... and the next time we get a story on it, make sure to tag it ohgodsomeonewilltagthisohgodsomeonewilltagthisshar ks.
[Apologies for the interpolated space; it is a `feature' of Slashdot.]
I don't know why anyone is every surprised when stuff goes wrong on missions, or equipment breaks down. Nasa is a governmental agency and as such has a big beaurocratic morass...
NASA was a governmental agency when they successfully landed human beings on the moon and brought them safely back to earth. They were a governmental agency when they sent out Voyager 1, currently leaving the solar system and still operational after thirty years. Certainly NASA's administration appears to have been getting a bit top-heavy of late, but it's short-sighted to put that down to the simple fact of NASA being a governmental agency.
The fact is, space exploration is hard. Things go wrong all the time, on both commercial and government-agency missions. For a far more dramatic commercial-sector cock-up, you only have to look back two weeks to the latest Sea Launch disaster.
I'm all for private investment in space, but as far as I know no commercial mission has yet made it out of Earth's gravity well. Good luck to Burt Rutan et al., but I think it'll be a while before they land anyone on the moon, or get a probe as far as Mars.
Notice the X11 logo in the window? It's a Linux app running on OS X.
It's an application released for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. As I have demonstrated, the import dialog works on Linux. As you have demonstrated, it doesn't work on Mac OS X.
Let's just reiterate: on Linux, the problem you are describing does not occur. On Mac OS X, it does occur.
And yet you seem to infer from this that the problem with your Mac OS X application is, for some reason, the fault of Linux. I'm afraid I don't follow your reasoning.
This is the "Import" dialog in the OS X port of Inkscape.
Erm... so you're complaining about Linux usability on the basis that you're having trouble with an application on OS X? Oddly enough, that selfsame dialog works perfectly under Linux. Maybe it's an OS X bug you've run into.
And of course I'm ignoring the millions of other things wrong with that open dialog when running in Mac OS X.
Which is very considerate given that we're discussing the usability of Linux, not the usability of Mac OS X.
I still dont see what makes people think they have the right to a fair trial from companies. If you use their product, you're subject to the terms and conditions that go with that product.
Three points:
1. Who says I'm using their product? They conduct the audit on the assumption that I am. If I have never bought a copy of Windows in my life, what on earth would give them the right to march into my premises searching for the copies of Windows that I don't own?
2. Having read the XP Professional EULA, I can't find anything about consenting to searches of my property. I may have missed it, though. Could you refer me to the relevant paragraph, please?
3. If such a paragraph does exist, is it enforceable in law? AIUI, the enforceability of click-through and shrinkwrap licenses is still in doubt. Furthermore, there are certain statutory rights which can't be signed away. I would suspect that the right not have strangers rifling through your personal property is once of these, though IANAL.
In the UK, the TV Licensing Authority has no right to enter my home, even if they believe I am operating an unlicensed television. The RSPCA has no right to enter my home, even if they believe I am torturing my dog. Now, I realize that I didn't sign a EULA for my TV or dog, but I was under the impression that some kind of court order is necessary before some random organization can barge into my premises to conduct a search. Hell, even the police need a search warrant... right?
If their solution is disagreeable, use other software.
I still can't see what gives them the right to assume guilt until innocence is proven. They demand an audit based on their perception that you haven't bought enough of their software, and AFAICT they act as if this gives them a right to waste your time proving your innocence. Why on earth is software a special case here? It would be impossible to run a business if every industry sector behaved in the same way.
*knock knock* "Hello?" "We're from the Business Furniture Alliance, representing Office World, Staples, and several other major furniture retailers. According to our clients' records, you haven't purchased enough office desks to run a business of this size. We suspect you've been stealing your office furniture from one of our clients." "Not that it's any of your business, but we got a local carpenter to run up some desks for us..." "A likely tale. We're going to have to audit your furniture. I hope you have a few days free." "Kindly bugger off and d-- hang on, who's that?" "Good morning sir or madam, I'm from the Business Carpeting Alliance. Our records show that..."
