in those climates. If they've really got money to burn they'll genetically engineer plants that are resistant to the heat. When oil prices start their long climb to unaffordability other technologies will take up the batton. Suddenly the economy will start to allocate resources to bypass the damage that the price-hike induces. Life will go on as normal.
I think we're heading for a mass extinction event - of that I am certain - but is highly unlikely we will feel the pinch. These are interesting times to be alive.
Simon
world with limited resources ruled by violent warlords.
We're already there...
Trolling is a art,
He suggests we should be writing a practical guidebook printed on long lasting paper containing "the basic accumulated scientific knowledge of humanity."
So he means like my physics, math, and biology textbooks?
My books will last forever...
They are extremely heavy, have never / wont ever get used. They practically re-sealed themselves after I purchesed them from the bookstore!
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Is there any connection between your two sentences? It seems about as relevant as saying "There have been people who play chess for years and yet French people will turn their noses up at British cooking."
-- SIGFPE
This is interesting:
"It was ill luck that we started polluting at a time when the sun is too hot for comfort. We have given Gaia a fever and soon her condition will worsen to a state like a coma."
So he's saying that the output of the sun is one part of the global warming phenomenon, and that human-caused pollution is another. I partially agree with this, though I think the sun has a bigger part of it than he might.
But then he says:
"By failing to see that the Earth regulates its climate and composition, we have blundered into trying to do it ourselves, acting as if we were in charge. By doing this, we condemn ourselves to the worst form of slavery. If we chose to be the stewards of the Earth, then we are responsible for keeping the atmosphere, the ocean and the land surface right for life. A task we would soon find impossible - and something before we treated Gaia so badly, she had freely done for us." (emphasis added)
Wait, if it's "impossible" for us to regulate the environment, doesn't it logically follow it is equally impossible for us to change it?? He seems to be saying "We've destroyed it, but we don't have the power to fix it." That's completely inconsistent.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
It seems to me that humanity has a tendency to fall into two intellectual traps:
I do believe both attitudes are just wrong. The future holds a lot of promises, but also a lot of challenges. There are international mechanisms in place to deal with global warming, for instance: that's what the Kyoto Protocol is all about.
Peak Oil may be very bad -- I do expect a lot of economic suffering ahead -- but it may also be our best chance to get rid of polluting hydrocarbons, and turn to ultra-efficiency and renewable energies. These, in turn, will have the added effect of lowering global warming and overall pollution.
Another example of this is nuclear war and MAD: it did not happen, probably because intelligent people on both sides understood the terrifying consequences. That also means we are stuck with thousands and thousands of nukes that need to be decommissioned and possibilities of proliferation, but that, too, can be taken care of.
So: ignoring problems is just as bad as putting your head in the sand and pretending everything is A-OK. What Winston Churchill used to say about Americans really apply to the whole human race: "They will always choose the right solution... but only after trying every other one". We may suffer in the short run, but the nimbleness, adaptability and intelligence of human beings mean they will come out all right in the end. Our problem is that we always take the short view and the easy solution first, instead of the long-term view and making the necessary sacrifices right now, instead of tomorrow.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
My connection is that anyone who believes in 'Intelligent Design' or 'Creationism' is considered an idiot and mocked for stupidity (Flying spaghetti monster) whereas people who said things like "In 1980 there will be massive riots due to starvation" and who continue to make such claims are still given the time of day.
My blog
Your comments are, for the most part, spot-on.
"Gaia" is the "goddess earth". It is nothing more than blatant superstitious garbage with an enviro-friendly sheen.
The term "Gaia" was borrowed from the ancient Greek gods, but no more so than Pluto or Mars. The concept is, that as cells make up an organism, and many organisms an ecosystem, many ecosystems make up a still larger system. "Gaia" sounds all new-agey, but in reality, it is nothing more than the extent of all life on earth.
It's not superstitious garbage; it is quite valid to think that destroying the rain forest in Southeast Alaska will have profound effects on New York City, or Moscow for that matter. Then to imagine that the total biosphere can heal itself after a catastrophe is also valid. That is, the environment affects not only the evolution of species, but evolution of species also affects the environment.
