Articles On Environment

[♦ nivek ♦]

A cornucopia for rich farmers

Christian Science Monitor

by staff

 

"What can $100 million buy you in Congress? If you're agribusiness,

such money spent this past year on lobbying and campaign donations

will harvest billions in farm subsidies and keep you in clover for

another five years. Congress plans to renew the US agriculture law

this week with no apologies for that fact that most of the subsidies

will go to the wealthiest 10 percent of recipients and that a majority

of this largess will enrich commercial farmers with an average income

of $200,000. And the ultimate cost to each US household for this

congressional cornucopia? About $320 a year in taxes and higher food

prices -- beyond the already inflated prices at

supermarkets."

 

[editor's note: Why crap like this continues unabated,

while Presidential campaigns revolve around whose preacher is a bigger

idiot ... just boggles the mind - SAT] (05/14/08)

 

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0514/p08s01-comv.html

[♦ nivek ♦]

LewRockwell.com

 

A Cooling World

 

by Charley Reese

 

 

Global warming has ceased. In 2005, it was .45 degrees centigrade above the 1961-1990 global average temperature. In 2006, it dropped to .42 centigrade, and in 2007, to .41 centigrade.

 

That's one of many facts to be gleaned from an intelligent and calm book, An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming, by Lord Nigel Lawson, a British politician and former journalist.

 

It is not a book to be read on a warm afternoon after a heavy lunch. It will put you to sleep. That is to say it is not written in the style of melodramatic yellow journalism or TV sensationalism. It is written with an emphasis on facts and on logic.

 

Richard S. Lindzen, Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says of the book: "This brief and elegant book treats the science of global warming seriously, but convincingly shows that whatever view one has of the science, almost all proposed approaches to the putative problem are intellectually deficient, economically absurd and harmful, and morally misdirected at best. Lawson's An Appeal to Reason is an appeal that must be heeded if one is to truly avoid great harm to man and the planet."

 

Lawson sums up his book with this warning: "So the new religion of global warming, however appealing it may be to the politicians, is not as harmless as it may appear at first sight. Indeed the more one examines it the more it resembles a 'Da Vinci Code' of environmentalism. It is a great story and phenomenal best-seller. It contains a grain of truth – and a mountain of nonsense. And that nonsense could be very damaging indeed. We appear to have entered a new age of unreason which threatens to be as economically harmful as it is profoundly disquieting. It is from this, above all, that we really do need to save the planet."

 

Reason has always had an uphill climb against superstition, myth, propaganda and lies. Some people seem to prefer their myths and their lies to the truth, which can often be discomforting. Lawson even points out that there is an element of scapegoating in the global-warming hoopla. He sees it as a way to detract from our real sins, which are against our fellow humans and for which we could be held accountable, by substituting a global force for which everyone is responsible, and therefore no one can be held accountable.

 

Then there are those who are fond of end-of-the-world stories. I've never understood why such people cannot accept the fact that when they end, only their world ends. They always seem to want others to go with them. I fully expect the world to last a lot longer than we will.

 

There is the business of risk assessment. Any threat – if there is any – posed by global warming is 100 years away. In the meantime, there are more immediate threats to man's existence, such as bioterrorism, nuclear war, desertification, starvation and plagues. Since our resources are limited, we should spend them on more immediate threats rather than theoretical possibilities.

 

Finally, people need to recognize a significant change. We are conditioned to believe that science is on the side of reason and that religion and philosophy are just forms of mysticism. Unreason is quite prevalent among people who call themselves "scientists," and a glance at science history will remind you that this has always been so. New knowledge was often resisted strenuously by the "scientific" establishment, which seems to think, mistakenly, that truth can be established by a majority vote.

 

The world is as it is regardless of what we think. It never conforms to our beliefs; we have to conform and adapt to its reality.

 

May 19, 2008

 

Charley Reese [send him mail] has been a journalist for 49 years.