>> The more promising the view, the steeper the cliff...
>...nevermind the fact that vistas are not at all synonymous with cliffs.
Ah, but vistas are synonymous with views. Come on, there were only two nouns in GP's sentence, and the first of them was synonymous with "vista". You have to go out of your way to misunderstand that one.
> Oh, and also that cliffs are all steep by definition.
Well observed; however, it is nevertheless possible for one cliff to be steeper than another cliff.
It is try that there is a _correlation_ between living under power lines and incidents of leukemia (maybe people who live under power lines are poor and eat crappy foods and therefore get leukemia?)
It is still disputed (last I heard, Childhood Cancer Research Group says yes but Childhood Cancer Study says no). But even in the case of the CCRG, neither of the hypotheses they advanced to explain their findings had anything to do with magnetic fields.
And is also true that individuals who are exposed to magnetic radiation in their workplace have not been found to be worse off than everyone else.
Reference, please?
Therefore one cannot claim that low frequency EM radiation is completely safe or definitely harmful.
Indeed, it is hard to claim that anything is completely safe. But since hundreds of scientists have spent over a quarter of a century intensively seeking a link between power-line EMFs and cancer, and *still* haven't got anything approaching a conclusive result, I'm not going to be ripping out my mains wiring any time soon.
jumping from a 2.4 kernel to a 2.6 kernel is a big step and 2.6 doesn't support everything that 2.4 does
That wasn't the issue here, though: Knoppix and Ubuntu had no trouble with it.
I would have kept paying for that service but Redhat decided that I was not a market they were striving for, and realistically it was the correct choice for them to make.
I think they decided I was not a market worth striving for, either: my original plan was to put RHEL on all the boxes I had responsibility for -- these machines are running proprietary applications with 5-figure annual subscription fees, so the Red Hat tithe would have been pocket change. I spent a few weeks firing emails at various Red Hat sales, customer support, and enquiries addresses... not a peep. Perhaps they're not interested in the Australasian market...
Can't tell you OTTOMH, and the machine in question is currently down (planned power outage in the building housing it) so I can't ssh in and ask it, but I will get back to you on that if you're interested.
Almost all the Linux distros have moved to Xorg a long time ago, so if FC4 is busted for you and, say, Ubuntu 5.10 works (being about the same age), it's probably down to a configuration problem.
Perhaps -- I honestly don't remember the details now, except that I wrestled with it for an hour or two before having one of those "hang on, my time's worth more than this" moments and chucking in a cheap graphics card that *was* supported:-). (And yes, Ubuntu 5.10 does work -- that's what it's running now.)
Upgrading from Redhat 9 to Core 4 is hardly 'the next release'.
I didn't say it was. But the chipset was supported by RH9, and unsupported by FC4. Clearly, at some point, there must have been a transition from a release that supported it to a `next release' that didn't.
Or do you mean that Fedora Core can't be regarded as the same distro as the original Red Hat series? Perhaps there's something in that; I might have had better luck with RHEL or an unbranded equivalent.
I had problems with Ubuntu working with my network and SCSI cards, and it was at that point that I started looking at Fedora, which works perfectly with all my hardware. YMMV.
Indeed it may, but my point was that FC4 actually introduced hardware support regressions against Red Hat 9. I feel uneasy with a distro where my currently supported hardware may become unsupported in the next release.
I'd believe your comment if I hadn't thrown Fedora on every type of hardware from single-CPU/IDE machines to 4x/8x machines with high-end SCSI arrays and fiber networking, Intel and AMD architectures.
A year or so back, I tried upgrading a Red Hat 9 machine to the latest Fedora. The video chipset, perfectly functional under RH9, wasn't supported by Fedora. Similar issues with another box I was upgrading -- fully functional with RH9, virtual consoles broken under Fedora (bug reported and reproduced, but flagged as "won't fix" for that release -- FC4 IIRC).
It was at that point that I started looking at Ubuntu...
