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Imagining the Future History of Climate Change
HughPickens.com writes "The NYT reports that Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at Harvard University, is attracting wide notice these days for a work of science fiction called "The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View From the Future," that takes the point of view of a historian in 2393 explaining how "the Great Collapse of 2093" occurred. "Without spoiling the story," Oreskes said in an interview, "I can tell you that a lot of what happens — floods, droughts, mass migrations, the end of humanity in Africa and Australia — is the result of inaction to very clear warnings" about climate change caused by humans." Dramatizing the science in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, the book reasserts the importance of scientists and the work they do and reveals the self-serving interests of the so called "carbon combustion complex" that have turned the practice of science into political fodder.
Oreskes argues that scientists failed us, and in a very particular way: They failed us by being too conservative. Scientists today know full well that the "95 percent confidence limit" is merely a convention, not a law of the universe. Nonetheless, this convention, the historian suggests, leads scientists to be far too cautious, far too easily disrupted by the doubt-mongering of denialists, and far too unwilling to shout from the rooftops what they all knew was happening. "Western scientists built an intellectual culture based on the premise that it was worse to fool oneself into believing in something that did not exist than not to believe in something that did."
Why target scientists in particular in this book? Simply because a distant future historian would target scientists too, says Oreskes. "If you think about historians who write about the collapse of the Roman Empire, or the collapse of the Mayans or the Incans, it's always about trying to understand all of the factors that contributed," Oreskes says. "So we felt that we had to say something about scientists.""
Oreskes argues that scientists failed us, and in a very particular way: They failed us by being too conservative. Scientists today know full well that the "95 percent confidence limit" is merely a convention, not a law of the universe. Nonetheless, this convention, the historian suggests, leads scientists to be far too cautious, far too easily disrupted by the doubt-mongering of denialists, and far too unwilling to shout from the rooftops what they all knew was happening. "Western scientists built an intellectual culture based on the premise that it was worse to fool oneself into believing in something that did not exist than not to believe in something that did."
Why target scientists in particular in this book? Simply because a distant future historian would target scientists too, says Oreskes. "If you think about historians who write about the collapse of the Roman Empire, or the collapse of the Mayans or the Incans, it's always about trying to understand all of the factors that contributed," Oreskes says. "So we felt that we had to say something about scientists.""
At least Bennet only posts every other week instead of spamming idiotic comments on every article
blue-state/red-state (USA). each has a fav doomsday. mo' money, mo' money.
One of Pete Postlethwaite's last movies covered the issue in a similar way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
And won't be nobody to write it by then if mankind loses. Thats the weak point of that work. Or we manage to defeat it (preferably pretty soon), or we all lose, and won't be noone to blame us in that future year.
People must like feeling afraid. If the rate of warming has slowed to the point that the scientific community is calling it a hiatus, how can you justify the alarmism?
I love Fear Mongering, mainly in the Halloween season.
But seriously, wtf? 2093 is the future, and based on past predictions of the future, I think we have no idea what life is going to be like, good or bad. Science hasn't failed us, like always, human arrogance fails us.
Be seeing you...
right now i'm imagining the the future history of my sex life.... wooooooot.. Film at 11~
Seriously, I'm sick of scientist being blamed for crap. Especially when they've been warning about global warming from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...> the 1970s and there's been consensus since the eighties.
You want someone to blame? Blame the fossil fuel special interests groups that taken up, and refined the tactics of big tobacco. Blame the billionaires that fund conspiracy theorists, and wack-a-doodle that muddies the debate. Blame the hair brain bloggers that have made a living out character assassination, and hysterical invective against the scientist that are trying to communicate their findings to the public.
These are the arseholes you should blame. Not the scientists.
as long as we remember us
The failure to act on the warnings lies clearly on the people who fail to react to the warnings. This is a failure of the human social system to adapt to a limited resource. This is a classic tragedy of the commons example.
There are many factors at play
1. lack of education to undestand the science, pollution, basic tragedy of the commons problem
2. desire of profit or lifestyle, pretty much the strict commons problem, not willing to make a sacrifice
3. blind to the problem due to religious beliefs
4. plain old innertia to what is not preceived as an imminet threat
The science is clear even if we don't 100% understand all he dynamics, (we can't get 7 day weather right why should we expect 2 year, 5 year or 100 year predictions to be perfect).
The generation and acceptance of un-science is wrong.
I'm not a sock puppet I'm a new user. We do exist you know.
We went from:
Horses to landing on the Moon with decades to spare.
About 1.8 Billion people to nearly 6 billion. If not for war and corrupt governments, all 6 billion would be well fed.
From about 20 WPM on the Telegraph to 100 terabits per second (experimental)...unless you are using Microsoft Windows, then it's more like 20 bytes per second.
Average life expectancy of 46 years to now approaching 80.
I think we will be able to handle whatever fantasies this guy can dream up...but we still won't have a flying car.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Oreskes has misunderstood the climate change denial industrial complex if she thinks the only obstacle to the denialists accepting reality is an issue of style. They would simply find a different pretext.
There is always one thing you can say about weather. It's always changing. So far there is no warming and to be honest there is cooling. IF you believe the cooked climate books the governments and others are trying to force feed you you have real issues.
What the bloody fuck? Scientists failed us?
Not short-sighted politicians, not lobbyists for climate-raping corporations, not greedy corporate types.
No, of course the Scientists failed us. They didn't warn us strongly enough!!!
Okay, breathe.
Getting over the initial outrage, note that to have an actual effect on modern day policies, Oreskes could have written that the politicians were to blame. If modern-day people are shown that they will be remembered in infamy, it might just cause them to change. It happens with presidents all the time - doing something to be remembered by, leaving a positive mark for future historians, &c.
Notice how this thing started after the fall of the USSR? People have become skeptical unto the loss of their liberties. When it comes to human nature, be skeptical about the good.
Trouble is, the moment you step out of your role as a scientist to actually fight for something (stop gathering data, start inciting action), you're no longer considered a scientist, and are instead labelled an activist or politician.
Still, looks interesting. Has anyone read this an/or the (shorter) 2013 essay by the same authors, and of the same title? http://www.mitpressjournals.or...
In 2393, people are going to look back at our obsession with climate change in the same way that we look back at the Middle Ages and their fear of witchcraft.
