"How to talk to a global warming sceptic"

[dfc05]

I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that you ever posed the question of why extinction is bad, so I didn't bother to answer it. And as someone who seems to be familiar with science/engineering, you should know that science is woefully inadequate to answer the "WHY" question, which is more philosophical/subjective in nature. Due to the nature of the question, I can't give you an answer that would not spiral off into a long series of further "Why" questions. So rephrasing that as a what or how question would be better. For example, "How does a decrease in biodiversity affect the well-being of humans?" And please don't ask, "How does a decrease in biodiversity affect the planet as a lump of rock floating in space" again, because I already agreed that yes, as a rock floating in space, the Earth is fine.

And yes, if we regressed to the state of Earth with no life at all, that would be very bad for people today. If you only care about the Earth as a solid rock and have no respect for the life that inhabits this planet, then there is nothing I could ever say to convince you that the impact of humans on the biosphere is detrimental. Whether biodiversity is "good" or not is obviously subjective, depending on whether or not you have an appreciation for life as we know it and consider this to be "good." Whether biodiversity is "beneficial" for current ecosystems and humans should be clear in that species are interdependent and removing one will affect others.

The fact that extinction events millions of years ago were larger than what we are currently facing has no bearing on what is happening here and now. And as a person living here and now, yes I am concerned that we are approaching a mass extinction rate. I don't live on a million-year timescale, so of course I would selfishly prefer to live with what we have now than with what we had millions of years ago. The moon, in and of itself, is not "bad." The moon is, however, "bad" for supporting life.

In summary:
Yes there have been higher extinction rates. The fact that we are driving the current rate to approach a mass extinction rate cannot be scientifically, objectively stated to be "bad" because "bad" and "good" are clearly subjective. Whether you feel that we are responsible for conserving and sustaining biodiversity is your own choice based on your own subjective feelings for the matter, but objectively, (1) humans are detrimentally impacting the current biodiversity; (2) this currently has detrimental ramifications for the current biosphere and the current human population.

If we are going to demand answers to the question of how extinction is "bad" (I prefer the term "detrimental"):

How is extinction bad for the Earth on a piece-of-space-rock, million-year time scale?
It isn't.

How is extinction bad for current ecosystems?
Species interdependency... connection of populations and abiotic/biotic factors on a regional and global scale

How is extinction bad for people?
Possibilities of finding new medicines, food supply

 

[Dan]

See, now you finally understand; it's not the planet that you should worry about, it's yourself. You finally brought it back to the issue at hand, which is "people today". That is what I told you from the get go. Worry about yourself if you feel like worrying.

 

[phantomdesign]

Then there must have been a natural event that released loads of CFCs into the atmosphere sometime around 1979, otherwise why did the ozone layer start thinning at that time? Besides, I've heard that the hole's starting to heal (or at least stop growing) now that CFCs have been banned.

At 8:32 Sunday morning, May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted.

Shaken by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, the north face of this tall symmetrical mountain collapsed in a massive rock debris avalanche. Nearly 230 square miles of forest was blown down or buried beneath volcanic deposits. At the same time a mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward and drifted downwind, turning day into night as dark, gray ash fell over eastern Washington and beyond. The eruption lasted 9 hours, but Mount St. Helens and the surrounding landscape were dramatically changed within moments.

 

[dfc05]

See, now you finally understand; it's not the planet that you should worry about, it's yourself. You finally brought it back to the issue at hand, which is "people today". That is what I told you from the get go. Worry about yourself if you feel like worrying.

I see. By "worrying about yourself," I took that to literally mean myself as a single individual in a bubble. But if you meant "worry about yourself" to mean "worry about the entire current biosphere," then yes I agree, we should worry about the entire current biosphere rather than the world on a million-year timescale. I wasn't aware that there was actually anyone in this thread worrying about the world on a million-year timescale, but okay.

I think when people mention the planet, they tend to think of the planet now. I'm sorry my mind doesn't default to a geologic, lifespan-of-Earth timescale.