>> Ah well, looks like it's time to slap Ubuntu 6.06 LTS onto those old Fedora Core servers...
> why?
Lack of security updates. I am a strong advocate for "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" -- but a system with unpatched vulnerabilities definitely qualifies as broke, and I don't have the time to track said vulnerabilities and patch them by hand.
As I understand it, the Fedora Legacy Project was originially an independent effort which got adopted by the official Fedora project. I get the impression it's suffered from a shortage of manpower since its inception -- perhaps because many or most Fedora users are the type who would rather keep upgrading to the latest release than maintain an old one, or perhaps because there are just too many releases to maintain on a purely volunteer basis. So I suspect that "sorry, we just can't do it any more" really is all there is to it -- a decision born of necessity rather than a deliberate policy.
It's certainly not in Red Hat's interest to support Fedora Legacy: after all, Fedora's main benefit to them is as a test-bed for impending RHEL releases, so they are probably keen to keep as many users as possible on the latest release.
Ah well, looks like it's time to slap Ubuntu 6.06 LTS onto those old Fedora Core servers...
Well, it's a project principally sponsored by the FSF. Certainly they have a close connection, but they're hardly equivalent.
Quote: " I want to encourage free software to spread, replacing proprietary software...
Well, that's hardly a "clearly stated agenda to eradicate proprietary software" as you claim, any more than a "get firefox" button is a clearly stated agenda to eradicate Opera.
"... using a proprietary (18k characters) program... make a copy... saying ``No'' to proprietary software."
Well, that certainly shows Richard Stallman's personal disapproval of proprietary software. But it doesn't look to me like a "clearly stated agenda to eradicate proprietary software".
"The Free Software Foundation follows the rule that we cannot install any proprietary program on our computers except temporarily for...
This is an internal policy concerning the office computers used by the FSF. It doesn't really constitute their "agenda".
http://www.fsf.org/about describes the FSF's "worldwide mission to preserve, protect and promote the freedom to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer software, and to defend the rights of all free software users". Is that what you were alluding to? It's the closest I can find, but it doesn't say anything about eradication.
The FSF has a clearly stated agenda of eradicating proprietary software, as it's immoral according to them.
Where is this agenda clearly stated? I can't find anything about it on their website. (That's a genuine question, not sniping: if they're explicitly stated this goal, I'm interested to see how they present it.)
Lol. Ok, so even with the theory that you can wank at work, that doesn't solve the issue for students like myself, who have to power down multiple times (I don't count, but probably around 4 is average) per day as we switch classes, go from/to home, etc.
Good point; you must be feeling a little chafed by the fourth wank of the day. Personally I solved (or avoided) the issue by using a pen and paper rather than a laptop: cheap, enjoyable, and very short start-up time.
Yes, five degrees sounds so innocuous, doesn't it? But a 5-degree rise across the whole earth requires an enormous input of energy, and can have enormous consequences. The temperature difference between now and the last glacial period -- with ice sheets covering much of North America and Eurasia -- is around 8 degrees.
and say 20' raise in sea levels to the end of civilisation
A 20-inch sea-level rise isn't so trivial either; in Bangladesh alone, that translates to over ten million displaced persons -- worldwide, far more. Tens of millions of refugees isn't exactly conducive to global stability.
the extinction of the human race, 99% of the life on the planet
Now you're misrepresenting me; I wrote "even if we succeed in wiping ourselves and 99% of existing species out...". I was positing a ridiculously over-the-top scenario in order to argue that there's no way we can destroy the planet.
end of the plant itself.
I think you've completely missed my point, which was precisely that we are not going to destroy the planet, no matter how hard we try.
Civilisation will not end.
I wrote "it's about saving the human race, or at least civilization as we know it", and I stand by that. "Civilization as we know it" has not been around very long at all; how long depends how you define it, but certainly not more than ten thousand years. If we're talking modern, industrialized civilization, perhaps two hundred years. Hell, even as a species we've only been around for 200,000 years (that is, around 0.1% as long as the dinosaurs).