Gaia was, perhaps, a poor choice of terms. But "superecosystem" sounds stupid, and isn't as catchy, and doesn't intimate the self-regulating nature of the total biosphere.
The thought that all life on earth is a single organism with conscious thought is a little silly. Not many people truly believe that, though. In my experience, most people believe in some weaker form of the Gaia hypothesis-- that even if we humans fuck up so badly we destroy our environment and kill off tens of thousands of species (including humanity), the earth will go on, heal itself, and new species will crop up to replace the old ones.
Other than that: yeah, I think Sir Lovelock is being a bit extremist in his fears. It's kind of like during the five years leading up to 2000; too damned many people thought civilisation was going to collapse, when most of us in the IT trenches knew everything was going to be fine. The didn't stop Edward Yourdon from shooting off his mouth and selling some books, but there will always be people who expect the worst.
The people who scare me, though, are those who want the worst to happen.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Jeez I'm old.
I remember this same meme being around in the early 60's --- it was nuclear war then --- and in the mid-70's, with The Limits to Growth. Oh, and don't forget The Population Bomb. The expected date is always in the potential lifetime of younger readers, but comfortably in the future for older ones, and so far (note that you're reading this) it always fails to happen.
Oh, and one other thing: the person pushing the theory is always selling something. A book, money for "further research," something.
Hands on your wallets, kids.
No, not shocked. And what I said was definitely not scientific, merely anecdotal.
However, it is worth noting that I really ought not to be able to notice significant changes to the climate within the span of my lifetime. And yet I find, very commonly (and again anecdotally - compare and contrast your own experiences) that the typical man-on-the-street view is that 'something is definitely up'. Don't you find that? Nearly everyone I talk to about the weather, at some point, shakes their head and expresses some concern about how it 'used to be' vs how it is now. And that's only in the cities. In the lower arctic circle, where they are watching the glaciers retreat and the permafrost declining, and it is screwing with their hunting, what must they be saying? Have you noticed mountaintop snowcaps disappearing?
What I find disingenuous about the old argument - the one that says 'earth has always changed' - is that it seems dismissive. Even if we aren't causing one iota of climate change, it is readily apparant that the Earth's weather is changing rapidly; shouldn't we be alarmed, even if we are not the cause of it? Saying "its natural" doesn't exactly make me feel better!
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
The reason that people scoff at Inteligent Design is that it ISN'T science. Science is predicated on testable theories that can change. ID is all about an unprovable entity creating nature as we currently know it. I am not going to debate whether it is possible that God/Aliens/FSM made the Universe but I do know it isn't science. What Intelligent Design is, is Philosophy. The major difference between ID and Big Bang is that it may be possible in the future to ammend the Big Bang theory but there is no way to change the ID "facts". So, yes "intellectuals" will listen to people that have theories with testable assumtions over people that just have "faith".
There were people dying of starvation in the 1980's. And the 1990's. And there still are. I think the only reason they didn't riot was because they didn't have the energy as they hadn't eaten a proper meal for months.
Not all of this is environmental - a lot of it is due to cash crops being grown in order to pay off debts to more developed nations - but when parts of Ethiopia don't have rain for a decade and the Sahara Desert gets bigger and bigger every year thus reducing the area on which you can grow arable crops, then you might have to think that part of it is.
Without the Scandanavian countries telling the rest of Europe about acid rain - that didn't fall locally, but damaged the environment hundreds of miles away - who would have known and started looking for causes? Without scientists in Antarctica measuring the depth of the ice sheets, how would we know the global ocean temperature rise or what was causing it? Without satellite images showing the increasingly large hole in the ozone layer, how would we have known about the damage CFCs were causing?
This article is suggesting one possible outcome of our current environmental effect. If this means that more people then work harder to stop that outcome from occurring that doesn't mean that the writer was wrong, it just means people have wised up to the fact that we've fucked the planet and need to do something serious about it, NOW.