 

[Dan]

I see. By "worrying about yourself," I took that to literally mean myself as a single individual in a bubble. But if you meant "worry about yourself" to mean "worry about the entire current biosphere," then yes I agree, we should worry about the entire current biosphere rather than the world on a million-year timescale. I wasn't aware that there was actually anyone in this thread worrying about the world on a million-year timescale, but okay.

I think when people mention the planet, they tend to think of the planet now. I'm sorry my mind doesn't default to a geologic, lifespan-of-Earth timescale.

Yes, I mean yourself as a single individual in a bubble. But that bubble is affected by the people around it and the environment it lives in. You are justified in worrying about those issues in so far as they relate to something relevant to you. Worrying about the state of the planet on it's own is not justifiable.

When I hear people make statements like, "humans are destroying the planet, we should all be wiped out," or "humans are terrible, we're cancer" I always argue with them, because there is no rational justification for taking on the cause of some arbitrarily defined entity that you want to prevent from changing. The planet isn't a person, the biosphere isn't a person, the environment isn't a person. They don't care what you think. Defending the "planet" or "Mother Earth", or the biosphere, or Nature as an entity makes as much sense as saying that some certain arrangement of rocks in the desert is of the utmost importance, and anyone who changes that arrangement should be killed.

You can go back and read my posts. I haven't equivocated on any of these issues. I have pretty much just been repeating myself in different words. I don't know why you suddenly agree now.

 

[dfc05]

Yes, I mean yourself as a single individual in a bubble. But that bubble is affected by the people around it and the environment it lives in. You are justified in worrying about those issues in so far as they relate to something relevant to you. Worrying about the state of the planet on it's own is not justifiable.

When I hear people make statements like, "humans are destroying the planet, we should all be wiped out," or "humans are terrible, we're cancer" I always argue with them, because there is no rational justification for taking on the cause of some arbitrarily defined entity that you want to prevent from changing. The planet isn't a person, the biosphere isn't a person, the environment isn't a person. They don't care what you think. Defending the "planet" or "Mother Earth", or the biosphere, or Nature as an entity makes as much sense as saying that some certain arrangement of rocks in the desert is of the utmost importance, and anyone who changes that arrangement should be killed.

You can go back and read my posts. I haven't equivocated on any of these issues. I have pretty much just been repeating myself in different words. I don't know why you suddenly agree now.

Well, and I've been saying since my first reply to you in Post #67 that no one is arguing that the Earth as a spinning rock is going to be destroyed. I don't see anywhere where I have turned to sudden agreement with you, in that each of my posts have responded to the specific content in each of yours. Unless you mean the part where I said "Yes now I agree if you mean 'yourself' as 'yourself plus all the interconnections between yourself and the environment,'" which was obviously a clear misunderstanding on my part of what you meant by the term "yourself."

However, yes I do believe in defending the biosphere as a whole, which I suppose is the point of disagreement now that I have been clarified as to what "yourself" means. Someone's gotta defend it... the animals can't just tell us to stop screwing with their habitats. I do believe in the value of certain arrangements of rocks insofar as such arrangements may be vitally necessary for threatened populations, because to me, they are worth defending. In terms of global warming, it turns out that what we do happens to affect everybody, including ourselves. Would I kill someone over it? No. Would I consider them to be irresponsible? Maybe. I don't go out and preach to people to change their lifestyle. I am more of an education advocate, just in teaching people simple things like how to identify native plants, or cool things about plants and ecosystems in general -- once people know what things are, they will start to value it. If you know a certain species of plant in your area that is really cool, and one day you find that it's been wiped out by habitat destruction/pollinator disappearance/invasive species, then it hits you regardless of its "usefulness" to you or anyone else. Because you knew that plant, and now it's gone. But that's going into a different topic.

Anyways, I feel like we've both clarified ourselves enough. So I've had enough. Now I'm gonna go get myself a yummy cherry Icee. Cheers. :cheers:

Here are some Calvin and Hobbes comics to make everyone feel sad. Woooooo. Whatever happens, no matter who's right or wrong, we are all stuck on this same planet and we'll have to deal with it as it comes.

on a completely unrelated note, you or whoever is in your avatar looks a whole lot like someone I know, and it's kinda freaking me out.