 

© 2008 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

 

Charley Reese Archives

 

 

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[♦ nivek ♦]

Going hungry

Quebecois Libre

by Bradley Doucet

 

"Diverting crops like corn to ethanol refineries increases the demand

for corn, which raises the price of corn. This in turn causes some

farmers to shift fields to corn production, and some consumers to

substitute away from corn, both of which raise the prices of other

staples. ... But if consumers in rich countries want biofuels, then

that's what they want, and markets will just have to adjust, right?

Except that it's not consumers who are choosing to use biofuels in a

free market - it's governments that are pushing biofuels on consumers

with market-distorting mandates and subsidies." (05/15/08)

 

http://www.quebecoislibre.org/08/080515-11.htm

[♦ nivek ♦]

Climate is right for another swindle

Denver Post

by David Harsanyi

 

"How does Washington plan to resolve our energy problems and control

atmospheric temperatures? Well, how do they fix anything? By proposing

a gargantuan boondoggle. A 'cap and trade' bill, one that will

supposedly cut 66 percent of our emissions by 2050, is being debated

in Congress this week. To begin with, proponents of America's Climate

Security Act have been misleading the public by claiming that cap and

trade is a 'market-based' solution. In truth, cap and trade does to

the market what 'American Idol' does to music." (06/02/08)

 

http://www.denverpost.com/harsanyi/ci_9457464

[♦ nivek ♦]

http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=569586

 

In praise of CO2

 

With less heat and less carbon dioxide, the planet could become less hospitable and less green

 

Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post Published: Saturday, June 07, 2008

 

 

 

According to a growing number of scientists, the period of global warming that we have experienced over the past few centuries as Earth climbed out of the Little Ice Age is about to end.GettyAccording to a growing number of scientists, the period of global warming that we have experienced over the past few centuries as Earth climbed out of the Little Ice Age is about to end.

 

Planet Earth is on a roll! GPP is way up. NPP is way up. To the surprise of those who have been bearish on the planet, the data shows global production has been steadily climbing to record levels, ones not seen since these measurements began.

 

GPP is Gross Primary Production, a measure of the daily output of the global biosphere -- the amount of new plant matter on land. NPP is Net Primary Production, an annual tally of the globe's production. Biomass is booming. The planet is the greenest it's been in decades, perhaps in centuries.

 

Until the 1980s, ecologists had no way to systematically track growth in plant matter in every corner of the Earth -- the best they could do was analyze small plots of one-tenth of a hectare or less. The notion of continuously tracking global production to discover the true state of the globe's biota was not even considered.

 

Then, in the 1980s, ecologists realized that satellites could track production, and enlisted NASA to collect the data. For the first time, ecologists did not need to rely on rough estimates or anecdotal evidence of the health of the ecology: They could objectively measure the land's output and soon did -- on a daily basis and down to the last kilometre.

 

More from FP Oil Watch

 

The results surprised Steven Running of the University of Montana and Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA, scientists involved in analyzing the NASA data. They found that over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole became more bountiful by a whopping 6.2%. About 25% of the Earth's vegetated landmass -- almost 110 million square kilometres -- enjoyed significant increases and only 7% showed significant declines. When the satellite data zooms in, it finds that each square metre of land, on average, now produces almost 500 grams of greenery per year.

 

Why the increase? Their 2004 study, and other more recent ones, point to the warming of the planet and the presence of CO2, a gas indispensable to plant life. CO2 is nature's fertilizer, bathing the biota with its life-giving nutrients. Plants take the carbon from CO2 to bulk themselves up -- carbon is the building block of life -- and release the oxygen, which along with the plants, then sustain animal life. As summarized in a report last month, released along with a petition signed by 32,000 U. S. scientists who vouched for the benefits of CO2: "Higher CO2 enables plants to grow faster and larger and to live in drier climates. Plants provide food for animals, which are thereby also enhanced. The extent and diversity of plant and animal life have both increased substantially during the past half-century."

 

Lush as the planet may now be, it is as nothing compared to earlier times, when levels of CO2 and Earth temperatures were far higher. In the age of the dinosaur, for example, CO2 levels may have been five to 10 times higher than today, spurring a luxuriantly fertile planet whose plant life sated the immense animals of that era. Planet Earth is also much cooler today than during the hothouse era of the dinosaur, and cooler than it was 1,000 years ago during the Medieval Warming Period, when the Vikings colonized a verdant Greenland. Greenland lost its colonies and its farmland during the Little Ice Age that followed, and only recently started to become green again.

