George Carlin on Saving the Planet

[Caninelaw]

I usually don't agree with much of what Carlin used to say but he makes some good points here that are hard to disagree with... (not kid or workplace safe)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw

[ltdann]

I've often felt the same way when folks discuss "Global warming". I dislike that phrase and prefer "climate change".

I can't fathom people that have the arrogance to believe that humans can significantly impact the weather of a planet for any length of time. The counter arguement is usual some variation of the industrial revolution, gases, carbon etc....

If all humans were to disapper overnight, would the planet cool down to normal? Whats normal? In the 12th century there was the little ice age, is that normal? Would our disapperance arrest or stop the climate change. I doubt it.

Could it possibly be, that the current climate change is a natural cycle and that in reality, we're in the final stages of the last ice age and the beginning stages of the next?

I can't stand the human arrogance.

[palladin]

valid points. There is evidence to suggest a changing climate as well as a magnetic (polar) shift. I do think humanity, as a group, does have the ability to make some changes to the environment...good and bad.

I used to watch a program called "Life without people" that explored what would happen if people
suddenly disappeared. Bridges and buildings would crumble because no one is repairing them, Dogs would revert to wolves, plants would overrun everything because no one was mowing the lawns, etc. All documented in a span of yearly (1, 5, 10, 20, 100, etc) increments.

You get the idea. Not hard science just entertainment for all us misanthropes out there.

The thing that got me to thinking, and this relates to LtDann's assertion about our capacity to change the global environment, is that no matter what we create Nature is amazingly fast at repairing it and making all disappear.

[16onrockandroll]

I am studying wildlife biology, but I am also a student of Objectivism and a proponent of business and Capitalism, so I often find myself in interesting positions regarding these types of issues. On one hand, we absolutely have an effect on the environment. Most agree that people as a whole have a negative effect. I differ from a lot of "environmentalists" in that I differentiate between "habitat", and "the planet". We likely couldn't destroy this planet if we set out purposely and blatantly to do so. Maybe a massive nuke delivered deep into the earth in a strategic place. More realistically, all of the nukes delivered in precision like a Demo team taking down a highrise. Even then, I doubt we could really destroy the "planet". We could destroy most of the life on it, but the planet would recover. our best efforts would be tantamount to a broken limb for us. our existence is just a tiny chapter in the history of the planet, a couple million years of recovering from our best attempt would be like us being laid up for a couple weeks. the irritations we are now causing to the planet are like a rash. maybe irritating, but not deadly. On the other hand, many of our practices wreak havoc on the ecosystems. no matter how "green" we are, we still have an impact (guess what? so does a beaver, a black bear, a bluebird, and an insect), but ours are much larger due to our level of activity. At the same time, we live at a higher quality of life than any generation before us. We do so at the hands of our industrialized society. Without the efficiency of industry, we would not have our infrastructure, homes, clean water (obviously more so in 1st world countries), food supply, medical advancements, and gadgets. Knowledge is at our fingertips unlike anything in the wildest dreams of past philosophers and genius inventors. But we are causing stress in our environments. Pesticide/herbicide residues run off into our waterways, upsetting the balances in them, then finding their ways into the phytoplankton in the ocean food supply. the amounts those tiny animals absorb is so small as to be insignificant. until a larger fish comes by and eats a few hundred, concentrating all of the chemicals they contain. still an inconsequential amount of pollutants. then a bigger fish comes by and eats a few hundred of those fish. still a tiny amount of pollution in that fish, too small to really worry about. but then along comes another fish, that eats him and a few hundred of his buddies that have all taken in this tiny amount of pollution. then along comes a swordfish and eats a few hundred of those little fish. by the 6th level of predation, the swordfish we are eating has taken in the concentrated pollutants of hundreds of millions of krill. it can become a problem. especially when a mother then nurses her infant, dumping huge amounts of pollution into its developing body. Even if it isn't enough to make a marked difference in that child, it can't be good for us in the cumulative, as a species. I can not make myself understand people who wantonly damage the world ecosystem. I also can not believe the "save the planet" kool-aid that people drink these days without question. CFLs? they use less electricity and last longer! they must be great! wait. they contain highly toxic chemicals? and in real-world use don't last as long or emit as much light as they advertise? and they take up 2-10 times the space of an incandescent bulb when compacted as refuse (even though I am sure every one is recycled properly). give me a break. and what about when we start invading countries that have huge supplies of lithium for the batteries in our "green" hybrid cars, instead of oil? (http://news.change.org/stories/thats...on-of-minerals)
I could go on for days. But I will try not to.