It's not even that all the phenomena ascribed to witchcraft were fictitious or harmless; there were a lot of real dangers and real phenomena people were seeing and were afraid of. But just like witchcraft, some of the fears will turn out to be nonsense, and the rest will be solved through scientific progress and economic development, not witch hunts.
Bawk. Bawk. Bawk.
The sky is burning.
Bawk. Bawk. Bawk.
Oh noes. Oh noes
Anything more need to be said?
Yes, there is one more thing that needs to be said: If the scientists who have studied this are even remotely correct, your great grandchildren will look upon your memory in a manner somewhat akin to the way that people speak of southern slave owners, and the way Germans remember the NAZIs
(I remember the days when Slashdot still had intelligent, intellectual, technically minded, conversations. And even when people disagreed, they brought facts to the table, not childishness.)
No discussion of climate management or any other earthly problem is complete without first understanding the effect of 7 billion humans- mostly underfed, sick and unproductive. How many have to die horribly each day before someone notices? How many children are born with a life expectancy of less than one year, to a mother who can't even feed herself? Is family planning ever going to be taught and enabled in the underprivileged corners of earth? Fix these problems and everything else will improve.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Can't we just shoot these doubt-mongering denialists and move on to the great new world of next Tuesday? What is it, that keeps the rest of us so cautious in dealing with these contemptible human beings? They are traitors to humanity and should be executed — instead of being allowed to affect the good scientists' work, while secretly scheming to escape to a private Elysium of their own, when the Earth is no longer habitable.
We — historians of science, politicians, music professors, and actors alike — know better!
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
An anonymous asshole with the sense of humor of a 6 year old making snide cracks about "insightful" comments?
Slashdot (beta) -> soup kitchen for trolls....
>> work of science fiction called "The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View From the Future," that takes the point of view of a historian in 2393 explaining how "the Great Collapse of 2093" occurred
As a guy who's read scifi for 30 years, this sounds as boring as fuck. Hundreds of writers have written civ collapses into the backdrop of their story and many of these have been manmade ecological disasters. But then the good writers write a story, populating the post-event world with people whose lives and relationships riff off the tragedy of the fall and the sense of current loss.
As worded, this sounds more like the background notes for a role-playing game set in the future, after an ecological collapse....zzzzzZZZZZ.
Bullshit. That never has to happen. It shouldn't be happening now, anywhere, ever... We can produce all the water we need.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I'll sacrifice some karma just to ask you to please stop.
And no, I'm not a sock puppet either.
Charter Member of The Committee Group For The Elimination And Eradication Of Repetitive Redundancy
What gets me is the mild warming we are obviously going to be experiencing (since large CO2 increase have not shown not to correlate to rapid temperature increases as previously thought) is going to bring an overall boon to the planet, just as it did in ages past - a wider range of arable land.
Sure some land will change for the worse, but overall as a species we will be better off - and the rate the climate is changing allows for plenty of time for people, plants and animals to adapt.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
why would you stop? you're having so much fun! the mods will be along with your karma shortly and you can sockpuppet to your marionetting delight!
I'll sacrifice some karma just to ask you to please stop.
And no, I'm not a sock puppet either.
Good heavens man. Just adjust your slider to block at the zero level and you won't see AC again.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Scientists don't agree that the only solution is higher taxes, but the government does. So she blames the scientists.
If the morons pulling for the reconstruction of the Temple Mount succeed, their history will be written by the meek who will inherit an environment devastated by the proud, the brave, the faithful and the ignorant.
In which camp will you have pitched your Lott?
I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
... really needs. More politicization, more exclusion, less debate, more demonetization, more "if it 10 percent possible then we should spend a 1 trillion on it now!", etc.
Cue the hordes of people that will say I'm supporting deniers or other equally politically loaded terms that don't have anything to do with science.
Gentlemen. This is a controversial issue. It just is. And that isn't going to go away by demonizing the opposition. Just won't. That just gives those people ammunition to say that you're afraid of debate or the science because you're just devolving into ad hominem and various political games rather then staying laser focused on the science.
Right now, some fool is trying to pen a response that says "oh you're automatically invalid because you ascribe to this political faction or that one."... Well congrats. You've proved my fucking point, you complete fucking retard.
I want to take this issue away from the politicians and the rabid foaming at the mouth political activists and just hand this back to the scientists. And that includes removing the stigmas in government research grants from saying one thing or another about climate change. It is literally impossible to keep your credibility on this issue if you only permit certain conclusions.
Now to show I'm not just supporting one side, I've seen a lot of bullshit science on the skeptic/denier side as well. Just silly make believe shit.
Here is what is going to blow the mind of some poor son of a bitch... I am on neither of these teams. *BOOM* Some of them probably can't even believe that. It isn't possible for anyone to be anything but with them or against them. Which just shows the levels of indoctrination those poor fucks have been subjected to on this issue.
Here is what I want. Science. Objective. Empirical. Detached. Indifferent to outcome. Just do the science and connect the dots. The instant you start grinding your fucking axes you're not doing science. Period. End of story. And at that point, I have a very hard time taking anything you say seriously until it is clear to me that that has stopped. I feel/think I am being manipulated when someone has a position, claims they don't because they're scientists, and then reveals that they do by the way they conduct themselves.
It isn't okay.
I want all the political assholes out of this issue 20 years ago. Just leave. Al Gore can go fuck himself not because he's a democrat which is fine... but rather because he's ruined this topic. Now someone is going to say "but it isn't about Al Gore"... Except it is politically. He is so deep in this thing and has been so deep in it from its very inception that the only way you're getting him out of it is with a rain coat, goggles, and a chainsaw.
And that's going to be painful. The screams of delerious horror are to be expected. But the man is in something he has no business being in at that level. I want to see scientists in there with an established track record of putting science above their own petty egos. I want to see men and women that admit they're wrong all the time and say "cool" when that happens because mistakes teach you things. This is something politicians do not do... ever. Politicians and political movements never admit fault. They're fucking infalable to a man. They could blow their own feet off with a full clip of an automatic weapon, reload, and keep firing at their own jammed flesh and will still claim it was all part of some brilliant plan. Or just as hilarious it will all be the fault of some opponent that perverted their real intentions.