 

This blossoming Earth could now be in jeopardy, for reasons both natural and man-made. According to a growing number of scientists, the period of global warming that we have experienced over the past few centuries as Earth climbed out of the Little Ice Age is about to end. The oceans, which have been releasing their vast store of carbon dioxide as the planet has warmed -- CO2 is released from oceans as they warm and dissolves in them when they cool -- will start to take the carbon dioxide back. With less heat and less carbon dioxide, the planet could become less hospitable and less green, especially in areas such as Canada's Boreal forests, which have been major beneficiaries of the increase in GPP and NPP.

 

Doubling the jeopardy for Earth is man. Unlike the many scientists who welcome CO2 for its benefits, many other scientists and most governments believe carbon dioxide to be a dangerous pollutant that must be removed from the atmosphere at all costs. Governments around the world are now enacting massive programs in an effort to remove as much as 80% of the carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere.

 

If these governments are right, they will have done us all a service. If they are wrong, the service could be all ill, with food production dropping world wide, and the countless ecological niches on which living creatures depend stressed. The second order effects could be dire, too. To bolster food production, humans will likely turn to energy intensive manufactured fertilizers, depleting our store of non-renewable resources. Techniques to remove carbon from the atmosphere also sound alarms. Carbon sequestration, a darling of many who would mitigate climate change, could become a top inducer of earthquakes, according to Christian Klose, a geohazards researcher at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Because the carbon sequestration schemes tend to be located near cities, he notes, carbon-sequestration-caused earthquakes could exact an unusually high toll.

 

Amazingly, although the risks of action are arguably at least as real as the risks of inaction, Canada and other countries are rushing into Earth-altering carbon schemes with nary a doubt. Environmentalists, who ordinarily would demand a full-fledged environmental assessment before a highway or a power plant can be built, are silent on the need to question proponents or examine alternatives.

 

Earth is on a roll. Governments are too. We will know soon enough if we're rolled off a cliff.

 

LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com. - Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and author of The Deniers.

[♦ nivek ♦]

An emergency cooling system for the planet

Reason

by Ronald Bailey

 

"f we don't want to perpetuate poverty in the name of preventing

climate change, geoengineering may be our way out. Why? Because

geoengineering would provide more time for the world's economy to grow

while inventors and entrepreneurs develop and deploy new carbon

neutral energy sources to replace fossil fuels. Wigley also noted that

cutting greenhouse gas emissions is a tremendous global collective

action problem. It seems unlikely that fast-growing poor countries

like India and China will agree cut back on their use of fossil fuels

any time soon. If that's the case, then emissions reductions in rich

countries would have almost no effect on future temperature trends.

Geoengineering could give humanity more time to resolve this

collective action problem, too."

 

http://www.reason.com/news/show/126943.html

[♦ nivek ♦]

Millions of US workers stand to gain from green industries

AlterNet

by Robert Pollin and Jeanette Wicks-Lim

 

"Workers at every skill level will be in high demand and enjoy greater

job security in key industries essential to building a clean-energy

economy in America and fighting global warming, according to a new

report just released by a coalition of conservation and labor

groups. ... This groundbreaking report, 'Job Opportunities for the

Green Economy,' takes a state-by-state look at existing jobs skills

across a wide range of occupations and income levels that would

benefit from America's transition towards a clean energy economy. The

report quantifies the number of workers who can apply their skills to

six categories of green industries -- building retrofitting, mass

transit, fuel-efficient automobiles, wind power, solar power, and

cellulosic biomass fuels." (06/09/08)

 

http://www.alternet.org/environment/87231/

[♦ nivek ♦]

Climate crisis alarmists wrong, and here's proof

Tennessean

by David Lutzweiler

 

"Just once more, please: the final, irrefutable proof that there is no

'climate crisis.' ... More than 31,000 scientists (and counting) have

proved ... that no danger exists from climate change. None deny that

there has been a slight increase of average global temperatures in

some (but not all) spheres of measurement in recent years. What

alarmists can't get through their thick heads, however, is that the

debate is about the interpretation of that upward trend; and that

requires answers to three questions: 1. What is the real cause of the

trend: natural or human? 2. Based upon that cause, what is the

probable future course of the trend? 3. If the future course will be

harmful, can anything be done to prevent it? If so, how much will it

cost?"

