This is the most depressing time ever to be an environmentalist. I used to be a. Dry dedicated conservationist and I was fascinated by the cause. I still have a subscription to National Geographic. I actually stopped reading about the environment because it was getting too depressing. I couldn't stop thinking about how quickly we are losing the most important and beautiful places on earth. I hate capitalism.
@Acedia say 'morphing' instead of losing. The earth is self morphing anyway (observe continental drift, for example, and the catastrophic morphing it has done)
@srob1458 they're being turned into strip mines and pasture for cattle. The rain forests are being destroyed methodically. They are morphing into something that is no longer nature. They are lost.
@Acedia Life is unstoppable! 30 years (or so) ago I remember listening to translated interviews with Hiroshima survivors. The most surprising thing I heard was that when they were returning after a week away the kudu vines were growing all over the wrecked roads and buildings....
That surprised me but....
@srob1458 life is unstoppable, but it will not be the same as it was before we fucked it up. And I'm willing to bet that after global climate change begins to take its full course, that "life" will not include "human life."
@Acedia Nope, we already exist in permananetly icy locales, deep deserts. everywhere except the frozen poles. We will endure no matter what. Of course decadent machine civilizations may suffer or they may expand. we will all see about that later
@srob1458 "we" is going to be billions less people so still doesn't look very fun.
@Acedia Never said it would be fun - but maybe not nearly as bleak! In any event my comprehension of history says that life is always difficult......
And only survivors write the history books.
@srob1458 Yeah, but to those that didn't survive their deaths meant everything to them. I'm worried that I won't survive, and the people I love won't survive.
@Acedia Life is always uncertain. Major changes from CO2 pollution are at best several hundred years away. Make sure your descendants are educated and in a safe location/situation. That's all anyone can do. You are all at much more risk of Chinese, Russian or Korean Nuclear bombs killing you.
@srob1458 No. Have you seen the projections. We're looking at 4 degrees Celsius increases within the next hundred years. Mass displacements due to sea level rise. Global instability as the result. A drought in Syria precipitated the current conflict there. This is right now.
@Acedia Also the projections are based on computer models that have proven to be wildly inaccurate. According to Al Gore in 'the unfortunate lies' we are all already dead.
@srob1458 lmao please try to learn about actual science. Bye.
@Acedia LOL - I am an actual scientist and did it for a living. I also develop computer models.