Sep 18, 2011 -- 8:55PM, DotNotInOz wrote:

Sep 18, 2011 -- 6:52PM, Lonesentinel wrote:

. What do you think is going to exterminate us that we have set in motion?  How can you come anywhere near such a conclusion?

What I said was that I think it quite possible we've set in motion processes that may render the planet incapable of sustaining human life. In short, we've already brought about our own extinction.  I certainly hope not, but I think that climate change and melting of the polar ice and glaciers are results of our dependence upon fossil fuels as Solfeggio alluded to. If so, we need to reduce our reliance upon them immediately in the hope that that might help reverse what scientists fear will soon become irreversible if it isn't already. 

Dot...if and when Humankind no longer is...the world will go on - until there is no world.  Life will happen here no matter what we do - at least at this present day, and I believe we havent the ability to end that process.  And I dont think it would matter if every nuclear bomb went off...life would continue somewhere.

Sep 18, 2011 -- 8:55PM, DotNotInOz wrote:

Secondly, you talk about control.  Do you truly believe we have or can control ANYTHING that could cause 'extinction'?

 

Maybe we're not understanding each other at all, but I thought nuclear waste storage gone wrong a very good example of something that might easily bring about our extinction.  DDT was a pesticide once thought safe enough to spray it on PEOPLE. We learned to our dismay that it was far more toxic than we thought. My point is that we're not as smart or as invulnerable as we tend to think we are.   Whether or not we can halt the ice melting by reducing fossil fuel emissions isn't a certainty but doing so beats doing nothing, I'd say. It's certainly worth a try. 

If what you say   came to pass, do you not think humankind would not make adjustments?  Extinction includes everyone - not just one place.

Sep 18, 2011 -- 8:55PM, DotNotInOz wrote:

Would you give up on 'gene' research?...how about finding the cure for cancer?

Neither of which will do us any good to speak of if we damage our environment to the point that we can't fix it and can't survive. 

Sounds a bit like a 'cry wolf' to me at this stage...

Sep 18, 2011 -- 8:55PM, DotNotInOz wrote:

In your last statement, you said predestination - how did you get that out of anything I said - particularly in this thread?

When you asked, "As far as 'irrepairable damage', if you believe in evolution, what we do as a species, is it not meant to be?", I understood you to be saying that whatever we humans do is somehow part of a grand design that will work out just fine in the long run, a form of predestination.   Your question was rather confusing. If that is not what you meant, then please say it another way.

You understood me wrong.  I meant it is what it is.  Maybe things turn out ok, maybe many will die.  I am far from believing mankind will exterminate themselves by ruining the planet - at best we would just make the lives of those who survive miserable in comparison to our own today.  Without nuclear holocaust, I dont see mankind capable of an ELE.

Sep 18, 2011 -- 8:55PM, DotNotInOz wrote:

In a nutshell, evolution to me is 'survival of the fittest' at the most grand of scales in life...what is it to you?

I have no idea what "the most grand of scales in life" means and thus cannot see what its relevance may be to the process of evolution. Please explain.  Survival of the fittest could easily mean microbes outlast humankind if we pollute or otherwise damage the planet sufficiently. Technically, that's not what the phrase means, but if we render the planet incapable of sustaining human life, there'll be no survival of the fittest as far as we're concerned.   

Yes there will be.  What survives will be the fittest.  If you give the science of evolution belief to the point of calling it fact, then you should know this - feel free to google 'Extinction Level Events' - the earth has had a few of them in its past.  Mammals were thought to outlive the last one...and here we are.

Present-Day Global Climate Change is NOT simply a Normal Cycle going forward ...

Sep 19, 2011 -- 5:22PM, solfeggio wrote:

Yes, the planet has gone through ice ages and temperature changes in the past, but those were brought about by natural processes.  What is happening today is something entirely different.  It isn't 'Mother Nature' causing the changes so much today, as human meddling.

We've dug up fossil fuels and burned them; dredged the ocean to the point where we've started to cause the corral reefs to die and many fish species to go extinct; cut down mountains; polluted and dammed waterways; and, probably worst of all, over-populated the planet to the point where it cannot support life anymore.

And what is truly astounding is that we've managed to do all this in the space of only a few hundred years.  The beginnings of agriculture in Neolithic times eight thousand years ago was the beginning of the end, of course, but for the real damage we have to look at the Industrial Revolution:

www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1981...

Whether we continue to exist as a species is problematic.  Yes, the earth abides, but chances are it will abide without us.

 

Evidentaly this finding of artic ice melting is hotly disputed by serious scientists.

www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/19/us-at...

While global warming has played a role in this reduction, it is also as a result
of the much more accurate data and in-depth research that is now available,"
HarperCollins said on its website on Monday. 

However, a number of scientists disputed the claim.

"We believe that the figure of a 15 percent decrease in permanent ice cover
since the publication of the previous atlas 12 years (ago) is both incorrect and
misleading," said Poul Christoffersen, glaciologist at the Scott Polar Research
Institute (SPRI) at the University of Cambridge.

"We concluded that a sizable portion of the area mapped as ice-free in the
Atlas is clearly still ice-covered."

Other scientists agreed.

"These new maps are ridiculously off base, way exaggerated relative to the
reality of rapid change in Greenland," said Jeffrey S. Kargel, senior research
scientist at the University of Arizona.

The Times Atlas suggested the Greenland ice sheet has lost 300,000 square
kilometers in the past 12 years, at a rate of 1.5 percent per year.

However, measurements suggest this rate is at least 10 times faster than in
reality, added J. Graham Cogley, Professor of Geography at Trent University,
Ontario, Canada.

"It could easily be 20 times too fast and might well be 50 times too fast,"
he added.

Last year, a U.N. committee of climate scientists came under fire for
bungling a forecast of when Himalayan glaciers would thaw.

The panel's 2007 report, the main guide for governments in fighting climate
change, included an incorrect projection that all Himalayan glaciers could
vanish by 2035, hundreds of years earlier than scientists' projections.

So you're in The Camp of, "Nuke the Baby Seals," ... ???

Sep 20, 2011 -- 4:40PM, farragut wrote:

A arctic melt  -- a whaleburger patty with reindeer cheddar on a dulse-encrusted bun.

Sounds good to me.

Sep 20, 2011 -- 6:38PM, solfeggio wrote:

And Erey is a climate-change denier.  Amazing how, in the face of all the irrefutable evidence, there are still people out there who refuse to believe it.

Good Grief SOLF,

I posted a article that is from Reuters that has quotes from scientists that pertain to YOUR article. 

I am surprised you are so offended by that.