Mocking people for their religious beliefs - however cracked they are - really won't help stop the destruction to the environment humans are causing. And neither will whatever deity you happen to believe in.
Whatever, mod me down, I'm getting used to it.
--
silas
hobbit
The tragedy of this debate is that there seems to be no one to voice a rational position. There are The Ostriches who's greatest desire is to believe that they are safe and scoff at anything that suggest otherwise. There are the Industrial Interest who are more than willing to tell the Ostriches what they want to hear so that they can continue business as usual. There are the Chicken Littles who run screaming "The sky is falling" every time there is an extra inch of rain. Let me suggest a different position: We live in a complex system. Rational estimates say it is Very very old relative to our own lifespans. We are only reasonably aware of the last couple of thousand years of its operation. Everything else is speculation. We are aware (those of us who don't fall into the Ostrich category) that we are able to effect some changes to the system through our activities. We really have no idea how much of an impact we have had, or will have. It might be that everything is fine. It might be that all the bizarre weather from the last year means something is seriously wrong. I don't think anyone REALLY knows. While I don't think that "It's the end of the world", It seems to me that since we have access to only one "experiment", that maybe some extra caution is warranted. The old "better safe than sorry" position may be the smartest choice for anyone with a long view.
by paper i mean a scientific, rather than a news paper. one environmentalists opinion even if he is well respected does not turn his melodramatic spiel into fact. The earth may be warming, but there is still no hard evidence that human kind is the cause. and lets not forget that we are still in an ice age!
One thing I've learned is to listen to predictions like this. Look at the long history of disasters diverted by relying on the scientists- The Hindenburg, the Plagues, and th 60's hippie movement. I remember hearing about 9/11 months before on TV, and changing my schedule. I was so close to buying into the Enron thing, when Neil Cavuto changed my mind. And other warnings kept me from going to school naked...no, wait- that was a dream.
My point is, we *never* get warnings about the big stuff. And this is no exception. Remember the coming ice-age, and the population boom of the 1970s? No ice-age. Population has actually gone DOWN by a dangerous extent. I saw both mentioned in Barey Miller, in fact. I remember hearing how acid rain would make the finish on all cars corrode as early as 1975. And by 2000 we'd all have to live underground. This being told to me, a kid in the 5th grade. I was afraid.
Yet somehow the same people who told us the Earth would be unable to support life in the 70's, still feel that way today. I suspect money is the quarry on this hunt.
I'll admit there are temperature changes- the Earth is a dynamic system with lots of history that it changes all the time (See: the 1700s mini-ice age, for example). But to think humans are the cause of it, or have the slightest chance of changing it, is just silly.
Go to Google. Zoom in on a town, find your house. Then notice the actual SCALE of our place on this planet. Now call your local HVAC technician and tell'em you want to install an A/C for the whole planet. Just try to figure out the BTUs. Imagine changing it, if we HAD to. Terraforming is a neat idea, but actually doing it someplace is at least 100 years away.
Just relax; and remember that the Earth will never go away; it might not be like it is, but it will always be here. And so will be these predictions...
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
This posting really seems below /.'s level. This has less to do with the environmental theories as it does speculating the world that follows environmental destruction. This isn't science, it's imagination.
Incidentally, how would we prepare to survive in a "Mad Max" like world? We'd need guns and cars. Both use chemicals that supposedly destroy the environment. So it sounds like he's suggesting we should use a lot of the substances that allegedly would lead to our own destruction!
Did you ever take history class in High school?
Did you?
Out of everybody, it was the British who came closest to taking over the entire world, and their real estate only came to about 26% of the globe. Your Romans were only 17th with 4%.
Since we have recently completely lost any semblance of morals
Morals are sticky because they are simply the accepted standards of right and wrong for a given group. Some people say that Europeans are less moral than Americans because of infidelity, etc.
(witness the implicit approval of torture in Gitmo and Iraq, as well as the use of nuclear weapons against other countries;
Say what? The US has used just two nuclear weapons against another country and that was back in WWII. Are you going on about that, or has there been some new developments?
have you heard anyone on the news saying nukes are definitely never going to be used? look back a decade or two and the tone is completely different).
