You both entirely miss my point and validate it at the same time. I'm pointing out the fact that SOMEONE is responsible for this decision. A human. Government likes very much to hide behind committees and collective responsiblity; personally, I believe that this is the root of many of the issues we face today.
Find the person who was in charge of the committee who made the decision. Make them directly, publicly, and personally responsible for this decision. Then move on to the next committee. I can't think of any other way to motivate these people to take their roles as servants to the public more seriously.
I couldn't care less for whomever is the current leader of the UK.
As far as the current government of the US, yes, I feel the current leader is a toady to special interests, but so were the former presidents, going back to about Kennedy.
Because the goal of the police is to do their job with a minimum of risk to the public and property.
The fact is that the easiest time to do this is the middle of the night. Not just easiest, but safest.
People are more generally compliant if they're woken from a sound sleep. Further, even if they aren't asleep, they're tired, their thinking is muddled, and they are generally low on energy.
Finally, all the 'day-trippers' have gone home. I have no idea of the proportion of hardcore overnighters vs. the ones just coming down each day, but obviously there are going to be far fewer bodies to deal with/object to whatever the police are doing.
Of course, add to this that the street traffic is going to be lower at that time, and and the reduced number of 'innocent' bystanders - really there aren't many reasons NOT to do it at 1am or later.
Barring the press? I don't really believe there's any way to see that except cynically, although perhaps it's justified again by public-safety concerns: if the press were widely covering the event, more likely more people are going to rush downtown to try to stop it.
But to answer your earlier question: why don't they just leave them alone? As justified as their protests may be, they're simply NOT entitled to occupy private property forever, and do whatever they want there. Personally, if the owner of the property wants them gone, I'd have firehosed them away day one if they refused to move on.
...so if the government were headed with a real leader (ie instead of a toady to their special-interests), they would confront whoever was the HEAD of the board that made such a statement.
They could discuss the fact that while some government activities necessarily need such protections ("we'd tell you but it's too secret!"), the corrosive and pernicious nature of such justifications when they are revealed to be absolute bullshit makes it critical that any government official resorting to said evasion to protect what is otherwise a weakly-justified decision needs to be punished in the most public and visceral way to show that we (the Government) bears that public trust most seriously.
And then punch them in the face, knock them to the ground, and fire them - banning them from ever working for the government in ANY capacity, ever.
What are the odds that would happen?
As an American, I would love that to happen more here, too.
"For a device that is entirely about media consumption, the Fire will live or die depending on its perceived alacrity."
No, not at all. That's the measure about whether it's an iPad.
It's not.
The fact is that (I believe) many people will be happy to save $hundred$ in exchange for a little menu-lag. The Fire will live or die depending on its perceived VALUE.
HP Touchpads failed as a market product, but FLEW off the shelves at a lower pricepoint. That has NOTHING to do with how 'quickly' it displayed stuff....that didn't change between the earlier and later sell-rates.
"But buying an actual Kindle device limits you to the Kindle eBook marketplace."
Why do you say that? I've got a Kindle full of txt files, Gutenberg press titles, pdfs, and a whole host of ebooks I didn't get from the kindle marketplace?
Minecraft is what Lego Universe SHOULD have been. Simple as that.
It's a perfect example of a giant megacorp throwing money at an idea and getting a feeble copy of what's already out there already.
Want to rescue this? Lego could go to Notch and buy him out, BUT LEAVE HIM IN CONTROL. Give him the dream-amounts of money he needs to implement his fantasy-level of optimal features in Minecraft (and to remodel the blocks with the obligatory lego structure...).
FYI I find it a useful time saving device to simply stop reading any post by the second time I see the word "should". Could you summarize the bit after that?
To suggest that the 'poor scientists at Los Alamos' have a difficult time being messed-with by the politicians is a touch disingenuous unless one mentions that the facilities have had a spate of data losses, espionage, and a number of other problems that have given the political class a REASON to stick their noses in.
And while we're at it, I'm going to guess that this exact same cri di couer could have been issued by scientists in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s. IANANS, but I'm going to guess that the level of government crap Los Alamos' scientists have had to put up with is extremely high pretty much ALL the time.
"Why is there such emphasis on university degrees in the job market?" My opinion is that it has everything to do with government aid for students to go to college.
It used to be (as I understood it) that college was a perk for the wealthy. The only non-wealthy that could go to college were the extraordinary standouts who qualified for merit-based scholarships.
