Doom and gloom

[tenaya]

I should be going out to grocery shop so I can get back in time to weed some more. I weed during the last 1-2 hours of daylight when it's not so hot. I should go now. Instead, I'm watching National Geographic channel, currently I'm seeing just what happened with the flooding in New Orleans and the list of pollutants is staggering. Strangely enough, this is not nearly as bad as the program on before it about how 95% of life was wiped out during the Permian period. Volcanos in Sibera raised the temperatures five degrees and when the oceans temperatures raised, some sort of methane gas was released that killed off all ocean life. This greenhouse gas raised the temps another five degrees and voila, 95% of all life is gone.

On the news last night, they mentioned that temperatures in California have been raised five degrees in the last 100 years. Al Gore was on Letterman last night talking about global warming. That really brilliant scientist that is wheelchair, Stephen Hawking, thinks it's imperative that mankind colonize the moon and Mars because something catastrophic is lurking about here on Earth.

Things aren't looking so good, you know?

I'm going now, venturing out into the heat. Perhaps hard, sweaty work will lift my spirits? :::sigh:::

Comments

[catalenamara.livejournal.com]

>>>Although we contribute to climate change, I don't think we have sole control/responsibility, and I wonder why no one ever talks about the fact that a lot of what is going on is just Mother Nature, or whatever.

The right-wingers use this argument all the time - they're published tons of books and scientific studies on this, and Michael Crichton's new novel is all about this - but of course they go in the other direction entirely and say global warming is entirely Mother Nature and has nothing to do with human activity.

My belief is this: It's both. I believe human activities are having an impact on global warming, and I believe mother nature is doing her thing, too. We're aiding and abetting the process, but of course there's no way of knowing which way things are going to go.

It would be nice if this was an actual part of the conversation, but the country is way too polarized for either side to acknowledge that the other might have one tiny smidgen of sense.

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

If part of it is natural and our contribution is the tipping point, we'll still suffer by dying by the millions. And if we're even more responisble, well, it's Darwinism in action, isn't it? The stupid will die off, taking everything else with them.

I'm glad I don't have children.

[catalenamara.livejournal.com]

>>>If part of it is natural and our contribution is the tipping point, we'll still suffer by dying by the millions.

Exactly, and it's very possible our contribution will be the tipping point. Human activity is directly responsible for the extinction of many countless species already, and who knows how much of the current epidemic in illnesses like autism, etc., are caused by the high levels of chemicals to which we were exposed?

If human activity causes the water levels to rise even slightly, the island nations will be swamped - they will pay the price for the willful ignorance on the part of the people who profit from the pollutants.

But they'll be like Lex Luthor from that Superman movie, planning his beachfront property in Arizona.

>>>I'm glad I don't have children

I am grateful I don't have children, either, for so many reasons. For so many generations, people have assumed their children will have a better life than they did, but I don't think that's going to be the case for the next few generations. They will be saddled with so many burdens.

[moonchildetoo.livejournal.com]

I would never say that it's all Mother Nature, there's too much evidence otherwise. But knowing what we know about the Earth's past, it doesn't make sense to blame it all on mankind either. It's too bad it has to be so politicized, but I guess that's human nature.

Like you, I believe it's both - and I'm not willing to come down heavily on one side either way, i.e. 90% "us", 10% Momma, or the other way 'round. Sigh...