Just what we need. Give the brainless talking heads something else to "confirm". How can anyone say that nuclear weapons will "definitely never" be used? Do you honestly think that just because nobody has said it that we're somehow more likely to use them? Against who? Even if somebody did "confirm" it, do you think that would really mean anything?
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
The pentagon commisions all kinds of studies and contigency plans, 99.999% of which will never see use. They just write them so that if x situation comes up, they have a plan ready.
Getting worked up about what the pentagon has made plans for makes as much sense as getting worked up because your rural mechanic has the drum-brake removal tool for a Buggati Veyron.
He's prepared in case one ever comes around with a brake problem, but how likely is he to see it?
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Parent poster has it right - doom and gloom sells, whether the apocalypse is environmental or religious in nature. How many crackpots have declared that the Rapture is coming on such-and-such a date? The author of this book is not much different, he's just worshipping a different god/ess.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
too bad you don't realize you have already lost...sad
when in doubt press enter and we'll figure it out later..
"For every 10 "the sky is falling" articles I read, I see 10 "everything is OK" articles."
Unfortunately, this is the result of equal publicity funding, not equal scientific opinion. I'm sorry I won't be providing you with a reference (but you didn't provide one either, so whatever) but I have the distinct impression that about 97% of climatologists and other scientists in related disciplines agree: we have a problem.
"I see relatively cheap gas, so I believe that gas is not running out."
This is a fundamental problem with the global economy and markets. Markets are interesting - they provide a metric for the value which *most monies* would assign to a given resource. "Most monies" refers to people weighted by their investable wealth. Unfortunately, as many past market events should demonstrate, these metrics don't necessarily have anything to do with reality. They have everything to do with perception and popular understanding, which may or may not be actually correct.
As an analogy, consider presidential/PM elections. We elect people who are visible, or want to be elected, and who have the means and support to get elected. We don't necessarily elect the best possible leader because most of us may not know who that is, and that person may be lacking the accessories with which reaching the public is highly unlikely. On a large scale, elections have very little to do with absolute achievement in personal merit, and a lot to do with publicity. Obviously everyone would prefer to choose between the people best suited for the job, but that's not how it works. There are barriers to entry that has nothing to do with merit, qualifications, skills, or talent.
"...geophysicist. He tells me they have no idea what is going on deeper than a few miles..."
So based on this statement, the most rational course of action is to assume that one day the oil will go dry. By the same conservative logic, we should also assume that climate change is a real problem (not only future, I live in Alaska and we're seeing major effects *now*). In this way we can be prepared - maybe not for the worst, but at least for some case worse than the best. Because a large proportion of experts do agree, it's important that we take the possibilities they suggest seriously. I would say this even if the climate change people were a minority opinion and I disagreed with them.
I don't understand how people claiming to be "conservative" can possibly think that doing nothing different is a rational course of action. A truly conservative viewpoint calls for considering all the possibilities and being prepared so that we are never faced with an actual crisis, but these pretenders are calling for ignoring a major [potential] problem because it's not hurting [them] badly enough [yet].
Why in the world would you stake something as important as species survival on a best-case-scenario viewpoint? That makes no sense at all. Go read "Candide" and come back when you understand it.
[|]
I can't believe the amount of ostrich head in the sand misguided optimism being shown on this thread. With dwindling resources and an amazingly fast expanding population in those areas of the world who have recently got a taste of middle class western styled existence, this outlook is more probable than not. Look,, this is a math problem. That's all it is, basic simple math. Take what energy and minerals and food resources are necessary to run the world NOW. Now extrapolate ten to twenty years in the future at present rates of expansion. Now add in the mad rush to use the best most bleeding edge tech by all large nations to build weapons systems. Does anyone actually read history any more? Have we forgotten that we as humans are no more psychologically or socially advanced than we were hundreds of years ago? Why did Japan attack pearl harbor, what did the US do first? What facilities did the allies bomb first across europe when they were able to get bomber fleets overhead with acceptable loss ratios? What kept the UK even fighting, and Russia? Where are the big wars being fought now, and what is the underlying critically important natural resource there? Are people also missing the actual evidence of huge climate change coming, regardless of causality? Does anyone even bother to read the headlines, let alone the articles?