The moment someone said "we need to level the playing field so poor people can go to college just like the wealthy" - the system was fucked. Suddenly there's a wash of government money, and a cycle of increasing benefits/tuition for 30 years.
Look at FAFSA - the foundation of modern US government-guided college aid/payment. It has NOTHING - I repeat - NOTHING to do with merit. Your parents make below a certain amount? You go to college for free thanks to Uncle Sugar.
Now that every kid can get a degree, does it surprise anyone that such is a simple requirement for business to set to cull a goodly chunk of underachievers? Not that everyone without a degree is necessarily an underachiever, but with the system making it SO EASY to get a degree, it's a probably a fairly high correlation.
I don't disagree with you in principle, but the fact is that major sports programs BRING MONEY INTO THE SCHOOL.
Put it another way, "sports" were the original reality-programming and appeal to the widest possible demographic. According to http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/dataFiles/EADA%202009-2010.zip, U of TX football program brought in USD 90 million in 09-10.
This is in purely declared, traceable revenue. How much "other" income is available, in terms of the patronage of multimillion-dollar athletes? I know a local Div 3 football school (ie no athletic scholarships for football) whose team just went and played in Mexico at an NCAA-sanctioned exhibition game. A single alumnus paid for EVERYTHING, plane tix, hotels, food, not to mention probably coach per diems, etc. That alumnus is probably good for some other donations on a regular basis, no?
And as to your suggestion, it's already there: I graduated from High School in 1986 and was in the first year of a program where HS students could take college courses. I was done with 2/3 of my 1st year college credits when I actually started college.
Further, if he's so grossly mischaracterized, let's see Pianka sue Mims in court for libel.
If this is as obvious as claimed, it should be a slam-dunk.
It's amusing that this is being referred to as the 'Swiftboating' of Pianka...as far as I could tell, the factual assertions against John Kerry's record were never actually contested - the complaint was about how much publicity they got and how it negatively impacted (then-candidate) Kerry.
It makes me wonder if "Swiftboating" is perhaps perfectly descriptive here too - it's more about the crocodile tears of the people objecting to the revelation, than any actual inaccuracy about the facts revealed.
The reaction to Pianka's speech was extreme, certainly. The determined effort at post-speech spin was almost as extreme.
The best site I could find that reviewed what he said was http://www.pearceyreport.com/archives/2006/04/transcript_dr_d.php - this wasn't a transcript released later once he'd realized the reaction - on this site, they transcribe what he said from audio taken at the time.
Let me give you some excerpts: "We could not have reached six and a half billion if it werenâ(TM)t for fossil fuels, to do agriculture and feed the hordes of humans around the earth. And the fossil fuels are running out. So I think we might have to cut back to, say, two billion, which would be about one-third as many people."
"...So this is what we need. We need to sterilize everybody on the Earth [laughter] and make the antidote freely available to anybody whoâ(TM)s willing to work for it.
Immediately you'd get responsible parenthood. No more juvenile delinquents, unwanted kids. You have a kid, you had to work, and you had only a few seconds to do it in. [Extended laughter]..."
So - considering that whoever was recording that didn't start until after they'd heard something pretty shocking, I don't find his comments inconsistent with the idea that he was talking hypothetically and positively about the death of 90% of humanity. Does he say it in that transcript? Nope, he doesn't, not specifically.
Put it this way - if you heard something about what George Bush said, something extreme, and there was a huge reaction? Would you trust the transcript put out later?
And no, it's pretty clear that Wiki is a shitty source for anything controversial.
"...scientists, on average, are not crazed alarmists....Their language is conservative, a wide range of speculation must be admitted for consideration but they're going to err on the side of caution." Really? http://news.iskcon.com/node/509 "In late 2006, the Texas Academy of Science chose to honor one Professor Eric R. Pianka, an eminent ecologist who studies desert ecologies, with its 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist award. Professor Pianka used the occasion to champion the notion, apparently without sanction of the Academy, that the Earth can only be saved if ninety percent of the human beings alive today are purged from the planet. He championed airborne Ebola as the most efficient virus to accomplish this..." This is a distinguished, honored scientist.
"I can't fathom why anyone's having kids." We're all actually perfectly fine with you not having any. Clearly Darwin favors optimists.
How about "That Department we disbanded in 2012 because we all recognized the stupidity of security theater and the costs in wealth and public good of the ridiculous overreaction to 9/11 cost us?"
"'Due to some technical limitations, a visual message indicating that "this is a test" may not pop up on every TV channel, especially where people use cable to receive their television stations.'"