 

[VirusType2]

And to people who bitch about hurting the planet: grow up. The planet doesn't have feelings; it's a lump of iron and nickel. It'll keep spinning, so worry about yourself if you have to have something to worry about. Don't take on the imaginary problems of an object with trillions of times your mass with a bit of fuzz on the outside.

The trees, plants, the micro-organisms, even water is alive. The way you speak of it like a car is just a lump of metal and plastic... no, it's a car.

The planet Earth is like a living breathing being. the trees and plant life are the lungs, the lava the blood, the earth the flesh, the rock is the bone. take any part and yeah, it's just a part - like a bone is just a bone by itself, unless it is inside a living being.

so you don't care about the planet, or if people destroy it? What is wrong with you? I need to grow up because I listed things people are doing to damage it... oh OK. Because it's the other way around actually.

If we don't take on the problems of the planet - who will? 100,000 years from now people will be ashamed of their tiny-brained ancestors and what they've done.

and what makes you say they are imaginary problems? They are staring you right in your face. Denial TBH.

In just one example, of the detrimental effects I listed - If the only species left on Earth are humans and human's food, everything will Not be alright. There are species on this planet that make this 'giant ball of rock and iron' work, to sustain life for us.

When is listing problems we can all do a small part to lessen their damaging impact is 'Bitching'?

Stubborn, dense, blissfully ignorant humans. Who am I kidding? We are hopeless.

 

[Dan]

If we don't take on the problems of the planet - who will?

See what I mean dfc05? Do you see the kind of twisted thinking that has permeated society? Please tell me you don't believe that bullcrap too. Does nobody else see how frickin' stupid and illogical the above statement is?

 

[VirusType2]

but the problem is caused by us. If you want to compare us to a force of nature, and we should not care of the damage we cause or the results, like a volcano or asteroid does not give a shit if it wipes out half the life on Earth. OK fine, you have your opinion. I'll agree with the first part at least - we are a force of nature.

you only care about the Earth as a solid rock and have no respect for the life that inhabits this planet, then there is nothing I could ever say to convince you that the impact of humans on the biosphere is detrimental.

Basiclaly.


I'm not some sort of extremist. I just want some changes. because I do care about life on this planet, even the seemingly insignificant life forms may be important. And it's not just because I value and appreciate unique and interesting critters. It's humans that I care about most of all of course.

You see, we don't fully know which species we need in order to keep things going the way they are.

Earth was fine after great extinctions, and humans were fine without all of these species. However, now, the human population has increased by a (wild guess here) billion times since then and we've become a force of nature, and are upsetting the balance.

(You'll have to forgive me. I am not especially educated, however, I think I can still relate.) This is similar to overstocking an aquarium in my opinion. If you put too many fish in one little fish bowl - things will get shitty real fast, and the fish will all die. And there will still be life inside that fish bowl, but it won't be fish. And we are the fish. and once these life forms that feed on death and decay don't have anything else to eat, then they will die, and something else may survive.. anyway, in the end it's some kind of sick pool of poison which resembles the Earth of the future if we don't clean the tank.

And it's true that earth will be fine without us, but is that what you really want? Because that is completely against self-preservation, and that is what I call illogical - unless of course, you think Earth is better of without us. I'd have to say you are right about that - when it comes to all other life forms anyway.

 

[Dan]

Okay, let me calm down and slowly pick apart your post one statement at a time

The trees, plants, the micro-organisms, even water is alive.

No scientific definition of the word alive encompasses water. Most people would agree that life requires some means of replication and genetic structure as a minimum.

The way you speak of it like a car is just a lump of metal and plastic... no, it's a car.

I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that you are saying that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Maybe as an abstract concept, but in the physical sense, no that's wrong; a car is a collection of parts that all interact in an entirely preplanned and expected way.