[Note: For documentation of the above and more, visit

http://www.cornwallalliance.org ] (06/09/08)

 

http://tinyurl.com/4lvuge

[♦ nivek ♦]

http://www.bwcitypaper.com/Articles-i-2008-06-12-221657.112112_Carbon_Chastity.html

 

Opinion

Carbon Chastity

 

The First Commandment of the Church of the Environment.

By Charles Krauthammer

write the author

June 12, 2008

 

I'm not a global warming believer. I'm not a global warming denier. I'm a global warming agnostic who believes instinctively that it can't be very good to pump lots of CO2 into the atmosphere but is equally convinced that those who presume to know exactly where that leads are talking nonsense.

[Trees love CO2.]

 

Predictions of catastrophe depend on models. Models depend on assumptions about complex planetary systems—from ocean currents to cloud formation—that no one fully understands. Which is why the models are inherently flawed and forever changing. The doomsday scenarios posit a cascade of events, each with a certain probability. The multiple improbability of their simultaneous occurrence renders all such predictions entirely speculative.

 

Yet on the basis of this speculation, environmental activists, attended by compliant scientists and opportunistic politicians, are advocating radical economic and social regulation. "The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy, and prosperity," warns Czech President Vaclav Klaus, "is no longer socialism. It is, instead, the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism."

 

If you doubt the arrogance, you haven't seen that Newsweek cover story that declared the global warming debate to be over. Consider: If Newton's laws of motion could, after 200 years of unfailing experimental and experiential confirmation, be overthrown by Einstein and leading physicists, it requires religious fervor to believe that global warming—infinitely more untested, complex, and speculative—is a closed issue.

 

But declaring it closed has its rewards. It not only dismisses skeptics as the running dogs of reaction, that is, of Exxon, Cheney, and now Klaus. By fiat, it also hugely re-empowers the intellectual left.

 

For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous knowledge class—social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts and their left-wing political allies—arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism).

 

Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher's England to Deng's China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted more people out of poverty more rapidly than ever in human history.

 

Just as the ash heap of history beckoned, the intellectual left was handed the ultimate salvation—environmentalism. Now the experts will regulate your life not in the name of the proletariat or Fabian socialism but—even better—in the name of Earth itself.

 

Environmentalists are Gaia's priests, instructing us in her proper service and casting out those who refuse to genuflect. (See Newsweek.) Having proclaimed the ultimate commandment—carbon chastity—they are preparing the supporting canonical legislation that will tell you how much you can travel, what kind of light you will read by, and at what temperature you may set your bedroom thermostat.

 

Only May 26, a British parliamentary committee proposed that every citizen be required to carry a carbon card that must be presented, under penalty of law, when buying gasoline, taking an airplane, or using electricity. The card contains your yearly carbon ration to be drawn down with every purchase, every trip, every swipe.

 

There's no greater social power than the power to ration. Other than rationing food, there is no greater instrument of social control than rationing energy, the currency of just about everything one does and uses in an advanced society.

 

So what does the global warming agnostic propose as an alternative? First, more research—untainted and reliable—to determine (a) whether the carbon footprint of humanity is or is not lost among the massive natural forces (from sunspot activity to ocean currents) that affect climate, and ( if the human effect is indeed significant, whether the planetary climate system has the homeostatic mechanisms (like the feedback loops in the human body, for example) with which to compensate.

 

Second, reduce our carbon footprint in the interim by doing the doable, rather than the economically ruinous and socially destructive. The most obvious step is a major move to nuclear power, which to the atmosphere is the cleanest of the clean.

 

But your would-be masters have foreseen this contingency. The Church of the Environment promulgates secondary dogmas as well. One of these is a strict nuclear taboo.

 

Rather convenient, is it not? Take this major coal-substituting fix off the table, and we will be rationing all the more. Guess who does the rationing? &

 

Charles Krauthammer is a columnist for the Washington Post.