I'm fucking over it. These people are ruining science. Science is not politics. One person can contradict EVERY OTHER SCIENTIST ON EARTH... and be right. It has happened before. Is it unlikely? Sure. Here someone will say "you have to go with the majority" and I don't disagree with that. However, the politicization of the issue frankly casts some doubt on what sort of majority you have here and how it was constructed.
You find that unfai
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
If you read Oreskes book, Merchants of Doubt, she will enlighten you on the subject.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt
There is a sytematically designed, constructed and funded lobby of ideologues and investors who don't give a damn about your future, informed debate or the precautionary principle, let alone reasonable regulation of industrial activities.
Denial has become a cost of business for those who seek to delay debate or response to anything that changes their business model. Imagine how much money Big Tobacco raked in while they lied through their teeth and paid Fred Singer to discredit the growing concensus, just like various mercenary morons are doing now for Big Gas and Oil.
It is my fondest wish and desire that 300 years from now, any and all history books will name specific names of people, who will be reviled for centuries, as being the main perpetrators and promotors of the denialist movement. Their relatives and descendants will be hunted down, and relentlessly persecuted. This is my only positive thought for the future of our civilization.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Change = change = change
Those events you listed are small scale in comparison to the long-term trend we're setting ourselves up for. Even the empire-crushing changes of the past will look miniscule compared to what we're likely to see from 2080 onward.
A good book to read on the subject is "Under A Green Sky" by Peter Ward. It gives the reader a good feel for the scale of the changes that take place between major epochs.
Extinction due to climate change? What science is that based on? During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum there was a great diversification of terrestrial life. For the majority. of the time mammals have roamed the earth it has been so warm that there have been no polar ice caps, yet life kept chugging along and adapting.
I still don't understand how this is related to "denialist." How is it supposed to combat FUD? There's absolutely a ton of FUD out there, but this term is, itself, FUD.
There's no evidence that you have to resort to such a thing to combat "a sytematically designed, constructed and funded lobby of ideologues and investors who don't give a damn about your future, informed debate or the precautionary principle, let alone reasonable regulation of industrial activities."
Then you turn around and wonder why nothing gets done and appeal to the emotion of look how much profit they're making. Here's a tip: Focus on the facts.
I already think there's a clear problem, but my question is more about the logistics of solving it. This position would apparently lump me in with "denalists" - I assume the same term also apply to such "brilliant" defenses as "man can't change weather, that's ridiculous."
I could be wrong and that's not what the term means, but instead of actually clarifying what it meant, you instead just went on a diatribe about how horrible the current lobbies are. To be fair, I mostly agree with your ideas in that respect. You're awfully quick to assume things about me though. I totally buy that you aren't an ideologue either.
Oh yeah, and I just realized this. You tried to get me to purchase a book in the process instead of, you know, coming with facts or assuaging confusion. Funny thing about profit, there...
I guess making stuff up wasn't enough of a betrayal of scientific principles for the author
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
Scroll down to McIntyre and McKitrick 2003* if you forgot how you can feed random noise into Mann's analysis system and have hockey sticks pop out.
I know this will sail past the zealots but when you just put your hands over your ears and shout obscenities everytime some has doubts about your message, people have a tendency to doubt you all the more.
*I also suggest McIntyres site http://climateaudit.org/ . He goes to great lengths to do statistical analysis of the data and usually publishes the source code he uses to do the work.
Killing things with pointy sticks ought to be in the curriculum of every school age child, you know, just in case [insert worst-case-scenario-here].
breath, drink, eat, procreate, think... die.
Ahh, the simple priorities of life.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
It's based on things like this:
http://www.abc.net.au/radionat...
Here's a German example for it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Crash 2030 - Protokoll einer Katastrophe
Or if you like more alarmist ones which turned out to have been hugely wrong on some facts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Studio Telerop 2009
I'm not a sock puppet I'm a new user. We do exist you know.
And as you're a newbie, here's some advice that's generally applicable across the net: Don't. Feed. The. Trolls. When some anonymous moron starts picking on you, fight the urge to reply.
"you can feed random noise into Mann's analysis system and have hockey sticks pop out"
Oh really?
I thought it would at least require porn for most men's analysis systems before the hockey stick pops out.
Do you people understand that by pushing a line that expertise is worthless you are also setting things up so that your own expertise in your own job or profession can also be seen as worthless?
That's fine for lay preachers that see an educated clergy as agents of the devil keeping them from feeding the gullible kool-aid, but modern society is a complex technological beast that requires people with a clue if we don't want a huge number of fuckups that produce problems up to and including fatalities. Taking the luddite view is worse than a 400 year step backwards.
It got political because some people in politics were in denial of reality. Others in politics pointed that out. Then an evil bunch of pricks spent shitloads on PR opposing that because parasites feeding off the oil industry mistakenly saw discussion of climate science as a threat to their bank balance. Others loudly objected to that - and conflict sells newspapers and TV advertising time.
You are seeing the equivalent of sports commentary where something exciting has to be talked about at all times in case people switch off. That's why we've got TV time given to fucking Economists commenting on cloud formation as if they know more about it than the leading Physicists in the field. It should be as obviously ridiculous as an unpublished Physicist commenting on monetary policy.
So your rant about noise is badly misplaced, has NOTHING to do with the scientists and is best directed at Rupert Murdoch, the Heartland Institute and whatever media company is delivering the material you hate.
Yes, but population is the obvious bit everyone knows and was widely discussed over the last century. One of the results of the discussion was the "green revolution" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution) and another was the population control measures taken in China and India.
The discussion IS complete "without it" because a large number of human beings is a basic assumption taken into the discussion in the first place!
Crop yields are expected to decline because plants need more water as the temperature goes up:
We already know from historical records agriculture was better with the climate a few degrees warmer overall - also a warmer climate increases ocean evaporation, leading (as it has) to more rain in many areas.
If you are thinking regionally instead of globally, like say California, that is simply reverting to historical norms after a decade or two of above average precipitation - plus of course really badly managed water rights that hate agriculture.
As for your link, good luck with the magical thinking.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In fact I think overpopulation will be a problem in the future.
We already know from Hans Rosling that population tops out at 10 billion or so, which we can easily support (and again, a warmer climate helps with).
It's the ice ages you need to fear, those fuckers will slaughter billions.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Extinction due to climate change? What science is that based on? During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum there was a great diversification of terrestrial life
They're not antithetical. Warm periods are associated with and increase in both speciation and extinction.