The planet Earth is like a living breathing being. the trees and plant life are the lungs, the lava the blood, the earth the flesh, the rock is the bone. take any part and yeah, it's just a part - like a bone is just a bone by itself, unless it is inside a living being.

Explain to me where the definition for this being comes from? How did you pick your analogies? You include the trees but not the air. Why? What about the moon? Why isn't the sun part of it? How far up is the boundary of this being? Does it have any nervous system, reproductive system? Do the chunks of the Earth that come from asteroids belong to it, or are they outside parasites? Are they food? Where does it poop then? What about the pieces that the Earth formed out of, were they part of this being before it came together? Are the dinosaurs an integral part of it? Did it need dinosaurs to survive back when they existed? Obviously it doesn't require dinosaurs now, or is the lack of dinosaurs making it sick? What about when there were no trees or no life? I guess it didn't have any lungs then and it looks like it did fine without lungs for over a billion years, so why can't we chop em down again. Oh yeah, there is no definition because you made the whole thing up in your head.

so you don't care about the planet, or if people destroy it?

I don't give a shit about the planet unless there is a reason to care about it, the same way I don't care about Mars or Jupiter insofar as it doesn't affect me. What I do care about is my home, my friends, my life. If there is a lake that I like to swim in that makes me happy, then I like that lake, and I wouldn't want people to destroy it.

What is wrong with you? I need to grow up because I listed things people are doing to damage it... oh OK. Because it's the other way around actually.

Apparently using my brain to think things through logically is unacceptable. I must be worship the goddess Gaea unconditionally and without thought. You guys will bash Christianity, but not the exact same fundamentalist stupidity under a different name.

If we don't take on the problems of the planet - who will? 100,000 years from now people will be ashamed of their tiny-brained ancestors and what they've done.

I wasn't aware that I had signed a contract taking responsibility for the stability of the planet. I wasn't even aware that the planet had problems. I know I have problems, and I know that society has problems. Before I came along, the oh so delicate planet has seen billions of species come and go, the atmosphere become poisoned by oxygen, continents rise and split apart, oceans formed, meteor strikes, and now I am supposed to be responsible for every aspect of the state of this planet? You claim that I am supposed to stop all of the change and keep the planet in exactly the same state as it is today... why? Because this entity that you have defined has problems that you have also defined.

and what makes you say they are imaginary problems? They are staring you right in your face. Denial TBH.

Clearly describe what exactly the planet is and point out one of these problems that the planet faces, please.

In just one example, of the detrimental effects I listed - If the only species left on Earth are humans and human's food, everything will Not be alright. There are species on this planet that make this 'giant ball of rock and iron' work, to sustain life for us.

That is a problem for us, humans, not a problem for the planet. Human problems are humans' responsibility to deal with. Planet problems don't exist, and if they did, they aren't our responsibility.

When is listing problems we can all do a small part to lessen their damaging impact is 'Bitching'?

That's not quite a proper question, but all you have done is spewed a largely incomprehensible mess of your personal emotions and ill-thought ideas onto a keyboard. I wouldn't even call it bitching.

Stubborn, dense, blissfully ignorant humans. Who am I kidding? We are hopeless.

Speak for yourself. Or better yet, act for yourself and get rid of one of those terrible humans that are so bad for the planet.

 

[VirusType2]

When I talk of protecting Earth, I am talking about life on this planet - especially human.

I don't know how many different ways or how many times this needs to be said, but I believe this should be enough.

when I say we are damaging the planet did you think I meant when we smashed a boulder into small rocks and debris that it was hurting the planet? Because that is one fancy way of disagreeing with someone for the sake of an argument.

Because you are so smart, I know you would say you weren't sure if I really thought the planet had a nervous and reproductive system, so I'm making it more clear. See the first sentence of this post.