So can we say in advance that that aspect of the test quite clearly FAILS?/facepalm
I'm not sure that wouldn't reasonably be countered by the adrenaline/motivation of the significance of the mission. First humans on another planet? Does it get bigger than that ever?
In fact, I'd almost think that the long term effects of this motivation/stress might be even greater than the fear-factor.
Or the mass of 2 of each of the 30 million animal species? Or the ability of him to save both salt- and freshwater fish? Or the time it would take 2 examples of each species or, say, snails to travel from (say) the opposite side of the world, or at least the poles, to his ark? Or the logical impossibility of the entire land surface of the planet being covered with water...and then not?
Seriously, one really doesn't need much explanation to see that the Noah story simply cannot be literally true.
Now, the idea that it's some catastrophic flood event in the Black Sea region that's been historically exaggerated over the retellings, and then cast into a morality tale by some ancient finger-wagger? THAT'S entirely credible.
1) "proves to be a deviation from" = is different than 2) how was the former use of lasers to down mosquitos 'dangerous'? I never saw anything about any observed or postulated danger to people unless they happen to vibrate precisely at the frequency of a female mosquito's wings?
"Without Creationism, Christianity collapses entirely because Yahweh has no original sin with Which to condemn us all to Hell from the start."
You're right, the Creation story is intrinsic to the concept of Original Sin. But not "sin" in general.
In my 44 years on this planet, both in reviewing my own behavior and observing the behavior of others - there's no lack of sin, so I'm not sure the concept of New Testament Christianity (that Jesus died for our sins) "collapses entirely".
I see the teeming masses of humans as little more than clever monkeys that have managed to harness fire, and due no special consideration for their comfort and ease than I'd offer 7 billion lemmings.
Put it this way: I recognize that the tide rises and falls over time. I further recognize that building my hut on a dry patch of sand is going to EVENTUALLY require my either accommodation to the tide or my drowning. I recognize ultimately that standing there INSISTING that the tide stop because I happen to be very comfortable and happy here is...well, stupid.
Flooding cities and the prognostications of widespread death and disorder simply don't bother me. Nobody planted London (or New Orleans, to use a more proximate example) where it was for the sanctity of that spot over millenia. Now that our so-called centers of civilization are indeed past the thousand-year mark, one might be more surprised that they've survived as relatively unscathed as they have. Those centers were located there because it was a convenient compromise between convenience and RELATIVE security from the troubles of the (relative) moment - flooding probably being one of these, but not very high on the list of concerns. But over a long enough span, all human works WILL BE DESTROYED....any other expectation is naive.
This is neither denial nor delusion - it's simple rationality, devoid of maudlin sentimentalism for the works or lives of humanity. I see in your comment what ACTUALLY motivates much of the environmental-disaster fears: fears that we might be discomforted, fear of change, fear of being forced to confront our mortality. That's not a slam at all, it's human. But it's also pretty animal.
We're supposed to be fairly smart - we should be able to deal with long term climate change better than water buffaloes or butterflies. If we won't/can't, then we deserve the same fate. Period.
"...it is changing faster than at anytime in the history of the planet..."
This is simply a religious statement that cannot be backed up by facts.
None of the historical records have a useful resolution below centuries, and in point of fact the 'noise' illustrated by all of those measurements exceeds the warming projected by even the catastrophists. In further fact, I can point to many great spans of planetary history where the temperature was SIGNIFICANTLY warmer and colder than today, both of which resolved to the stable system of today despite perturbatory spikes (in many cases, comparable in rate-of-change to what we're seeing today) again exceeding the catastrophists' worst nightmares.
Personally, it's neither delusion nor denial that allows me to recognize that a) the tide regularly rises, and b) it makes far more sense to plan to accommodate it, than to insist that we build our houses on the lowest patch of dry sand today and then INSIST it stop rising because we happen to like it here.
(And, for what it's worth, I'll cheerfully agree that moving away from our addiction to fossil fuels is absolutely a good idea.)
But when you compare the impact of CO2 (as a total) on global warming (0.4% of atmosphere) vs water vapor (0.4%-4%), their respective impact on radiative cooling, and then compare that to the human fraction of CO2, yes, I'd say that our realistic potential delta in CO2 emissions borders on the trivial.
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You both entirely miss my point and validate it at the same time.
I'm pointing out the fact that SOMEONE is responsible for this decision. A human.
Government likes very much to hide behind committees and collective responsiblity; personally, I believe that this is the root of many of the issues we face today.