Peanuts. Small change. I'm sure the Persian empire, the Maya civilization, and imperial China all looked pretty permanent to their citizens too. Just this century we've had one war which could have destroyed civilization as we know it. Are you really so sure we'll manage even another millenium?
Even without environmental catastrophe, the odds don't look great. Throw in global sea-level rises, increased frequency of natural disasters, desertification, and the breakdown of the gulf stream and it's all looking a little shaky. Sure, it might hold together in our lifetimes, but really, that's a very, very short-term view.
The earth has been around 6 billion years, give or take, and it's gone through more violent and extreme changes long before a single human emerged from the primordial sludge.
Oh, the earth can certainly handle what we're throwing at it; even if we succeed in wiping ourselves and 99% of existing species out, evolution will just continue with the remaining 1% and produce something that can handle the new conditions. It won't be the first mass extinction.
Make no mistake: it's not about "saving the earth", it's about saving the human race, or at least civilization as we know it.
When I see a Monday night football game in Seattle in November, and there's snow on the ground, I can only conclude "global warming" is causing it. Sure.
You're missing the "global" in global warming. Just because the earth as a whole is getting warmer and the ice caps are melting, it doesn't necessarily mean your backyard is getting a tropical climate. For some regions the long-term prognosis is that it will get a whole lot colder -- for example, western Europe if the gulf stream shuts off.
One reasonable inference we can make is that weather will get more violent and less predictable, simply because we're pushing more energy into a system that exhibits chaotic behaviour. So expect more freak weather -- and on a local, short-term level, that's could just as well be snowstorms as heatwaves.
Slashdot Mirror
... and the next time we get a story on it, make sure to tag it ohgodsomeonewilltagthisohgodsomeonewilltagthisshar ks.
[Apologies for the interpolated space; it is a `feature' of Slashdot.]
I don't know why anyone is every surprised when stuff goes wrong on missions, or equipment breaks down. Nasa is a governmental agency and as such has a big beaurocratic morass...
NASA was a governmental agency when they successfully landed human beings on the moon and brought them safely back to earth. They were a governmental agency when they sent out Voyager 1, currently leaving the solar system and still operational after thirty years. Certainly NASA's administration appears to have been getting a bit top-heavy of late, but it's short-sighted to put that down to the simple fact of NASA being a governmental agency.
The fact is, space exploration is hard. Things go wrong all the time, on both commercial and government-agency missions. For a far more dramatic commercial-sector cock-up, you only have to look back two weeks to the latest Sea Launch disaster.
I'm all for private investment in space, but as far as I know no commercial mission has yet made it out of Earth's gravity well. Good luck to Burt Rutan et al., but I think it'll be a while before they land anyone on the moon, or get a probe as far as Mars.
Notice the X11 logo in the window? It's a Linux app running on OS X.
It's an application released for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. As I have demonstrated, the import dialog works on Linux. As you have demonstrated, it doesn't work on Mac OS X.
Let's just reiterate: on Linux, the problem you are describing does not occur. On Mac OS X, it does occur.
And yet you seem to infer from this that the problem with your Mac OS X application is, for some reason, the fault of Linux. I'm afraid I don't follow your reasoning.
This is the "Import" dialog in the OS X port of Inkscape.
Erm... so you're complaining about Linux usability on the basis that you're having trouble with an application on OS X? Oddly enough, that selfsame dialog works perfectly under Linux. Maybe it's an OS X bug you've run into.
And of course I'm ignoring the millions of other things wrong with that open dialog when running in Mac OS X.
Which is very considerate given that we're discussing the usability of Linux, not the usability of Mac OS X.
Oh, and I didn't make that up. Gnome apps *don't* alphabetize files right.
Could you elaborate, please?
I still dont see what makes people think they have the right to a fair trial from companies. If you use their product, you're subject to the terms and conditions that go with that product.
Three points:
1. Who says I'm using their product? They conduct the audit on the assumption that I am. If I have never bought a copy of Windows in my life, what on earth would give them the right to march into my premises searching for the copies of Windows that I don't own?