What about when there were no trees or no life? I guess it didn't have any lungs then and it looks like it did fine without lungs for over a billion years, so why can't we chop em down again.

because we need them to breathe. We also may need the plants and animals that live there for the ecosystem, or for food, or for medicines

I don't give a shit about the planet unless there is a reason to care about it, the same way I don't care about Mars or Jupiter insofar as it doesn't affect me. What I do care about is my home, my friends, my life. If there is a lake that I like to swim in that makes me happy, then I like that lake, I wouldn't want people to destroy it.

Fair enough. You will be dead in so many years. It's not your problem. I see that as irresponsible for future generations, but hey, I completely understand it. Why would you care when you are dead and can no longer care?

I wish you would change your mind though, because we may be dead tomorrow, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't care about our families and friends who will continue living here, even though we won't be alive anymore.


I mean you at least said you care about your life, your family, friends, and swimming in a pool, so then I guess you don't want me to dump my nearly empty bottles of cleaning agents into it and take a huge shit in it. Overfishing it to the point where there are no longer fish in it, or spilling poisons into it carelessly. So why not care about the pool that your family and possibly offspring may want to enjoy as well even after you are gone?

Apparently using my brain to think things through logically is unacceptable. I must be worship the goddess Gaea unconditionally and without thought. You guys will bash Christianity, but not the exact same fundamentalist stupidity under a different name.

You are arguing that the Earth is not a living being. OK, I got a little emotional when talking about the planet. No, I'm not going to argue that the planet is alive per say. It's only because I care about the life on it that the Earth is home to, that I care about the planet. And for the fact that there is no other place for us to go right now.

I said I'm not some kind of extremist. I'm just a regular guy. I am guilty of many of the things I've listed, as are many of us. Who hasn't wasted energy, etc.? I am just saying that I think it's a good time to change, now that the planet is overcrowded, and shows signs that it's only going to get worse by many magnitudes.

Start turning the lights out when we leave the house, and many other things is all I'm 'preaching'. And again, this is because I too care about my family and friends, and our offspring, and their offspring, and so on, and I want to at least feel that I cared enough to change my own bad habits, so that they have clean food and water and air.

Hopefully there are others that feel the same way, because as corny as it sounds, together we can make a bigger difference. Hell if everyone cared, we may be in much better shape now for the future of mankind.

I wasn't aware that I had signed a contract taking responsibility for the stability of the planet.

You are responsible for your own actions. the contract is with your government.

and now I am supposed to be responsible for every aspect of the state of this planet?

...

You claim that I am supposed to stop all of the change and keep the planet in exactly the same state as it is today... why?

Nope. all you have to do is nothing. don't worry, someone who cares about humans will hopefully pull your weight.

Hey, if you don't care, you don't care.

Stubborn, dense, blissfully ignorant humans. Who am I kidding? We are hopeless.

Speak for yourself. Or better yet, act for yourself and get rid of one of those terrible humans that are so bad for the planet.

I don't want to kill myself. Self preservation.

I don't want to kill you Dan. That wouldn't make any sense because you are what I'm trying to protect.

I don't think that you are a threat to life on Earth any more than I am. If you had a nuclear device, or plans of some soft of bio attack, I'd think otherwise though. Thankfully, that's not my job, because I have no idea how to do it.

And by the way, I'm sure you know that humans have created things that do not naturally occur on the planet. This is not something that cave men or dinosaurs did. One example that was mentioned are CFC's. Other examples might include hydrogen bombs, coal factories, and (thousands?) of chemicals that can destroy life. I only hope that people actually do try to be responsible with the use of them. And that is basically the point of everything I've been saying. Responsibility. If I want to dump a few ounces of mercury into the water, I can. Not legally, but I can. Unless it came from an asteroid, then mercury came from Earth, so why can't it go back there? Well, I'm not sure where mercury is found, but I don't want it in water or food supplies. I'm sure it wasn't found there.


Here:

Question

Where is mercury found in the world?

Asked by: William

Answer

Mercury (atomic symbol Hg) is a liquid at room temperature. Finding large pools of the element is for all purposes impossible, and finding it in its native state is also fairly rare. The mineraloid is usually found in the ore cinnabar (HgS) where it must go through a heating and condensing process to be obtained. Mercury may also occasionally be found with Silver.

