Just a comment from the late great George Carlin in regards to environmental issues like this;
"Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet... nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine... the people are fucked! Difference! The planet is fine! Compared to the people, THE PLANET IS DOING GREAT: Been here four and a half billion years! Do you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years, we’ve been here what? 100,000? Maybe 200,000? And we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over 200 years. 200 years versus four and a half billion and we have the conceit to think that somehow, we’re a threat? That somehow, we’re going to put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that’s just a-floatin’ around the sun? The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us: been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drifts, solar flares, sunspots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles, hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and
asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages, and we think some plastic bags and aluminum cans are going to make a difference?
The planet isn’t going anywhere... we are! We’re going away! Pack your shit folks! We’re going away and we won’t leave much of a trace either, thank God for that... maybe a little styrofoam... maybe... little styrofoam. The planet will be here, we’ll be long gone; just another failed mutation; just another closed-end biological mistake; an evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet will shake us off like a bad case of
fleas, a surface nuisance. You wanna know how the planet’s doing? Ask those people in Pompeii who are frozen into position from volcanic ash how the planet’s doing. Wanna know if the planet’s all right? Ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble if they feel
like a threat to the planet this week. How about those people in Kilauea, Hawaii who build their homes right next to an active volcano and then wonder why they have lava in the living room?"
BTW, you people that keep down voting me because I don't agree with your position, trying to shut me down, stopping me from expressing my opinion, you guys, are fascists.
Don't believe me about climate change scaremongering, here is a long list over the past 50 years of failed environmental disasters....
Please don't source your worldview from a comedian. The snark can be temporarily comforting, but just remember that it's a distraction. Carlin is deeply wrong about the effect we can have on the biosphere. You simply can't simplify the problem without losing all meaningful nuance.
> Carlin is deeply wrong about the effect we can have on the biosphere
> Don't believe me about climate change scaremongering
You both missed the point of this bit. If the planet warms 5C and we are all baked to a crisp, we had an effect on the biosphere AND climate change was correct. Carlin's point is that in a astronomical, deep-time sense, it's not the "PLANET" that's in trouble, it's the human race.
There may have been life on Mars, which may have died due to ignorant people like HashingtheCode, but Mars is still there. Mars is fine. The Martians on the other hand...
He's certainly obfuscating his personal beliefs with comedy, but sure. The thing is, there really isn't a meaningful difference between the destruction of the human race and the destruction of the natural world. That is to say, the reversion of the earth from a vibrant biosphere to an uninhabitable protoplasmic rock isn't the same thing as humanity disappearing in an instant. The problem with Carlin's logic is that sans humans, there isn't even anyone/anything left to even make the value judgement about whether Earth is an outstanding planet; this in conjunction with the fact that we're not facing an isolated disappearance of our species and leaving everything else constant. The way we're going, all the cute animals are coming with us.
He's saying humans are insignificant in terms of the lifespan of the planet and all the creatures that came before us. He is saying the Earth doesn't care for a bit of plastic we have created as it will be incorporated into the Earth. He is saying that the Earth has faced far greater threats than this 2 legged ape and will be here long after we are cleansed from it. He is saying that our arrogant attempts to "save the planet" are ridiculous.
The attempts are not to save the planet, but to reduce our impact to ensure we don’t go extinct and don’t significantly damage the environment. Your use of adjective like “arrogant” just displays your bias and willingness to use the worst possible interpretation of other people’s words. That’s not a way to come to understanding, quite the opposite.
Sounds like you are under the illusion that human beings are a species worth saving, but if you look at the destruction we have caused over the past 100k years, you can make an argument for the opposite, especially in the past 200 years since the industrial revolution.
Human will not change. We will cause destruction no matter where we go, no matter the planet or galaxy, we will destroy it and move on. Even with all our technological advances, we are causing more destruction than ever.
Humans unsettle the balance of nature, we are the problem.
"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus."
In the newspaper articles they make references to the research. For Example in the first paper from 1975 it is Paul R Erlich who is the researcher.
If you want, you can track down the paper. It may be difficult though.
Edit:
In 1968, Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich wrote a well-publicized book entitled The Population Bomb . Ehrlich predicted widespread famine and disaster unless population growth was reduced to zero in America and throughout the world by compulsory methods if necessary.
Their "scientists" have no relevant credentials and are actually "public policy advisors", and usually spread their opinions across multiple unrelated fields (which happens to coincide with whatever disinformation they're trying to spread).
I recently encountered them on Reddit, where people were trying to say the Australian bushfires were just caused by arsonists; these people are from the US and have no idea what's going on in Australia (how did they uncover evidence of arson before the local police?), there was absolutely no evidence for arson, and it didn't explain why it spread so far & rapidly.
Please make sure you get your information from credible sources; as in, sources without a vested interest in industries that have a long history in disinformation campaigns.
"Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet... nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine... the people are fucked! Difference! The planet is fine! Compared to the people, THE PLANET IS DOING GREAT: Been here four and a half billion years! Do you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years, we’ve been here what? 100,000? Maybe 200,000? And we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over 200 years. 200 years versus four and a half billion and we have the conceit to think that somehow, we’re a threat? That somehow, we’re going to put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that’s just a-floatin’ around the sun? The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us: been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drifts, solar flares, sunspots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles, hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages, and we think some plastic bags and aluminum cans are going to make a difference?
The planet isn’t going anywhere... we are! We’re going away! Pack your shit folks! We’re going away and we won’t leave much of a trace either, thank God for that... maybe a little styrofoam... maybe... little styrofoam. The planet will be here, we’ll be long gone; just another failed mutation; just another closed-end biological mistake; an evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas, a surface nuisance. You wanna know how the planet’s doing? Ask those people in Pompeii who are frozen into position from volcanic ash how the planet’s doing. Wanna know if the planet’s all right? Ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. How about those people in Kilauea, Hawaii who build their homes right next to an active volcano and then wonder why they have lava in the living room?"
BTW, you people that keep down voting me because I don't agree with your position, trying to shut me down, stopping me from expressing my opinion, you guys, are fascists.
Don't believe me about climate change scaremongering, here is a long list over the past 50 years of failed environmental disasters....
https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-failed-eco-pocalyp...