Find the person who was in charge of the committee who made the decision. Make them directly, publicly, and personally responsible for this decision. Then move on to the next committee.
I can't think of any other way to motivate these people to take their roles as servants to the public more seriously.
I couldn't care less for whomever is the current leader of the UK.
As far as the current government of the US, yes, I feel the current leader is a toady to special interests, but so were the former presidents, going back to about Kennedy.
Because the goal of the police is to do their job with a minimum of risk to the public and property.
The fact is that the easiest time to do this is the middle of the night. Not just easiest, but safest.
People are more generally compliant if they're woken from a sound sleep. Further, even if they aren't asleep, they're tired, their thinking is muddled, and they are generally low on energy.
Finally, all the 'day-trippers' have gone home. I have no idea of the proportion of hardcore overnighters vs. the ones just coming down each day, but obviously there are going to be far fewer bodies to deal with/object to whatever the police are doing.
Of course, add to this that the street traffic is going to be lower at that time, and and the reduced number of 'innocent' bystanders - really there aren't many reasons NOT to do it at 1am or later.
Barring the press? I don't really believe there's any way to see that except cynically, although perhaps it's justified again by public-safety concerns: if the press were widely covering the event, more likely more people are going to rush downtown to try to stop it.
But to answer your earlier question: why don't they just leave them alone?
As justified as their protests may be, they're simply NOT entitled to occupy private property forever, and do whatever they want there. Personally, if the owner of the property wants them gone, I'd have firehosed them away day one if they refused to move on.
For which the US is appreciative.
We have enough people here or coming here that don't like it, don't need more.
Thanks!
...so if the government were headed with a real leader (ie instead of a toady to their special-interests), they would confront whoever was the HEAD of the board that made such a statement.
They could discuss the fact that while some government activities necessarily need such protections ("we'd tell you but it's too secret!"), the corrosive and pernicious nature of such justifications when they are revealed to be absolute bullshit makes it critical that any government official resorting to said evasion to protect what is otherwise a weakly-justified decision needs to be punished in the most public and visceral way to show that we (the Government) bears that public trust most seriously.
And then punch them in the face, knock them to the ground, and fire them - banning them from ever working for the government in ANY capacity, ever.
What are the odds that would happen?
As an American, I would love that to happen more here, too.
"For a device that is entirely about media consumption, the Fire will live or die depending on its perceived alacrity."
No, not at all.
That's the measure about whether it's an iPad.
It's not.
The fact is that (I believe) many people will be happy to save $hundred$ in exchange for a little menu-lag. The Fire will live or die depending on its perceived VALUE.
HP Touchpads failed as a market product, but FLEW off the shelves at a lower pricepoint. That has NOTHING to do with how 'quickly' it displayed stuff....that didn't change between the earlier and later sell-rates.
Capitalism 101, for those of you in academia.
"But buying an actual Kindle device limits you to the Kindle eBook marketplace."
Why do you say that? I've got a Kindle full of txt files, Gutenberg press titles, pdfs, and a whole host of ebooks I didn't get from the kindle marketplace?
Minecraft is what Lego Universe SHOULD have been. Simple as that.
It's a perfect example of a giant megacorp throwing money at an idea and getting a feeble copy of what's already out there already.
Want to rescue this? Lego could go to Notch and buy him out, BUT LEAVE HIM IN CONTROL. Give him the dream-amounts of money he needs to implement his fantasy-level of optimal features in Minecraft (and to remodel the blocks with the obligatory lego structure...).
FYI I find it a useful time saving device to simply stop reading any post by the second time I see the word "should". Could you summarize the bit after that?
...but this doesn't happen in a vacuum.
To suggest that the 'poor scientists at Los Alamos' have a difficult time being messed-with by the politicians is a touch disingenuous unless one mentions that the facilities have had a spate of data losses, espionage, and a number of other problems that have given the political class a REASON to stick their noses in.
And while we're at it, I'm going to guess that this exact same cri di couer could have been issued by scientists in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s. IANANS, but I'm going to guess that the level of government crap Los Alamos' scientists have had to put up with is extremely high pretty much ALL the time.
"Why is there such emphasis on university degrees in the job market?"
My opinion is that it has everything to do with government aid for students to go to college.
It used to be (as I understood it) that college was a perk for the wealthy. The only non-wealthy that could go to college were the extraordinary standouts who qualified for merit-based scholarships.
The moment someone said "we need to level the playing field so poor people can go to college just like the wealthy" - the system was fucked. Suddenly there's a wash of government money, and a cycle of increasing benefits/tuition for 30 years.