Globally, mercury is most commonly 'produced' in Spain, particularly from the Almaden mine which is known for its high quality mercury. It may also be obtained from Yugoslavia, the United States (mainly California), and Italy.

Answered by: Jonathan Lashier, Student at ASU, Tempe, Arizona


Mercury is obtained from an ore called cinnabar or another called calomel. The places cinnabar and calomel can be mined in the world (quoting www.minerals.net) are as follows:

'The locality that yields the most and the finest Native Mercury for collectors is Almad?n, Ciudad Real, Spain. There, small blobs are found in the associating Cinnabar. Many small blobs have also come from the mercury mines in Idrija, in former Yugoslavia. In the U.S., Mercury occurs in the Almaden and New Almaden mines in Santa Clara Co., California; the Socrates Mine, Sonoma Co., California; and Idria, San Benito Co., California. Small quantities of Mercury also occur in Arkansas and Texas.'

 

[Dan]

Now you are starting to slide your position around without actually stating a concession. You've changed from "we have to defend the planet" to "we have to defend life on the planet". That is very much a different position. And by the bottom of your post you have moved to saying "we have to defend human life on the planet" which is exactly what my position has been from the very beginning, and it isn't a very complicated position to take, which is why it amazes me that you don't comprehend it. Instead you throw slander and yell and shout your various opinions without even deconstructing a single statement I have made.

Your previous position:

The planet Earth is like a living breathing being. the trees and plant life are the lungs, the lava the blood, the earth the flesh, the rock is the bone. take any part and yeah, it's just a part - like a bone is just a bone by itself, unless it is inside a living being.

Your new position:

I am talking about life on this planet - especially human.

If you were talking about life or human life, why would you not say so in the first place? You made up some abstract entity with made up problems to defend, and I pointed out to you that it was stupid.

When you are talking about needing trees to breath, you are abandoning your previous position of defending the Earth for the sake of defending the Earth, and now you are relating it to an actual problem that we have. Humans need trees to breathe, so we should protect the trees. As I have said the whole time (and I have never said otherwise once); we should worry about the problems that affect us. Those are our responsibility.

Now this:

I wish you would change your mind though, because we may be dead tomorrow, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't care about our families and friends who will continue living here, since we won't be alive anymore.

I don't know where you are getting my words from, but show me where I said that we shouldn't care about our families and friends. In fact I remember saying the words "I care about my home, my friends, my life".

The problem that you have Virus is that you can't put up a constant argument that you defend from post to post while you attack statements that don't actually exist, all the while you throw together statements and thoughts in an unstructured verbal heap. You can't make an argument until you actually know what your position is.

Get rid of your nonsense "planet", Nature, Mother Earth entity and start talking about actual problems that affect you, me, society, and you will be actually using your brain to make rational conjecture, instead of blindly making feel-good statements.

 

[bbson john]

Actually, the argument is simple.

We protect different non-human lives for a conscience reason. We want to keep species on earth, because we sympathised them. We don't want to see them dying out, whilst their extinction might not necessarily have anything to do with human's existence. Just like, when I am walking on a street, I see a guy in front of me dropped a coin. I would gladly help the guy retrieving his coin. It doesn't hurt me a bit if I don't help him. And it is not particularly beneficial for me to help him. In fact, it takes me some effort to retrieve the coin, but still I did it. I, unlike other rogue animals, have conscience.

Human protect nature, defend beauteous landscapes, save every unique species because human are conscientious. We are distinct from bacteria, algae and insects, we do what other considered as unnecessary and non-beneficial. That's what makes us human.

Furthermore, we protect the biosphere for we want our offspring to be able to gaze upon the beautiful nature. We want them to be able to touch every plants, animals and landscapes we have today. We don't want our offspring to be regretful because of our selfish behaviours. Let our children and grandchildren enjoy the wondrous mother nature.