Speciation is a bit limited at the moment due to greatly reduced gene pools from habitat loss, pollution, over exploitation and climate change. So this particular one will hit hard.
Sure, 95% Confidence isn't a law of the universe.
What it DOES do is helps protect against every dumb idea with a lousy, insufficient, badly mangled data set.
Toss out 95% Confidence and you get assorted idiocies like flat earth, intelligent design and particle accelerators causing black holes.
When you're doing science, ESPECIALLY science in a field where there's the potential for massive investment and massive repercussions when you get shit wrong (like climate science), you want to make SURE you're right. Not just HOPE you're right.
Otherwise, you could conceivably kill a lot of people with your fuckup.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Primates were doing fine during periods that had higher CO2 concentrations than any predicted by the IPCC.
Your idea of speciation is wrong; speciation happens when ecological niches open up; "reduced gene pools" and "habitat loss" don't prevent it, they encourage it.
Mann's original hockey stick graph doesn't matter any more. Since it was published in 1998 there have been more than a dozen similar studies using different sets of proxies and different analysis methods that all show substantially the same thing. So I guess Mann et. al. got lucky in that their answer is correct (within the margin of uncertainty) even though they did it "wrong". Your guys need to get busy showing why all of those other studies are wrong too.
Arguing the facts doesn't appear to work. Read the posts above yours. A number of them are full of assertions with no citations backing them, followed by responses citing data showing that they're wrong. In a world full of rational people wanting to have an informed debate, that would be the end. Now go back to the last story about climate change on Slashdot. You'll see the same assertions being made, by the same people, and being contradicted then too. At some point, you have to just accept that either these people have some vested interest in denying the evidence and so can't be convinced by more evidence.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
That's a misrepresentation. Feed enough different sets of red noise into the algorithm and you can get a hockey stick shaped result. Even the wikipedia article notes this;
"McIntyre and McKitrick's code selected 100 simulations with the highest "hockey stick index" from the 10,000 simulations they had carried out, and their illustrations were taken from this pre-selected 1%"
That's hardly surprising and tells you nothing about the validity of the analysis. Look at enough random data sets and you'll eventually find one that gives you the 'correct' result.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
Wow, another Climate Change (TM) article from Slashdot. Shocker.
Seriously, do you guys own stock in some "green" corporation, or are you just so incredibly leftist that you have to try and pretend this is somehow (no matter how far-reached) tech-related so you can push your agenda?
Get off your soapbox.
Primates were doing fine during periods that had higher CO2 concentrations than any predicted by the IPCC.
I don't think you could say that with confidence. Geocarbsulf is already pretty rough by 55 million years ago.
But certainly, no species of primate that is currently existent were doing fine during periods that had higher CO2 concentrations than we're going to be seeing.
Your idea of speciation is wrong; speciation happens when ecological niches open up; "reduced gene pools" and "habitat loss" don't prevent it, they encourage it.
I don't see how speciation could occur without internal variation in a species. There's nothing to differentially select for.
Moreover, within an ecological system, a drop in genetic diversity of a species can result in a drop in species biodiversity of the system, and vice-versa
The experimental results, combined with natural observations, show that in this system, the maintenance of species diversity is dependent on sufficient genetic variation, because without this variation the system would become dominated by B. nigra (if sinigrin levels are uniformly high), or by other species (if sinigrin levels are uniformly low). - Mutual Feedbacks Maintain Both Genetic and Species Diversity in a Plant Community Lankau and Strauss, NATURE, (2007)
Funny that John Michael Greer's posted just last week yet again a summary about his vision of the decline and fall of industrial civilization : http://thearchdruidreport.blog... He's excellent, as always, in integrating the knowledge of many scientific fields (including climate change science, but it is by no means the most prominent field in his work) to paint a coherent vision of the future. He's also been saying for a while that you can only really affect people by painting narratives (while dry facts tend to just bounce off).
That would be 'catastrophic man-made global warming' then. Whoops, sorry, I forgot - they renamed it 'climate change', which means something completely different, but we're meant to presume it means 'catastrophic man-made global warming' every time they use it.
www.climatedepot.com
www.wattsupwiththat.com
because they start from the same biased fucking idea, and work towards the same fucked up result!!
put your dog on a leash go for a walk .....the dog is weather he may go all manner a directions , thats why its hard to predict BUT YOU are the long term pattern and its a bit easier in fact to see how long term things have done and where we should be heading.
one of the few examples of that was in the new cosmos.
What the heck is future history?
Is it present, futue or the past?
What is bigger? The increment inherent in "future" or the decrement in "history"?
I know you think those are counter-arguments but they really are not.
The greatest diversity tends to exist immediately AFTER mass extinctions - with all the competition dead the survivors rapidly mass diversify because practically anything can survive.
Soon as the actual numbers of INDIVIDUALS go up though, the number of species starts declining again because competition is restored.
No doubt the kind of climate change humans could bring about would lead to massive diversity of life - but only after killing of the vast majority of the lifeforms here right now - including, quite possibly, ourselves.
What survives mass extinctions is generally not (typical) evolutionary advantage but sheer dumb luck because evolution adapts creatures over a long time to a particular environment. Being able to survive in a radically different environment which arises (relatively) rapidly isn't a result of natural selection over the previous generations (which selected for the old environment) but of by sheer dumb luck *also* having some traits suitable for this new environment.
We have ZERO reason to believe that humans can survive in anything other than the temperate climate phase we evolved for, and even if we did - we certainly can't assume our kind of developed existence is possible in the aftermath - it may take thousands of years to build something comparable to our world again.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Even more advice! When you want to emphasize something, don't rely on the ways old people and academics do. Do it the modern way!
Punctuate. Like. A. faggot.
See how it's done? All the cool kids are doing it! You do want to be cool, don't you? You do want the other boys to notice you, don't you?
We broke the fuckin' planet! We broke the fuckin' planet!
Save us Algore! Save us!
... we are heading for disaster -- now very visibly -- and people still have the nerve to troll here saying nothing will happen.
These folks will be saying it's everything ok _after_ all the cited problems have happened. It's like being caught on the act and never admitting, no matter how strong the proof is.
The only way out is changing the environmental problem in a political agenda: just like we boycott those who use slave labor, we might have to boycott those who practice world derangement. I suppose it could start with the EU refusing purchases from polluting countries.