2. Having read the XP Professional EULA, I can't find anything about consenting to searches of my property. I may have missed it, though. Could you refer me to the relevant paragraph, please?
3. If such a paragraph does exist, is it enforceable in law? AIUI, the enforceability of click-through and shrinkwrap licenses is still in doubt. Furthermore, there are certain statutory rights which can't be signed away. I would suspect that the right not have strangers rifling through your personal property is once of these, though IANAL.
In the UK, the TV Licensing Authority has no right to enter my home, even if they believe I am operating an unlicensed television. The RSPCA has no right to enter my home, even if they believe I am torturing my dog. Now, I realize that I didn't sign a EULA for my TV or dog, but I was under the impression that some kind of court order is necessary before some random organization can barge into my premises to conduct a search. Hell, even the police need a search warrant... right?
If their solution is disagreeable, use other software.
I still can't see what gives them the right to assume guilt until innocence is proven. They demand an audit based on their perception that you haven't bought enough of their software, and AFAICT they act as if this gives them a right to waste your time proving your innocence. Why on earth is software a special case here? It would be impossible to run a business if every industry sector behaved in the same way.
*knock knock*
"Hello?"
"We're from the Business Furniture Alliance, representing Office World, Staples, and several other major furniture retailers. According to our clients' records, you haven't purchased enough office desks to run a business of this size. We suspect you've been stealing your office furniture from one of our clients."
"Not that it's any of your business, but we got a local carpenter to run up some desks for us..."
"A likely tale. We're going to have to audit your furniture. I hope you have a few days free."
"Kindly bugger off and d-- hang on, who's that?"
"Good morning sir or madam, I'm from the Business Carpeting Alliance. Our records show that..."
>> The more promising the view, the steeper the cliff...
...nevermind the fact that vistas are not at all synonymous with cliffs.
>
Ah, but vistas are synonymous with views. Come on, there were only two nouns in GP's sentence, and the first of them was synonymous with "vista". You have to go out of your way to misunderstand that one.
> Oh, and also that cliffs are all steep by definition.
Well observed; however, it is nevertheless possible for one cliff to be steeper than another cliff.
As the great Edward Tufte put it: "correlation is not causation, but it sure is a hint" :-).
They can sell upgrades to the dead.
Since the dead have already mounted a grassroots campaign in support of Microsoft, they'd probably be pretty keen to buy in.
>> individuals who are exposed to magnetic radiation in their workplace have not been found to be worse off than everyone else.
:-).
> Reference, please?
Urp. Please ignore that. I missed your "not" on my first reading
It is try that there is a _correlation_ between living under power lines and incidents of leukemia (maybe people who live under power lines are poor and eat crappy foods and therefore get leukemia?)
It is still disputed (last I heard, Childhood Cancer Research Group says yes but Childhood Cancer Study says no). But even in the case of the CCRG, neither of the hypotheses they advanced to explain their findings had anything to do with magnetic fields.
And is also true that individuals who are exposed to magnetic radiation in their workplace have not been found to be worse off than everyone else.
Reference, please?
Therefore one cannot claim that low frequency EM radiation is completely safe or definitely harmful.
Indeed, it is hard to claim that anything is completely safe. But since hundreds of scientists have spent over a quarter of a century intensively seeking a link between power-line EMFs and cancer, and *still* haven't got anything approaching a conclusive result, I'm not going to be ripping out my mains wiring any time soon.
jumping from a 2.4 kernel to a 2.6 kernel is a big step and 2.6 doesn't support everything that 2.4 does
That wasn't the issue here, though: Knoppix and Ubuntu had no trouble with it.
I would have kept paying for that service but Redhat decided that I was not a market they were striving for, and realistically it was the correct choice for them to make.