 

[Dan]

But the pressures of natural selection ensure that no trait evolves which is counter-beneficial. Altruism helps everyone when there is lots of resources (like in the prisoners dilemma). When resources are scarce, your identity tends to shrink inwards on yourself. You get more selfish. In the end, every action or characteristic that can be attributed to a certain individual or group is for the benefit of that entity. The universe has no room for true altruism.

 

[bbson john]

But the pressures of natural selection ensure that no trait evolves which is counter-beneficial. Altruism helps everyone when there is lots of resources (like in the prisoners dilemma). When resources are scarce, your identity tends to shrink inwards on yourself. You get more selfish. In the end, every action or characteristic that can be attributed to a certain individual or group is for the benefit of that entity. The universe has no room for true altruism.

You are right, but what I am talking about is protecting nature. Protecting nature means we retain as many natural ecological conditions as we can, including the natural selection. The phrase "saving every unique species" I mentioned means by saving species from human-caused extinction.

It should be known that the change of environment caused by human activities far outspeeds genetic mutation and reproduction rate. The unprecedented rapid change of environment kills lots of species without giving them sufficient time to evolve. There is no way most of the lifeforms can survive in such a rapid, non-natural change.

Moreover, human are too powerful that we can easily put a lot of species, mostly large plants and animals, to extinct. Nowadays, uncontrolled hunting and fishing have put species to their end. With the aid of machines such as rifles and trawls, there is no way wildlife can avoid their fatality, no matter how they evolve. Some species are very strong in survivability, like speedy Asiatic Cheetah and excellent swimmer Great Auk. But, when they come up against human, they just can't do anything.

Those who uses limited resources as an excuse to reject environmental protection are rather narrow-minded. It should no go unnoticed that the nature is a type of resource. The obvious ones are that trees provides us with wood and oxygen, mammals and fishes provide us with food. Animals on the top of the food chain, like whales and hawks, have their value as well. They are essential in the maintenance of food net and the maintenance of the number of pests. They also have great biological, artistic and inspirational values. Without bio-diversity, we will truly have a resource crisis.

Certainly, we cannot protect every single species, nor can we pour millions of dollars sq. metres of land and a lot of manpower just to revive an extinct-in-the-Wild species. But there are a lot more we can do if we put a reasonable amount of resources in this aspect.

 

[Dan]

maybe it's time for those animals to go the way of the dinosaur. Rats, squirrels, raccoons, and spiders etc seem to be pretty good at living in a human world.

 

[VirusType2]

You've changed from "we have to defend the planet" to "we have to defend life on the planet". That is very much a different position.

Literally it is something different. Yes.

I didn't say 'defend the planet' but I may have said 'we should try not to damage the planet', I would hope everyone knew what I was talking about. I never could have imagine that it could be misconstrued to mean 'protect this mound of iron and nickel"


Just like if I said 'we have to protect our base.' I don't give a shit about a building made of brick, except that it protects the people in side of it. I care about the people that are defending it.

When I said 'we should try to lessen the damage we are doing to the planet' I'm not talking about blowing up dirt. It's life. Our home, and the life on it.

If you think I've changed then so be it. I haven't. So what If I talk about the planet like it's alive. It's an ecosystem. To me it is alive. I could find some arguments to support it, but since it is arguable, then there is nothing to prove. you have your stance "earth is a spinning rock', and I have mine "earth is alive' I'll never be wrong in my mind, just like you will never be wrong in yours.

And by the bottom of your post you have moved to saying "we have to defend human life on the planet" which is exactly what my position has been from the very beginning, and it isn't a very complicated position to take, which is why it amazes me that you don't comprehend it.

I haven't changed at all. I presented two views.

One: limit damage to the ecosystem for the sake of the well being of life on this planet - especially human life.

Two: the earth is a living entity. I guess you could call it spiritual bullshit. Fine.


this? This is how you say 'we have to defend human life on the planet':

You don't even need to worry about that bit of fuzz on the surface either. That bit of fuzz is mostly blue-green algae. It has survived atmosphere changes, meteorites that covered the planet in dust, changes that are far greater than anything you or all of humanity could control. Extinction isn't anything bad. Species come and go all the time. Not every form of life is hardy enough to stick around.

