Climate change could mean the extinction of our species

[fivekatz]

It is scary thought because even if and when the US gets serious the work to do in order to convert from a fossil fuel energized society to one using renewables is just a fraction of the issue. China, India and host of emerging societies will be hard pressed to not take the quicker but "dirtier" path to a more prosperous life that cheap fossil fuels stimulate.

The great fear of course is that mankind is seldom proactive and often only reacts once the true crisis has struck. Recent examples in my mind in the USA include the levies in New Orleans and the constantly one step behind reactions to the financial derivatives that to this day have left the world's economic systems hanging on by a thread.

Seems even the most recent problems in greater NY, whether it be the vast destruction of Sandy in the Tri-State or the horrific murder of babies in Newtown can only temporarily distract from the next episode of Kim and Klhoe Kardasian go shopping.

[Kire89]

We will convert to other forms of energy: muscle power and manual labour. We were given an abundant, copious supply of ancient sunlight in the form of hydrocarbons and have wasted it on nail polish, flights, world wars, food for billions and beyond all, liquid fuels. Such folly.

Humankind is very clever in its endeavours, but smart by any measure.

[trish]

nail polish is never a waste. nuff said.

[Kire89]

Toe nail polish is the most erotic thing ever. <3

[Ben]

[trish]

What is more worrisome is: the use of antibiotics (to keep livestock alive under factory conditions) creates strains of bacteria that are immune to those antibiotics. At a persistent rate factory farms are decommissioning the arsenal of antibiotics that we humans rely upon to keep serious communicable diseases at bay. Tuberculosis, gonorrhea, streptococci etc. all have highly resistant strains that are now supplanting the strains we know how to combat. There's no need to go vegan, but unless you value profit more than human beings, there is no need to pack livestock so tightly together in factory farms that the only way to keep them alive before they're ripe for slaughter is to dose them with gallons of antibiotics meant to fight the diseases that plague, maim and kill people.

[muh_muh]

on the plus side if youre ever ill eating a chicken is signiicantly cheaper than going to the docs

[Ben]

[Ben]

[Jamie Michelle]

Climate change could mean the extinction of our species...

The reason why anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory has become such a virulent dogma is due to the political power that it's being used to justify. If government and its connected interests could find a way to get as much power out of which sock, the left or the right, a person puts on first in the morning then we would never hear the end of the alleged horrors brought about by putting socks on the wrong foot first, and that if the government doesn't step in to save humanity from itself then it could well mean our extinction. Anyone who doubted the sock-crisis and pointed out that it's disproved by the empirical evidence would be accused of being party to "denialism". Later on they would be charged under state edicts which threaten loss of their tenure (such as AGW heretic Prof. Bjørn Lomborg). And if the government's anti-sock-on-wrong-foot-first efforts managed to actually cause humanity's extinction, then this result would be cheered (before their own deaths) by those who consider humanity as a cancer, with the sock-crisis regarded by them as merely being one example of mankind's cancerous ways.

AGW theory attracts etatists of multifarious stripes. They see in it a means of empowering the government and micromanaging people's lives. The theory of AGW is a collectivist's wet dream, as not only do they have their misanthropy confirmed (to the effect that mankind is a cancer), but so also they have a pretext for social engineering.

It's very unfortunate that AGW isn't true, as life loves a warm, carbon dioxide-rich Earth. It would be quite a life-giving boon to humanity and the other critters if AGW had been true.