Ya'all are either feeling real damn lucky or are just ignoring geopolitical and geophysical realities. Step away from the videogame for a moment and LOOK at current reality.
You are going to be seeing resource wars. We are in one now, a *big one*, whether you want to admit to it or not. Your inflated currencies and lifestyles are being financed by folks who want to shift emphasis to their own populations. How long do you think they are going to keep doing that? How long would YOU keep doing that, if a neighbor kept wanting you to loan him money, and all he had to pay you back was more IOUs?
We have x-amount of resources and pretty soon we are going to need 3x but it don't exist and it never will. It ain't there, it just ain't. It's not only oil and strategic minerals, but actual food, because we are running out of clean water, or even half clean. You can't grow food in a desert with no water, or in a constant flood with too much water, or in areas that frost 11 months out of the year. You can't give an extra 2-3 billion people cars and electronic gadgets and homes with central heating and air conditioning, even "good mileage" cars, even "advanced energy efficient" homes, even "clean" low powered gadgets. Not when the projected demand that is looming is so fast and so large.
There simply isn't enough "stuff" in the ground to pull this off.
C'mon, THINK, what's the most likely outcome then? Are you seeing any rational leaders appearing on the world stage, in ANY big nation? Are humans becoming less greedy? Are you seeing any large militaries all over just standing down and disbanding because no one thinks they are needed? Are you seeing any less competition for all the planets resources? And you "market can solve anything" folks. When the "market" is going to be staring at near empty shelves based on demand, what do you think the ones who don't get anything are going to think and do? You ever seen a riot, even a small one? Did you check out what a pipsqueak hurricane can do, or an earthquake, when it's very limited in region? How about when some things hit that are planet wide? Where's your "backup" civilization infrastructre, you keep it on a shelf someplace or something I sure ain't seeing it, because *it doesn't exist*. Think all these folks will just accept the fact they are "too poor"? Think any humongous nation with an extra billion poor people screaming for something from their leaders is going to just hang around and go "oh well, them's the breaks" and quietly fade away just so you can keep getting fat? Huh?
I repeat, this is a math problem, combined with plain vanilla human psychology. Parse it by past h
polar bears drowning all over, huge chunks of ice the size of rhode island falling off antartica, hurricanes destroying entire cities in the leading developed country... it is like watching a movie already, only thing missing is the statue of liberty sticking out of a glacier...
..
as for us, we are screwing ourselves so fast it kind of hard not to notice it..
you can only piss and shit in your own house for so long before it becomes unbearable and you end up catching some sickness and making a total wreck of the place.. if you look, you will see the corporations coming back in zipping up their pants..
will it 'fully' happen in our lifetime? probably not, so who really cares.. plug your nose and let our kids clean up
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
Incendiary foaming at the mouth "warnings of planetary illness" do our overall chances of mitigating the reality of human-caused global warming no good either. Extremists undercut the message for anyone more moderate, and more likely to actually effect change.
I don't have anything against him flogging his book, at least he makes it pretty obvious. Just wish I'd thought of it.
I'm also sympathetic to the view of the earth acting like a living organism, in fact you can make the same argument for the whole universe. But because it looks like that doesn't actually mean it is a living thing, although I'm not sure how you'd define it at that macro a level.
The question is whether it actually gives a shit whether or not it's hospitable to life. As a member of the Church of the Utterly Indifferent God, somehow I doubt it. It certainly will be a problem for us though.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
At the end of the Permian era, 250 million years ago, there was the biggest mass extinction the earth had ever seen. 99% of all life died out. Think about how that must have been for any one of the creatures at the time.
After the Permian came the dinosaurs, who were so successful that they ruled over the earth for 185 million years. Something bad happened at the end of the Jurassic period, some 65 million years ago, and most of the life on earth died off again, some 95% IIRC. Again, think about how extreme that must have been.