Look at FAFSA - the foundation of modern US government-guided college aid/payment. It has NOTHING - I repeat - NOTHING to do with merit. Your parents make below a certain amount? You go to college for free thanks to Uncle Sugar.
Now that every kid can get a degree, does it surprise anyone that such is a simple requirement for business to set to cull a goodly chunk of underachievers? Not that everyone without a degree is necessarily an underachiever, but with the system making it SO EASY to get a degree, it's a probably a fairly high correlation.
I don't disagree with you in principle, but the fact is that major sports programs BRING MONEY INTO THE SCHOOL.
Put it another way, "sports" were the original reality-programming and appeal to the widest possible demographic. According to http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/dataFiles/EADA%202009-2010.zip, U of TX football program brought in USD 90 million in 09-10.
This is in purely declared, traceable revenue. How much "other" income is available, in terms of the patronage of multimillion-dollar athletes? I know a local Div 3 football school (ie no athletic scholarships for football) whose team just went and played in Mexico at an NCAA-sanctioned exhibition game. A single alumnus paid for EVERYTHING, plane tix, hotels, food, not to mention probably coach per diems, etc. That alumnus is probably good for some other donations on a regular basis, no?
And as to your suggestion, it's already there: I graduated from High School in 1986 and was in the first year of a program where HS students could take college courses. I was done with 2/3 of my 1st year college credits when I actually started college.
Further, if he's so grossly mischaracterized, let's see Pianka sue Mims in court for libel.
If this is as obvious as claimed, it should be a slam-dunk.
It's amusing that this is being referred to as the 'Swiftboating' of Pianka...as far as I could tell, the factual assertions against John Kerry's record were never actually contested - the complaint was about how much publicity they got and how it negatively impacted (then-candidate) Kerry.
It makes me wonder if "Swiftboating" is perhaps perfectly descriptive here too - it's more about the crocodile tears of the people objecting to the revelation, than any actual inaccuracy about the facts revealed.
The reaction to Pianka's speech was extreme, certainly.
The determined effort at post-speech spin was almost as extreme.
The best site I could find that reviewed what he said was http://www.pearceyreport.com/archives/2006/04/transcript_dr_d.php
- this wasn't a transcript released later once he'd realized the reaction - on this site, they transcribe what he said from audio taken at the time.
Let me give you some excerpts:
"We could not have reached six and a half billion if it werenâ(TM)t for fossil fuels, to do agriculture and feed the hordes of humans around the earth. And the fossil fuels are running out. So I think we might have to cut back to, say, two billion, which would be about one-third as many people."
"...So this is what we need. We need to sterilize everybody on the Earth [laughter] and make the antidote freely available to anybody whoâ(TM)s willing to work for it.
Immediately you'd get responsible parenthood. No more juvenile delinquents, unwanted kids. You have a kid, you had to work, and you had only a few seconds to do it in. [Extended laughter] ..."
So - considering that whoever was recording that didn't start until after they'd heard something pretty shocking, I don't find his comments inconsistent with the idea that he was talking hypothetically and positively about the death of 90% of humanity. Does he say it in that transcript? Nope, he doesn't, not specifically.
Put it this way - if you heard something about what George Bush said, something extreme, and there was a huge reaction? Would you trust the transcript put out later?
And no, it's pretty clear that Wiki is a shitty source for anything controversial.
"...scientists, on average, are not crazed alarmists. ...Their language is conservative, a wide range of speculation must be admitted for consideration but they're going to err on the side of caution."
Really? http://news.iskcon.com/node/509
"In late 2006, the Texas Academy of Science chose to honor one Professor Eric R. Pianka, an eminent ecologist who studies desert ecologies, with its 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist award. Professor Pianka used the occasion to champion the notion, apparently without sanction of the Academy, that the Earth can only be saved if ninety percent of the human beings alive today are purged from the planet. He championed airborne Ebola as the most efficient virus to accomplish this..."
This is a distinguished, honored scientist.
"I can't fathom why anyone's having kids."
We're all actually perfectly fine with you not having any. Clearly Darwin favors optimists.
How about "That Department we disbanded in 2012 because we all recognized the stupidity of security theater and the costs in wealth and public good of the ridiculous overreaction to 9/11 cost us?"
Or is that too long?
"'Due to some technical limitations, a visual message indicating that "this is a test" may not pop up on every TV channel, especially where people use cable to receive their television stations.'"