[♦ nivek ♦]

Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008...s.climatechange

 

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

 

Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech (pdf) to the US Congress - in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming - to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the "perfect storm" of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable.

 

Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.

 

In an interview with the Guardian he said: "When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organisations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime."

 

He is also considering personally targeting members of Congress who have a poor track record on climate change in the coming November elections. He will campaign to have several of them unseated. Hansen's speech to Congress on June 23 1988 is seen as a seminal moment in bringing the threat of global warming to the public's attention. At a time when most scientists were still hesitant to speak out, he said the evidence of the greenhouse gas effect was 99% certain, adding "it is time to stop waffling".

 

He will tell the House select committee on energy independence and global warming this afternoon that he is now 99% certain that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has already risen beyond the safe level.

 

The current concentration is 385 parts per million and is rising by 2ppm a year. Hansen, who heads Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, says 2009 will be a crucial year, with a new US president and talks on how to follow the Kyoto agreement.

 

He wants to see a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, coupled with the creation of a huge grid of low-loss electric power lines buried under ground and spread across America, in order to give wind and solar power a chance of competing. "The new US president would have to take the initiative analogous to Kennedy's decision to go to the moon."

 

His sharpest words are reserved for the special interests he blames for public confusion about the nature of the global warming threat. "The problem is not political will, it's the alligator shoes - the lobbyists. It's the fact that money talks in Washington, and that democracy is not working the way it's intended to work."

 

A group seeking to increase pressure on international leaders is launching a campaign today called 350.org. It is taking out full-page adverts in papers such as the New York Times and the Swedish Falukuriren calling for the target level of CO2 to be lowered to 350ppm. The advert has been backed by 150 signatories, including Hansen.

[The-Captain]

"Researchers warn, however, that there is a risk the process could be overpowered by rising industrial pollution."

 

 

"But the tropical Atlantic cannot be taken for granted as a permanent sink for ozone. The composition of the atmosphere is in fine balance here," he adds.

 

"There is huge potential for these processes to be affected as global warming changes winds, water temperatures and ocean productivity," he says. Changing winds would affect how much bromine is released in sea spray.

 

The researchers also warn that the precious greenhouse gas sink could be threatened by a class of chemicals that are coughed up by cars and factories. Nitric oxides boost the production of ozone, an effect which is currently overpowered by the halogen and sunlight-driven tropical sink.

 

"It will only take a small increase in nitrogen oxides from fossil fuel combustion, carried here from Europe, West Africa or North America on the trade winds, to tip the balance from a sink to a source of ozone," explains Lewis. The Asian economies, especially China's, are also a growing concern.

 

[Ro-bear]

Interesting article, puzzling conclusion by poster.

[Guest]

Well, I've heard xtians say that DNA perfectly proves intelligent design, so opposite conclusions do not suprise me anymore...

[Valgeir]

It's unbelievable arrogance to assume that we're such a threat to the earth.

 

The people who are saying the things that are being taken as evidence that this doesn't impact "climate change" are apologists. They've been caught with their pants down, so to speak, as another undiscovered mechanism by which the Earth regulates itself is revealed. Just one massive, incredible device that has escaped our view. Might there be more? I'd bet on it.

 

We live on an awe-inspiring, beautiful, magnificent self-correcting entity. It can and will outpace us. If it ever reaches the point where it can't, it will boot us DaHell OFF.

[HuaiDan]

It's unbelievable arrogance to assume that we're such a threat to the earth.

 

A threat to the Earth? Who knows, probably not. A threat to a self-sustaining biosphere that works in our favor? That won't take much. Not arrogant at all. In fact it seems arrogant and naive to think the Earth won't shake us off in a brief geological fit of fever, then return to an equilibrium.

[Ro-bear]

It's unbelievable arrogance to assume that we're such a threat to the earth.

 

We live on an awe-inspiring, beautiful, magnificent self-correcting entity. It can and will outpace us. If it ever reaches the point where it can't, it will boot us DaHell OFF.

 

That's kind of the point, Valgeir; most of us don't want to be booted the hell off, so we are trying to mitigate that possibility.