There is no way to negotiate with these guys. Fscking the world is rather acceptable to them...
This, and most things like this, assume that all of us react the same way. But we don't. We're not ants in a colony. Even ants don't all react exactly the same.
Many people have reacted and have taken steps to not only lower their carbon foot print, resource usage and survivability but to make it so that their descendants will also have a better chance of surviving. In some cases these positive reactions are localized and even regionalized.
A "Collapse" is not going to be something that hits all areas equally. Rather there will be some places that are devastated, most likely urban areas who were living high on the energy hog. But there will be many rural areas where the effects will be minimal and life will go on, with some adjustments.
It's disingenuous not to see that the scientific community, as much as it is to blame as anyone, brought this distinctly on themselves.
Since the 1960s and particularly in the 1980s, scientists cheerfully have joined the debate, not as asserters of facts and data, but as political voices themselves. "We hate Ronald Ray-gun" so the Union of Concerned Scientists (among others) were histrionic in their puerile terror of nuclear weapons, despite those very weapons ensuring the longest period of great-power peace that modern civilization has seen. Scientists were at the forefront of the Silent Spring movement to ban DDT, when in fact the very experiments Rachel Carson discussed had been recognized by their originators as deeply flawed. Scientists too have repeatedly been part of the Green movement, lying down in front of trains in the 1970s and 80s to kill the entire nuclear power industry in the US - leaving us with no choice but to consume fossil fuels. Hell, I could pull up 10 web pages right now with 'scientists' explaining in detail why GMO food is deadly dangerous to consume.
This debate has often been compared as "the anti-science Right" vs "the truth". The fact is: to the bulk of the populace, Credibility matters. If you cry wolf enough times about how the sky is falling, and it never does, ultimately people stop listening...even if this time you're right.
-Styopa
Don't blame the scientist! Blame the worldwide megacorps and all the One Percenter who are bailing the massive profits and truly rule us all with their oh so subtle tyranny.
E A T
T H E
R I C H!
Or... PunctuateLike. William. Shatner... Does.
I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Isn't it strange though? I run into this in any group I'm in. People who get all spun up when all they have to do is adjust that little slider to block out the "0" and below posts.
Only downside is, they'll miss the Golden Girls posts.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Slashdot still has those people, but about 1/3rd of Slashdotters are climate denialists. They're a minority, but a very loud one.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
obligatory preface: I absolutely accept that AGW is real & trending towards all kinds of adverse consequences!
that said, what amazes me is the short-sightedness of the causation. agw is an emergent property not a cause, an aggregate effect of human overpopulation! even IF you could wave a wand & tomorrow (hell, let's say after lunch today!) every joule produced yesterday were replaced 1:1 from sources that oxidized NO carbon w/o addressing overpopulation humanity would still be screwed! why? take your pick: potable water, food supply (currently HEAVILY dependent on irrigation of said potable water and oh, yeah - petroleum based fertilizers!), antibiotic resistant bacteria, materials shortages (unless our genie created a shit ton more copper, lithium, etc when fixing our energy problem). and all THAT assumes that some f-tard w/nuclear weapons doesn't decide that their imaginary friend wants them to act on their stated desire to kick a rival imaginary friend's clique out of the disputed clubhouse. I have a joke I tell people which I really semi-believe: google* is the new library of alexandria - when they eventually crash it will plunge humanity into a new dark ages...
bottom line, this is a calculus problem where we have multiple divergent exponential functions, many (if not all) of which are functions of human population. personally, I think for there to be surviving humans in 300+ yrs to look condescendingly on us they're going to have to be a LOT smarter than to write something so sophomoric as: "if only they'd dealt with global warming..."
*yes, I know google!=internet but for layman's purposes...
The post was about alternatives to the extreme action strawman. Please do try to keep up.
It's about setting things up so the entire concept of expertise is questioned - it's where a layman can yell that you are wrong in something to do with your profession just because it makes them feel better - and then an observer is supposed to gives more credence to whoever makes the most noise instead of whoever knows what they are doing. That's what you are pushing instead of just having to prove worth to your peers or someone with a remote clue about what you do.
Personally I think that's a very stupid way to go through life with zero worth in any way unless you have no ability in anything but want to feel "special".
If our grandchildren do indeed have such an opinion of us, it will not be because of the weather, but because we have saddled them with the largest debt in the history of humanity because we could not live within our means.
is a novel by William Cushman that describes how just 24 people manage to survive an end-Permian type of extinction and actually thrive. In this book the key to survival is to screen out the psychopaths, leaving only breeding individuals with the brain structures necessary for empathy. Not a bad idea, in my view, even without a near term extinction looming over us all.
Check Amazon for the book.
Yesterday I got into a conversation about climate change with a tow truck driver. He explained to me that the geologists know it's all a fraud. At the time, I just mumbled something about, well, yes, neither of us do lab work so who can know for sure. But I'm thinking of mailing him a printout of this: http://www.geosociety.org/positions/position10.htm
There are at least two serious problems with Americans' understanding of the seriousness of our situation. The first is the continued power of the fossil fuel based companies and the banks that love them; they put the tobacco industry to shame when it comes to deceit. The second is a spectacularly pathetic media, that seems to have evolved into a group of incredibly dumb gasbags bringing in their comrades to shout at one another, leaving the impression that every issue is an ongoing debate in which the winner is the person best able to shout stupidity.
So now the end of the world is predicted to be 2093.
Al Gore said in 2006 that we have 10 years left to live before global warming killed us all.
In 1988 Ted Danson said we had 10 years left to save the oceans before we all died.
Grigori Rasputin prophesied a storm would kill us all in 2013 before Jesus returned.
Pat Robertson predicted the end of the world would come in 2009
Harold Camping predicted the "Rapture" would come first on Sept 29th 2011, but later revised this to Oct 21 2011 after it failed to occur.
History is full of failed religious end times prophecies.
I generally browse on my phone, so the comments are simply removed instead of minimized. It can lead to a lot of disconnected comments and people replying to nothing. If I want to get a quick look at the comments I'll set it to +4, but otherwise I browse at -1.
Americans in particular have been warned over and over again since the 1960's(50 years!!!) about the problems we face in the environment, and how we are degrading it.
