In "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors", Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan write of a study done on overpopulation in animal societies. Rats went nuts, apes held out a little longer, and chimpanzees held out the longest. It looks like, thus far, humans hold the record. The point is, there's a lot of this type of thing floating around these days, it seems. Perhaps because of the media we just happen to pay more attention to it, or are just now realizing what's been with us all along. Or perhaps this is all a sign of an overcrowded population doing a bad job of coping with a crowded habitat and diminishing resources.
The ESA has data showing Greenland's ice mass getting bigger. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/greenland_ icesheet_growing.html?4112005
I don't doubt that human existence is causing some changes in the Earth's environment, but I doubt we've hit the point of no return yet.
Besides, if we're ever going to colonize nearby space, we'll needs lots of water. And since this is the only planet we know of to have vast amounts of liquid water (and certainly the only one we readily have access to), perhaps it's not such a bad thing that all the Earth's ice is melting. Adaptation has worked for our species before, I'm sure it can work again.
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In "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors", Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan write of a study done on overpopulation in animal societies. Rats went nuts, apes held out a little longer, and chimpanzees held out the longest. It looks like, thus far, humans hold the record. The point is, there's a lot of this type of thing floating around these days, it seems. Perhaps because of the media we just happen to pay more attention to it, or are just now realizing what's been with us all along. Or perhaps this is all a sign of an overcrowded population doing a bad job of coping with a crowded habitat and diminishing resources.
The ESA has data showing Greenland's ice mass getting bigger._ icesheet_growing.html?4112005
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/greenland
I don't doubt that human existence is causing some changes in the Earth's environment, but I doubt we've hit the point of no return yet. Besides, if we're ever going to colonize nearby space, we'll needs lots of water. And since this is the only planet we know of to have vast amounts of liquid water (and certainly the only one we readily have access to), perhaps it's not such a bad thing that all the Earth's ice is melting. Adaptation has worked for our species before, I'm sure it can work again.