 

As HuaiDan points out, no one is really concerned that the earth will survive our impact on it. The question is what earth will be like. I'm not really that interested in the planet's continued existence if it can't support human life. At that point, it is quite irrelevant in human terms.

 

So science has discovered something...how does that discredit science? This reminds me of creationists who howl every time evolutionary theory is modified ever-so-slightly by some new disvcovery. The fact that science adjusts to reflect new data adds to its credibility, in my opinion. And the overwhelming scientific consensus is that human activity contributes to global warming. You don't have to agree, but you should at least acknowledge that yours is a minority view much more popular among the general population than the scientific community. Like Creationism.

[Asimov]

When a species becomes to large to be sustained by the Earth, generally a massive extinction event within that population occurs because of the lack of resources.

 

We don't have any fear of predation, so our populations are going to bottleneck because there are TOO MANY PEOPLE.

[Guest]

This reminds me of creationists who howl every time evolutionary theory is modified ever-so-slightly by some new disvcovery. The fact that science adjusts to reflect new data adds to its credibility, in my opinion. And the overwhelming scientific consensus is that human activity contributes to global warming. You don't have to agree, but you should at least acknowledge that yours is a minority view much more popular among the general population than the scientific community. Like Creationism.

 

I agree, this feels so much like the creationism "debate", especially with the reading waaaaayyyy too much into an article like the one in the OP. Nowhere did that article say or even imply that GW has been "debunked". It merely describes a previously unknown mechanism of the earth , and even balances it by saying that this new system is not limitless.

[Valgeir]

To liken the skepticism towards global warming to anything remotely like creationism is either ignorant or dishonest.

 

http://www.petitionproject.org/

 

Hardly an insignificant number. In fact, if you're using the UN data as your evidence for a "consensus" then the consensus is clearly AGAINST anthropogenic global warming.

[Ro-bear]

To liken the skepticism towards global warming to anything remotely like creationism is either ignorant or dishonest.

 

Actually, it is neither. I appreciate your frankness, though.

 

If you will re-read my comment, it should become clear that the Creationism remark did not imply a comparison at all points. Clearly, Creationism has something in common with global warming skepticism: both are more prevalent among the general population than among scientists, though not necessarily to the same degree.

 

I have also noted similarities in the argument style employed by creationists and global warming skeptics.

[Ro-bear]

Exhibit A:

 

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/fi...load&id=660

 

Looks a lot like V's link, doesn't it?

 

Yes, there are many scientists who are global warming skeptics. And there are many scientists who are evolution skeptics. And, presumably, there are many scientists who like putting on their wive's underwear and being smacked upon the bum. But how many are there percentage-wise?

[Valgeir]

Percentage wise? I don't know, go poll scientists. I do know that the IPCC's scientific membership is dwarfed by the number of PhD-bearing signees of that given petition, fifteen-fold.

 

Edited in regards to opposition to petitions, fair enough, read the peer-reviewed reports then.

[chefranden]

It's unbelievable arrogance to assume that we're such a threat to the earth.

 

The people who are saying the things that are being taken as evidence that this doesn't impact "climate change" are apologists. They've been caught with their pants down, so to speak, as another undiscovered mechanism by which the Earth regulates itself is revealed. Just one massive, incredible device that has escaped our view. Might there be more? I'd bet on it.

 

We live on an awe-inspiring, beautiful, magnificent self-correcting entity. It can and will outpace us. If it ever reaches the point where it can't, it will boot us DaHell OFF.

 

I agree that we are not a threat to the earth. We are as much of the earth as anything, so if we can kill it, it is the earth committing suicide. But as George Carlin said, maybe we are here because Mother Earth wanted some plastic. Now that she has it, maybe she don't need us anymore. Most species that have ever inhabited the Earth are extinct. We should keep that in mind as we go along destroying our niche, not the earth.

[SilentLoner]

Yeah, global warming or whatever is happening has nothing to do with us. If we believed in what they were saying we'd have cut emissions and developed cleaner energy for nothing!

[Asimov]

What's wrong with cutting emissions or developing cleaner energy?