Unlike Prophet Gore, i have little faith in my own species of murderous apes to prevent global warming. We are despairingly short-sighted.
The engine of capitalism has given us so much freedom, but the downside of the greed that is required to grease it's wheels is environmental catastrophe. Science won't save us- and nor will blogging! People just don't believe in science. What's needed is a kooky new reinterpretation of eco-Jesusism.
I had thought that we'd run out of fossil fuels before we could do too much damage- but now it seems there are trillions of barrels worth of methane trapped in ice crystals (methane hydrates or clathrates) at the bottom of the ocean. If the methane escapes- we'll get a runaway greenhouse effect: the so called "Clathrate Gun". If we burn it for fuel, we'll generate so much CO2 we'll probably get the same effect.
So now I think we are essentially flucked. The end is nigh.
I suspect many prominent environmentalists are privately very pessimistic and are in therapy - but paint a brave facade of optimism: "YES-You CAN make a difference!".
There's just not much real point circling with a "We are Doomed!" placard- you might as well go find a nice beach to sit on and read a book and wait for the end to come. I've heard it said that one good thing about global warming (and rising sea levels) is that we'll all own beachfront property one day!
It should really be re-branded as "Global Boiling" - 'warm' makes it sound so nice- you can now grow tomatoes in Finland- so what's wrong with that? Perhaps rebadging it as an "Unavoidable Disasterous Global Dying Event" would help.
No government can think in terms of the "long now"... and i don't know if anybody is taking those crackpots at the "Long Now Foundation" seriously. Don't get me wrong- i love the LNF and those crackpots are my heroes (i even subscribe to their podcasts).
We absolutely must build a clock to last a zillion years - so when the cockroaches evolve to sentience they will know what time it is.
Their roach-o-pologists will probably need to go scuba diving to find our artifacts (rising sea levels again)... perhaps they will think of us as we think of the ancient Egyptians .. until they dig up a few fossilized roach baits .... eh? i wonder what this was used for?
Really, we should get 'over' ourselves- sure we're going to auto-extinctify ourselves and lots of polar bears etc- but there have been many mass extinctions before. The largest one ever occured 251 million years ago and wiped out 96% of all marine life, and 70% of all life on land. Do we weep for those lost trilobites? I doubt it. In any case, when the sun expands at the end of it's life, the earth will be sterilized, shortly before being literally engulfed by it. But don't worry, the ultimate heat-death of the universe is coming.. and nothing will be able to survive that.
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I don't know which is more entertaining to me; your intellect and choice of topic, or the dry wit to it you apply. Keep 'em coming...
ReplyDeleteNo doubt you’ve seen the ads. The music is dramatic. The scene is tragic. The message emotional. Polar Bears, holding on for dear life to bits of ice, their artic habitat destroyed by Global Warming. And the narration tells you of the tragic fate of the bears, all because of man and his selfish destruction of the earth. And of course, the ad ends with a plea for funds to help the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) protect the bears and stop Global Warming. Cute, fuzzy animals always do the trick.
ReplyDeleteTrouble is, it’s all a lie. Not one word of the ad is true. Polar Bears are not endangered. There is no indication of any reduction of their populations. In fact, they are actually being hunted by locals who have to live with them, in an effort to keep their populations down. Of 13 Polar Bear populations, 11 are thriving and growing.
The real agenda behind WWF’s Polar Bear campaign is to stop drilling of American oil and to shackle the United States with the UN’s Kyoto Climate Change Treaty. Again, the policy is called Sustainable Development.
Using the Polar Bear, which WWF and the Sierra Club managed to get listed on the Endangered Species (ESA) list last year, the greens can grab control of the U S economy, controlling energy production.
Last year, in a Congressional hearing on the listing of the Polar Bears, Congressman Don Young of Alaska said testimony by Bush Administration officials “clearly indicated the overriding goal was to use the ESA as a tool to stop energy production in any and all states.” Under questioning, former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Director Dale Hall confirmed that if a coal-fired power plant in Arizona were seeking a federal permit, with the Polar Bear listed as protected by the ESA, the Fish and Wildlife Service would have to consult on the permit. In other words, a power plant located thousands of miles away from Polar Bear habitat would be considered a danger – because of global warming. How could any industry be possible? And that’s just the way WWF wants it.
The truth is now rapidly coming out. There is no man-made global warming – it’s a lie. There is no threat to Polar Bears - -it’s a lie. Drilling American oil is not a danger to the environment – it’s a lie. And yet, WWF continues to spread the lies and fan the fear.
It is time we fight back against these zealots who put anything else on earth ahead of man.