Now, some 65 million years later, a species capable of abstract thought and who known cognitive history probably extends back some 35 000 years or more or so, is worrying about extinction.
News flash, whether we live or die, as a species, does not matter. Enromous extinctions have happened in the past and they could happen again, except that it could be us the next time around, and in some 60 million years when the rats who survived will have evolved into suv driving, complaining, frightened, superstitious fools who don't accept that life is transient and that we have no special place on this earth and that god, if he exists, does not particularly favour us over, say cockroaches, or rats.
and bad fiction at that. In it he created cardboard "environmentalists" who sought to kill off large swaths of the earth's population as part of a tempter tantrum. One of his characters does nothing after being stabbed in the arm with a needle by some strange man and then dies, and yet he was supposed to be one of the best and brightest. The ringleader of the awful plot is has a man killed in the middle of Tower Bridge (the main bridge in London) at Noon and then stands over the corpse and yet doesn't get caught.
Much has been made of his "references", and the idea that he has backed up his bad fiction. If you peruse them you will see that a) they are not exhaustive, b) they favor unjournaled papers by anti-global-warming researchers (no attempt it made to see the science only the editorializing) and c) they include odd references to books on witchcraft and papers (such as the argument that greenland was once warmer) which do not prove his case at all.
The book was commissioned, bought, and paid for by Rupert Murdoch whose FoxNews network has made much of this money denying the state of the environment. Like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter Michael Crichton has made himself a tool of Murdoch. He has a line to sell and won't let the truth stand in his way.
If you want reasonable discussion of global warming go seek real scientists not an editorial hack. If you want a spy/crime novel go read some old Ian Flemming.
I've never seen so many posts that basically consist of - la la la la la la la la la (I can't hear you) la la la..... f*king grasshoppers !
Oh yes, junk science. I just love this stuff. Anywhere from "we are destroying the ozone with man made CFCs" to "cars are the leading producers of polution". Let's forget about the sun and volcanic eruptions. Let us not concern oursevles with natural changes in the wind paths. Don't forget about the dangerous whole in the ozone.
We have sooooooooo much evidence that all of the environmental problems are man made. We have millions of years of measured results to compare. We know so much about the world, that we are experts.
Oh, what's that? We only have a very, very small fraction of the knowledge needed to make such conclusions? I am so sorry, I just confused the scientific community with somebody that really knows what is going on.
The world is comming to an end alright, but there isn't a living soul that can tell when. There isn't anyone who even has a clue as to when anyone might even know.
Has anyone considered a meteor shower that can wipe us all out?
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
From the US:
To Quote A Liberal: "It's Bush's Fault."
To Quote A Conservative: "If you want it fixed vote for the green party. In the mean time enjoy having a job, low cost utilities, and the highest standard of living on Earth."
To Quote A Hippie: "IF you don't eat sand you're killing mother earth!! Because eating animals is bad because they feel pain, and eating plants deprives mother earth of important C02 gobbling plants, and you certainly can't eat rocks as they are the very skin of our dear mother! Err. wait.... NO SAND NO SAND!"
To Quote A Scientist: "We need money, we'll say whatever they (being the people that are funding them) want us to say."
The Universe: "I don't give a shit if your planet blows up. I can always use another kupier belt there!"
Change is the only constant. Change is amoral. Mar's doesn't care if there is nuclear waste all over it, neither does the moon, neither does Earth. Only the arrogance of man would allow a population to complain about climate change. We are an oddity, not the norm. Find me one other planet that even remotly resembles earth. Quite frankly perhaps we are setting the climate to what it is supposed to be, rather then what we THINK it should be. Perhaps something between Venus' and Mars' atmosphere.
We are just as much a part of nature as any other animal and all things we do ARE NATURAL. Quite frankly I think it's man's nature to coat the planet in plastic and cement and I for one have no qualms in assisting in that endevor if that in fact is our purpose in life. Humans appear to be the only creatures that question their own actions, perhaps we should question what our definition of a proper planet should look like. So far my theory is pretty sound as we have yet to find a planet like ours....
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-