I think they decided I was not a market worth striving for, either: my original plan was to put RHEL on all the boxes I had responsibility for -- these machines are running proprietary applications with 5-figure annual subscription fees, so the Red Hat tithe would have been pocket change. I spent a few weeks firing emails at various Red Hat sales, customer support, and enquiries addresses... not a peep. Perhaps they're not interested in the Australasian market...
So now I'm curious. What chipset do you have?
:-). (And yes, Ubuntu 5.10 does work -- that's what it's running now.)
Can't tell you OTTOMH, and the machine in question is currently down (planned power outage in the building housing it) so I can't ssh in and ask it, but I will get back to you on that if you're interested.
Almost all the Linux distros have moved to Xorg a long time ago, so if FC4 is busted for you and, say, Ubuntu 5.10 works (being about the same age), it's probably down to a configuration problem.
Perhaps -- I honestly don't remember the details now, except that I wrestled with it for an hour or two before having one of those "hang on, my time's worth more than this" moments and chucking in a cheap graphics card that *was* supported
Upgrading from Redhat 9 to Core 4 is hardly 'the next release'.
I didn't say it was. But the chipset was supported by RH9, and unsupported by FC4. Clearly, at some point, there must have been a transition from a release that supported it to a `next release' that didn't.
Or do you mean that Fedora Core can't be regarded as the same distro as the original Red Hat series? Perhaps there's something in that; I might have had better luck with RHEL or an unbranded equivalent.
I had problems with Ubuntu working with my network and SCSI cards, and it was at that point that I started looking at Fedora, which works perfectly with all my hardware. YMMV.
Indeed it may, but my point was that FC4 actually introduced hardware support regressions against Red Hat 9. I feel uneasy with a distro where my currently supported hardware may become unsupported in the next release.
I'd believe your comment if I hadn't thrown Fedora on every type of hardware from single-CPU/IDE machines to 4x/8x machines with high-end SCSI arrays and fiber networking, Intel and AMD architectures.
A year or so back, I tried upgrading a Red Hat 9 machine to the latest Fedora. The video chipset, perfectly functional under RH9, wasn't supported by Fedora. Similar issues with another box I was upgrading -- fully functional with RH9, virtual consoles broken under Fedora (bug reported and reproduced, but flagged as "won't fix" for that release -- FC4 IIRC).
It was at that point that I started looking at Ubuntu...
Personally, I like my robbers like I like my coffee -- covered in bees.
>> Ah well, looks like it's time to slap Ubuntu 6.06 LTS onto those old Fedora Core servers...
> why?
Lack of security updates. I am a strong advocate for "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" -- but a system with unpatched vulnerabilities definitely qualifies as broke, and I don't have the time to track said vulnerabilities and patch them by hand.
As I understand it, the Fedora Legacy Project was originially an independent effort which got adopted by the official Fedora project. I get the impression it's suffered from a shortage of manpower since its inception -- perhaps because many or most Fedora users are the type who would rather keep upgrading to the latest release than maintain an old one, or perhaps because there are just too many releases to maintain on a purely volunteer basis. So I suspect that "sorry, we just can't do it any more" really is all there is to it -- a decision born of necessity rather than a deliberate policy.
It's certainly not in Red Hat's interest to support Fedora Legacy: after all, Fedora's main benefit to them is as a test-bed for impending RHEL releases, so they are probably keen to keep as many users as possible on the latest release.
Ah well, looks like it's time to slap Ubuntu 6.06 LTS onto those old Fedora Core servers...
(yes, GNU is a project of the FSF)
Well, it's a project principally sponsored by the FSF. Certainly they have a close connection, but they're hardly equivalent.
Quote: " I want to encourage free software to spread, replacing proprietary software...
Well, that's hardly a "clearly stated agenda to eradicate proprietary software" as you claim, any more than a "get firefox" button is a clearly stated agenda to eradicate Opera.
"... using a proprietary (18k characters) program... make a copy... saying ``No'' to proprietary software."
Well, that certainly shows Richard Stallman's personal disapproval of proprietary software. But it doesn't look to me like a "clearly stated agenda to eradicate proprietary software".