People should be very concerned about the environment, water quality(salt water intrusion, etc) air quality(!), climate change, oceans of plastic garbage killing sea birds, the ph levels of the ocean changing and turning the seas into a pool of jelly fish, vast amounts of household and industrial waste being produced and stored in landfills, the increase of meat consumption driving the industrial meat production complex into a vast pollution and MRSA machine, etc; etc;
Oh, and the big one: Overpopulation.
Climate Change? Yea, it's a big problem, but it is sort of the cherry on top of the existing environmental issues mankind has been dealing with for the last 50 years. 50 years we have been warned over and over again, yet we ignore or deal with in a piece-meal fashion. Our reluctance to confront these problems is driven by the fact that whole industries are built upon the ease of polluting and degrading the environment, or privatizing the profits while socializing the costs. Using the watersheds and airsheds as their personal toilets.
Yes indeed, what will future historians write about how our society treated the Earth and the ecosystems we depend on?
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Here is your hockey stick from the CRU (University of East Anglia) code: valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor Lots of "science" embedded in that gem.
We can call the science settled when the scientists stop making adjustments to past measurements. That, in itself, is inexcusable.
The crux of the entire argument is what is the real world (ie. not modeled) effect of CO2 on the atmosphere. Arrhenius came up with an early estimate that is close to the IPCC estimate. He figuratively shat his pants when he first derived that number. He later adjusted it down, laughed at his mistake and had a good nights sleep.
It's a shame that there are so many who have invested their intellectual and spiritual well being on insisting that Arrhenius was right the first time. It's kind of scary how disappointed many of these same people are that the world is not coming to an end.
What will they think of next? :>
Why are your weasly qualifications ("currently exist") relevant? Humans are one of the most adaptable species around.
Fact is that complex vertebrates have been around for a long time and were doing fine with CO2 concentrations greater than 2000 ppm. (Carbon concentrations can't get any higher than that because there simply isn't enough carbon to burn.)
Furthermore, in the past 100000 years alone, humans have survived far more devastating climate chnage than any predicted from global warming: the last "ice age" (glacial period).
There is simply no plausible way in which climate change could reasonably be claimed to cause human extinction as the OP implied.
A "drop in genetic diversity" (even if it existed) doesn't mean "absence of internal variation".
The fact that there are no tigers in the ecosystem of my home doesn't mean that tigers have gone extinct.
I think what is saddest about the "climate change" debate is the misappropriation of "climate change" for a specific and small part, anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Just sitting here I can come up with three far bigger climate change problems.
Overpopulation:
Human-induced climate change of any sort would not be noticeable at all, if it weren't for the massive number of people living on Earth.
Mismanagement of resources:
If global civilization collapses in 2093, it will be because of "poor agricultural practices" not because of AGW. That is the real civilization-ender. My view on this is that if everyone on the planet started implementing good agricultural practices, then it would be very hard to notice the effects of AGW which would slightly impair a good situation. OTOH, if we focus on AGW and fix that utterly while letting agricultural policy languige, then we're slightly mitigated a global civilization-ending catastrophe.
Habitat destruction:
The relatively large amount of species extinctions are occasionally attributed to AGW or related phenomena (particularly, ocean acidification), but the dominant role of habitat destruction is routinely ignored. Even plants are mobile over the time scales that AGW happens at. But mobility doesn't matter, if you don't have anywhere to flee to.
Sure, in each case, one can argue that AGW does make the effects of each of these worse, but addressing these three while completely ignoring AGW is a far better world than addressing AGW while neglecting these three. And in my view, current proposals for dealing with AGW (by curbing economic activity associated with the release of greenhouse gases) worsen a key common contributing factor in each of the above three problems, global poverty. Poor people make more poor people, can't implement resource best practices, and use habitat inefficiently. How's that supposed to help us?
Damnit. Get the line right AC!
Don't believe in yourself, believe in the me that believes in you!
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Now show that was actually used in any published peer reviewed science rather than simply for testing the software.
Um, the climate alarmists steadfastly refuse to release their code. The only reason we have the gem of scientific wisdom above is because of a whistle blower.
...as the climate models themselves. It is becoming increasingly clear that a) climate is a chaotic system and may be forever beyond computational anticipation and b) there are entire systems affecting climate that are not being accounted for in current models. It is idiotic to pump trillions of (borrowed or outright printed on paper) dollars to "solve" a problem when we have literally no idea what, if anything, the result would be. It HAS been calculated that if we do EVERYTHING the greenies want us to do (thereby reducing ourselves to the Stone Age, complete with a Stone Age level of population) the effect within the next century would be expressed in hundredths of a degree! Get REAL, dammit!
It may well be that a hundred years from now it could well be proven that ignoring "climate change" saved us from the forthcoming Ice Age. Or it could even well be proven that we can tip the climate to a stable warm state like the dinosaurs enjoyed for so long, WITHOUT ice ages. WE DON'T KNOW! And we won't learn by pretending we already have the whole thing solved down to the last decimal.
This time, humans are around. We're a pretty good extinction event all by ourselves, even without climate change.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You're pretty behind the times. Much if not most of the code is available now. The NASA/GISS Model E, one of the main Global Climate Models is available here. The data and code for Michael Mann's original hockey stick graph are available here.
For a comment on the code in your original code see here.
One child policy anyone? Oh course everyone who can read knows.
Why are your weasly qualifications ("currently exist") relevant? Humans are one of the most adaptable species around.
Prolific, yes. Adaptable? Tarigrades beat the ever-livin' snot out of us for that.
Fact is that complex vertebrates have been around for a long time and were doing fine with CO2 concentrations greater than 2000 ppm. (Carbon concentrations can't get any higher than that because there simply isn't enough carbon to burn.)
Furthermore, in the past 100000 years alone, humans have survived far more devastating climate chnage than any predicted from global warming: the last "ice age" (glacial period).
Note the overwhelming lack of civilization over that time, with the added bonus of drops down to less than 10000 mating pairs at various points. Also note the complete lack of any other member of genus Homo still extant.
We came damn close to not making it through to today, multiple times. That is a risk that any apex species faces. Ask Megalodon.
Why are your weasly qualifications ("currently exist") relevant?
Because climate change is going to affect the species that currently exist.
The fact that the we are returning the climate to a state is was a couple of hundred million years ago is bad because the species that exist now aren't the ones that can survive in that climate.
Humans are one of the most adaptable species around.