So can we say in advance that that aspect of the test quite clearly FAILS? /facepalm
I'm not sure that wouldn't reasonably be countered by the adrenaline/motivation of the significance of the mission. First humans on another planet? Does it get bigger than that ever?
In fact, I'd almost think that the long term effects of this motivation/stress might be even greater than the fear-factor.
....for the next HP sell-off, after which someone jailbreaks the product and makes it actually useful.
Or the mass of 2 of each of the 30 million animal species?
Or the ability of him to save both salt- and freshwater fish?
Or the time it would take 2 examples of each species or, say, snails to travel from (say) the opposite side of the world, or at least the poles, to his ark?
Or the logical impossibility of the entire land surface of the planet being covered with water...and then not?
Seriously, one really doesn't need much explanation to see that the Noah story simply cannot be literally true.
Now, the idea that it's some catastrophic flood event in the Black Sea region that's been historically exaggerated over the retellings, and then cast into a morality tale by some ancient finger-wagger? THAT'S entirely credible.
1) "proves to be a deviation from" = is different than
2) how was the former use of lasers to down mosquitos 'dangerous'? I never saw anything about any observed or postulated danger to people unless they happen to vibrate precisely at the frequency of a female mosquito's wings?
At least prisoners are otherwise able to get game consoles. Otherwise prison would be downright inhumane....almost like PUNISHMENT.
"Without Creationism, Christianity collapses entirely because Yahweh has no original sin with Which to condemn us all to Hell from the start."
You're right, the Creation story is intrinsic to the concept of Original Sin. But not "sin" in general.
In my 44 years on this planet, both in reviewing my own behavior and observing the behavior of others - there's no lack of sin, so I'm not sure the concept of New Testament Christianity (that Jesus died for our sins) "collapses entirely".
And that's where we part company.
I see the teeming masses of humans as little more than clever monkeys that have managed to harness fire, and due no special consideration for their comfort and ease than I'd offer 7 billion lemmings.
Put it this way: I recognize that the tide rises and falls over time. I further recognize that building my hut on a dry patch of sand is going to EVENTUALLY require my either accommodation to the tide or my drowning. I recognize ultimately that standing there INSISTING that the tide stop because I happen to be very comfortable and happy here is...well, stupid.
Flooding cities and the prognostications of widespread death and disorder simply don't bother me. Nobody planted London (or New Orleans, to use a more proximate example) where it was for the sanctity of that spot over millenia. Now that our so-called centers of civilization are indeed past the thousand-year mark, one might be more surprised that they've survived as relatively unscathed as they have. Those centers were located there because it was a convenient compromise between convenience and RELATIVE security from the troubles of the (relative) moment - flooding probably being one of these, but not very high on the list of concerns. But over a long enough span, all human works WILL BE DESTROYED....any other expectation is naive.
This is neither denial nor delusion - it's simple rationality, devoid of maudlin sentimentalism for the works or lives of humanity. I see in your comment what ACTUALLY motivates much of the environmental-disaster fears: fears that we might be discomforted, fear of change, fear of being forced to confront our mortality. That's not a slam at all, it's human. But it's also pretty animal.
We're supposed to be fairly smart - we should be able to deal with long term climate change better than water buffaloes or butterflies. If we won't/can't, then we deserve the same fate. Period.
"...it is changing faster than at anytime in the history of the planet..."
This is simply a religious statement that cannot be backed up by facts.
None of the historical records have a useful resolution below centuries, and in point of fact the 'noise' illustrated by all of those measurements exceeds the warming projected by even the catastrophists. In further fact, I can point to many great spans of planetary history where the temperature was SIGNIFICANTLY warmer and colder than today, both of which resolved to the stable system of today despite perturbatory spikes (in many cases, comparable in rate-of-change to what we're seeing today) again exceeding the catastrophists' worst nightmares.
Personally, it's neither delusion nor denial that allows me to recognize that
a) the tide regularly rises, and
b) it makes far more sense to plan to accommodate it, than to insist that we build our houses on the lowest patch of dry sand today and then INSIST it stop rising because we happen to like it here.
I agree those are tremendous numbers.
(And, for what it's worth, I'll cheerfully agree that moving away from our addiction to fossil fuels is absolutely a good idea.)
But when you compare the impact of CO2 (as a total) on global warming (0.4% of atmosphere) vs water vapor (0.4%-4%), their respective impact on radiative cooling, and then compare that to the human fraction of CO2, yes, I'd say that our realistic potential delta in CO2 emissions borders on the trivial.