"The Free Software Foundation follows the rule that we cannot install any proprietary program on our computers except temporarily for...
This is an internal policy concerning the office computers used by the FSF. It doesn't really constitute their "agenda".
http://www.fsf.org/about describes the FSF's "worldwide mission to preserve, protect and promote the freedom to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer software, and to defend the rights of all free software users". Is that what you were alluding to? It's the closest I can find, but it doesn't say anything about eradication.
The FSF has a clearly stated agenda of eradicating proprietary software, as it's immoral according to them.
Where is this agenda clearly stated? I can't find anything about it on their website. (That's a genuine question, not sniping: if they're explicitly stated this goal, I'm interested to see how they present it.)
Lol. Ok, so even with the theory that you can wank at work, that doesn't solve the issue for students like myself, who have to power down multiple times (I don't count, but probably around 4 is average) per day as we switch classes, go from/to home, etc.
Good point; you must be feeling a little chafed by the fourth wank of the day. Personally I solved (or avoided) the issue by using a pen and paper rather than a laptop: cheap, enjoyable, and very short start-up time.
We've gone from a 5C raise in average temperature
Yes, five degrees sounds so innocuous, doesn't it? But a 5-degree rise across the whole earth requires an enormous input of energy, and can have enormous consequences. The temperature difference between now and the last glacial period -- with ice sheets covering much of North America and Eurasia -- is around 8 degrees.
and say 20' raise in sea levels to the end of civilisation
A 20-inch sea-level rise isn't so trivial either; in Bangladesh alone, that translates to over ten million displaced persons -- worldwide, far more. Tens of millions of refugees isn't exactly conducive to global stability.
the extinction of the human race, 99% of the life on the planet
Now you're misrepresenting me; I wrote "even if we succeed in wiping ourselves and 99% of existing species out...". I was positing a ridiculously over-the-top scenario in order to argue that there's no way we can destroy the planet.
end of the plant itself.
I think you've completely missed my point, which was precisely that we are not going to destroy the planet, no matter how hard we try.
Civilisation will not end.
I wrote "it's about saving the human race, or at least civilization as we know it", and I stand by that. "Civilization as we know it" has not been around very long at all; how long depends how you define it, but certainly not more than ten thousand years. If we're talking modern, industrialized civilization, perhaps two hundred years. Hell, even as a species we've only been around for 200,000 years (that is, around 0.1% as long as the dinosaurs).
Peanuts. Small change. I'm sure the Persian empire, the Maya civilization, and imperial China all looked pretty permanent to their citizens too. Just this century we've had one war which could have destroyed civilization as we know it. Are you really so sure we'll manage even another millenium?
Even without environmental catastrophe, the odds don't look great. Throw in global sea-level rises, increased frequency of natural disasters, desertification, and the breakdown of the gulf stream and it's all looking a little shaky. Sure, it might hold together in our lifetimes, but really, that's a very, very short-term view.
The earth has been around 6 billion years, give or take, and it's gone through more violent and extreme changes long before a single human emerged from the primordial sludge.
Oh, the earth can certainly handle what we're throwing at it; even if we succeed in wiping ourselves and 99% of existing species out, evolution will just continue with the remaining 1% and produce something that can handle the new conditions. It won't be the first mass extinction.
Make no mistake: it's not about "saving the earth", it's about saving the human race, or at least civilization as we know it.
When I see a Monday night football game in Seattle in November, and there's snow on the ground, I can only conclude "global warming" is causing it. Sure.
You're missing the "global" in global warming. Just because the earth as a whole is getting warmer and the ice caps are melting, it doesn't necessarily mean your backyard is getting a tropical climate. For some regions the long-term prognosis is that it will get a whole lot colder -- for example, western Europe if the gulf stream shuts off.
One reasonable inference we can make is that weather will get more violent and less predictable, simply because we're pushing more energy into a system that exhibits chaotic behaviour. So expect more freak weather -- and on a local, short-term level, that's could just as well be snowstorms as heatwaves.