Yes. That particular mammal is not threatened, and will probably outlast all the others barring Rattus Rattus and Rattus Norvegicus.
Fact is that complex vertebrates have been around for a long time and were doing fine with CO2 concentrations greater than 2000 ppm.
Why are your long extinct vertebrates relevant?
The question is:
Can existent species survive?
Furthermore, in the past 100000 years alone, humans have survived far more devastating climate chnage than any predicted from global warming: the last "ice age" (glacial period).
The current climate change is faster and in the wrong direction to conclude that the end of the last glaciation was "far more devastating climate change". Certainly the long descent into the glaciation wasn't devastating. That took the lions share of the 100,000 years. It was relaxing.
There is simply no plausible way in which climate change could reasonably be claimed to cause human extinction as the OP implied.
OP didn't imply that. The book is written from the perspective of a non-extinct human 300 years after the collapse.
A "drop in genetic diversity" (even if it existed) doesn't mean "absence of internal variation".
Low genetic diversity means low internal variation, because the variation is caused by genetic diversity. (Plus epigenetics also that are also genetically determined for given environmental factors).
The fact that there are no tigers in the ecosystem of my home doesn't mean that tigers have gone extinct.
I didn't say that they had. However the drop of biodiversity in Tigers in the taiga will mean that taiga species vulnerable to the particular genetic configuration of existent taiga Tigers will suffer, and others will be under selection pressure in only one direction from Tigers, and that will tend to reduce their genetic diversity. (And with it their capacity to evolve in response to changing environment, and to speciate).
Half the northern hemisphere covered in thick ice sheets was "relaxing"? Are you kidding?
OP: "And won't be nobody to write it by then if mankind loses."
The way you phrase that just shows that you have no concept of the massive swings in climate the planet has experienced over the past couple of hundred million years. There is no "state" to return to.
So what? I mean, I like tigers, but it would hardly be an ecological disaster. Tiger-like species have evolved many times independently, and they can evolve again, from other felines or other vertebrates.
You just happened to be the one here the other day regurgitating the same old shit that pisses me off, nothing more than that. I suppose the odds are increased by your inability to learn that it is shit and your willingness to repeatedly regurgitate it in front of others.
I answer your own questions about paranoia etc and you call it a "null comment"? I'm sorry if I'm ruining your petty little game where you want to put others down for your masturbatory pleasure.
Science is real you misinformation spreading dickhead.
The common flaw in future histories is that as the projected changes take place, gradually, humanity does absolutely nothing but stand by. The temperatures rise, and people do nothing. The weather goes haywire, and people do nothing. The ice melts, and people do nothing. The seas rise, and people do nothing. Think of it this way: From the time the first practical electric light bulb was invented (1879) to the installation of the first electric streetlights (1914) were installed was 35 years. If climate change is real, would humankind wait nearly 300 years to respond to its catastrophic effects?
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. ~ Mark Twain
No, the IPCC results were not all above. What you've swallowed and regurgitated is a talking point where some evil idiot put the iPCC trend on the 1988 maxima and then went "LOOK! All IPCC predictions of the trend failed! We are below the trend since 1998!".
He's so good a historian that he forgot to look at the history of climate change.
The history that started with the shear panic that climate was changing towards the cold side.
That's right... Climate Change use to be all about how to avoid a mini ice age! Global Cooling was the first chapter in the history of Climate Change. And we were all going to die back then as well. There were horrible deniers. Just like now.
History is no friend to Climate Change... now... or in 2393.
As we look back to 2014 from the year 2095 with zero global warming for almost a century we will still have the wankers insisting that the heat is hiding and going to come back any time now. As we descend from our warm inter-glacial back to the normal ice age for the next 100,000 years we will have to ask "CO2 was their concern because they thought it would warm things up???".
A question for everyone who thinks that CO2 controls the climate. How long with rising CO2 and flat or falling temperatures before you admit your theory is wrong? 20 years? 30? Never?
All 5 of the major datasets (RSS, UAH, HadCRUT4, GISS, NCDC) show no warming for between 14 and almost 18 years. In that time CO2 has risen 8-10%.
Here are 2 predictions. First I predict that CO2 will continue to increase because China and other countries don't care about CO2. They don't even care
about real pollutants much less CO2. Second I predict it will get colder over the next 20-30 years. Why?
Dr Libby in the 1970s said that "looking forward it will stay cold until the mid 80s (it did), then it will warm by about 1/4 degree F until the end of the century (it did), then it gets cold". When asked how cold she was predicting a 1-2 degree F drop with an outside chance of a 3-4 degree drop.
Dr Easterbrook in 2001 said the PDO was done it's positive warm cycle and that we were in for 25-30 years of cold weather. How cold? We have his good, bad and ugly predictions based on previous negative cold phases of the PDO.
Dr Abdusamatov in 2006 said we are at the top of the temperature sine wave and it will be 200 years of cold weather. .
Why do I join with them and side with their predictions? While past performance is not a guarantee of future correctness it is a lot better record than the IPCC and their dozens of models of which none have been accurate. They are all based on CO2 controlling the climate and the other 3 are all cyclical
natural cycles. I'll go with those who have a good track record at predicting future climate. Dr Libby is the most impressive as her prediction is 30+ years going and still accurate.
If you want to read a great explanation of why the IPCC models are broken beyond belief there was a great article describing that and all the other problems with climate science by Dr Brown of Duke university (part of this includes his posting here at /.)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/06/real-science-debates-are-not-rare/
I'm much more worried about CO2 getting too low. That would be an extinction event. We almost had one in our last ice age as the CO2 got perilously close to the 150 PPM that would cause all land based plants to die, followed shortly thereafter by all the animals that rely on the plants and then all the animals that rely on the animals that rely on the plants.
We were 170-180 PPM and that is dangerously close. I'm glad we are at 400 PPM and climbing. A nice buffer for our next glaciation which is due any time.
Half the northern hemisphere covered in thick ice sheets was "relaxing"? Are you kidding?
The 10-12 degree temperature drop took that 100,000 years, so ecosystems could migrate at a leisurely pace.
They were like that 100,000 years earlier too, so the species on the planet had co-existed with that climate.
OP: "And won't be nobody to write it by then if mankind loses."
OP is samzenpus.
The way you phrase that just shows that you have no concept of the massive swings in climate the planet has experienced over the past couple of hundred million years. There is no "state" to return to.
The carbon in fossil fuels is from that time. A time of far greater CO2 concentration than the Holocene.
Tiger-like species have evolved many times independently, and they can evolve again, from other felines or other vertebrates.
The species that we lose today are lost with respect to humanity. Cats won't speciate again on human time scales. Depending on the climate in 10 million years, a mammal or reptile might fill that niche, but that won't help Homo sapiens.
Species don't adapt to ice sheets that are a mile thick. The glaciations are recurring ecological disasters by the standard of global warming alarmists.
So what? What is your point?
Obviously, I was referring to the OP in this thread.
Help us? In what way do you imagine the loss of tigers hurts humans?They are going away because their ecological niche has been filled by us.
Futhermore, if we really wanted to fill that ecological niche, we could easily do it on human time scales.
Species don't adapt to ice sheets that are a mile thick.
Yes they did. They adapted by migration, generally.
The glaciations are recurring ecological disasters by the standard of global warming alarmists.
I'm not familiar with "global warming alarmists". Could you point me to a link where one calls the reoccurring glaciations ecological disasters?
The reason that glaciations are less disastrous than the current warming, is that the species involved had co-evolved with that climate, the change was a few orders of magnitudes slower than the current warming, and the species involved weren't already under pressure from habitat loss, over exploitation and pollution.
So what? What is your point?
The point is that your claim "There is no "state" to return to" is not really true. The aspect of the climate defined by that atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gasses is a state of the global climate that defines it in many ways. And that state doesn't suit existent species.
Help us? In what way do you imagine the loss of tigers hurts humans?
Loss of an apex predator in particular has a devastating effect on biodiversity. Do you know why dropping biodiversity hurts humans?
They are going away because their ecological niche has been filled by us.
Indeed no. They are suffering habitat loss and having their parts being valuable for TCM in china.
Futhermore, if we really wanted to fill that ecological niche, we could easily do it on human time scales.
How?
You're reasoning in isolated abstractions: "biodiversity is good for humans", "tigers dying reduces biodiversity", therefore "when tigers die, it's bad for humans"; "ice sheets move slowly and allows migrations", "AGW is fast and doesn't allow migrations", therefore "ice sheets are not as bad as AGW". With that kind of superficial reasoning, you can "prove" anything in any complex problem by just picking out the right abstractions.
Large predators are usually already evolutionary dead ends, candidates for natural extinction, and once humans have replace wild herbivores with domesticated animals, their function in the ecosystem has been superseded. Humans have killed off many apex predators in many environments over the past few millennia. Generally, the main effect has been that human livestock and humans have become safer. That's not to say that large vertebrate conservation isn't a nice thing to do: those are beautiful and interesting creatures; but they are not economically or ecologically all that important.
If you have only basic knowledge about History, you definitely know that this kind of dumb equation never works. And if you have any clues about Ancient Rome History, you know anyway that the notion of collapse is just a posture, while the Occident Empire actually evolved into something else while the Orient Empire stayed for a thousand years after the supposed collapse.
Naomi.
Historian.
Stick to that, woman.
Playing futurist only makes your look a bigger idiot that you already are.
On the other hand, you can blow hot air as much as you like, just don't attempt to tax us for it. If you want to go extinct, please do, but don't drag us into your scheme.
You're reasoning in isolated abstractions: "biodiversity is good for humans"
That's pretty well accepted.
The argument you see in textbooks is that the interdepedence of ecological systems is such that at it is difficult to know what species are key to our own survival. so dropping biodiversity is like playing Russian Roulette. (Of course the rich will be able to supplement, but I mean key to our own cheap survival).
But more importantly to me is the intellectual resource. Each species comes with it's unique proteins and biological processes. Losing them without studying them is a permanent loss to our knowledge, and future study is more likely to have useful results than current study, as our understanding of the biochemistry allows fuller understanding and so utilization of the processes observed.
"tigers dying reduces biodiversity"
I linked to a paper with this (generalized) result: reduced genetic diversity withing species reduces biodiversity of other species in the ecosystem.
"ice sheets move slowly and allows migrations"
The species in current existence have survived the repeated glaciation cycle of the holocene. The current warming is more rapid, and in the wrong direction.
With that kind of superficial reasoning, you can "prove" anything in any complex problem by just picking out the right abstractions.
I think you're ignoring the proofs. If you think one of them is wrong, we can delve into it. But read the paper linking genetic diversity to biodiversity first.
Large predators are usually already evolutionary dead ends, candidates for natural extinction
That seems like an isolated abstraction. Do you have any science-based evidence of this claim?
Humans have killed off many apex predators in many environments over the past few millennia.
Can you give a few examples?
Generally, the main effect has been that human livestock and humans have become safer.
Do you have any science-based evidence of this claim? I think that it is wrong. When you remove an apex predator, biodiversity crashes.
Of course it does. Biodiversity has "crashed" all over Europe. Over large areas of Western Europe, there are no large carnivores or wild herbivores anymore. You can go into a forest in Germany or France and know that the only creature that is going to be dangerous to you is H. sapiens. Most of the forests of Europe are a few, human-selected species, and so are orchards, meadows, and fields. Are Europeans dropping like flies as a result? Are they starving? Has Europe turned into a lifeless desert? Of course not. Europeans have some of the highest living standards in the world and there is virtually no hunger. (Biodiversity in the US is much larger, of course, which is something that's really nice about this country, but that's a historical accident of how we developed.)
You're absolutely right: the poor (i.e., people living in poor countries) are most affected by a loss of biodiversity, while the rich (i.e., people living in the US and Europe) are not affected at all by it. However, once countries are rich, they are then able to afford preservation of biodiversity and the environment. That's why the best strategy is to not interfere; if you impose environmental regulations too early, you risk economic stagnation, which prolongs the phase during which an industrialized nation is most polluting and most destructive to the environment.
That's all true: biodiversity is definitely desirable. But saying that we are "playing Russian Roulette" when you really mean "we might find some useful drugs and scientific results" is dishonest, and such dishonesty ultimately hurts the cause of biodiversity and environmental protection. Being a shrill advocate for the environment and biodiversity does not make you an effective advocate for the environment and biodiversity.
(I'm not going to bother to reply point-by-point to your other biology-related statements, other than to say that I find them ludicrous and completely out of touch with actual science.)