"extinction isn't bad", to me, meant 'who cares about life on this planet.' I now see what you were getting at... we don't need all of the species that live on earth in order to continue. However, I took it as you disregarding human life as well, until now.

It seemed to us that you were encouraging irresponsibility - basically saying, "why should we care if species go extinct' Well we are a species. So forgive me for not realizing you meant all species but ours. And the point was made, we need many of these species around. Many creatures are food for other creatures, and so on. In the end it all comes down to food for us, but still, it sounds as if you wouldn't care if humans and our livestock were the only things walking the Earth.

Like I said, go worry about yourself.

this is what you confirmed to be what you mean as "life on the planet" right here:

See, now you finally understand; it's not the planet that you should worry about, it's yourself. You finally brought it back to the issue at hand, which is "people today". That is what I told you from the get go. Worry about yourself if you feel like worrying.

?

to me 'worry about yourself means, 'worry about what i need. who cares about any other living thing, and when I'm dead, it won't matter what happens on this planet afterward anyway" it does not mean to me 'worry about all forms of life on this planet, and worry about the ability for the planet to be able to sustain life for generations to come"

Not even close. Why didn't you just say that you agreed with me all along? I'm not sure what you are arguing about, other than the way I worded something. Pointless waste of time. thanks.

you really want to argue semantics

this.

And I think me and dfc05 have roughly the same views on some things.

But I have also taken a stance that I am more at awe with the planet itself, and I do want the oceans to remain at their current sea level, rain forests to stay, things like that, and I don't want to just squander away all of the species that have taken millions of years to evolve, just because I'm not sure they are necessary for my/human existence.

That is where the problems of asthma and spilled oil in your backyard belong. If someone spilled oil in my backyard, I would say "It's not okay, because I live next to that, and it is toxic and smelly." I don't give a shit about the planet's imaginary feelings; oil came from the earth anyways.

you are overlooking the fact that the oil goes right into your drinking water. It wasn't found there. That's why I brought up the part about dumping chemicals, namely mercury - as one example. Just because mercury can be acquired from earth doesn't mean it's OK to put it back just anywhere. Again, not if you care about all forms of life, especially our own.

imaginary feelings? Stop.

brother. the only reason your post got a response from me at all is because you said I was bitching about saving the planet like it has feelings.

Like I said, to me, the earth is a living thing. The sum of it's parts as you eloquently worded. If I hadn't taken my last science class in 1992, I would remembered to use a world like dfc05 did, and used the word Ecosystem.

Yeah, I agree, saying lava was blood was not scientific, and I do not actually believe that. I didn't realize I was getting into a 'who has more facts' argument. I did say that rock was like Earth's bones. They aren't alive - but neither are my bones.

However, you claimed you understood me anyway, when you said, "the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts"


I don't think I've ever recommended drug use before, but maybe you should try some; go out in the forest, get high as balls, and hang out for a while and I dare you to not be completely amazed.

Instead you throw slander and yell and shout your various opinions without even deconstructing a single statement I have made.

slander? yell and shout? I don't think I've ever been so calm. Show me my capital letters, exclamation points, and other indicators of shouting and yelling.

This kind of statement is very frustrating to me.

In fact, you have repeatedly insulted me, while I actually complimented and cuddled you by saying things like, 'you're smart, so you will probably find a way to insult me here..'.

unbelievable.

If you were talking about life or human life, why would you not say so in the first place?

Because I thought it was obvious, since the huge list I made encompassed all of the things that benefit healthy life on Earth.

Anyway, why didn't you? Instead of saying "worry about yourself" like anyone could have possibly know what you were talking about. It was unarguably obvious what I was talking about here:

overpopulation (please stop having 10+ children, we are not colonizing a new planet)
over hunting a particular species
destroying important species for their value as clothing, jewelry, etc.
pollution (dumping chemicals irresponsibly by corporations and citizens, leaving car running while not in use, disposing of solid or liquid waste trash into water systems or onto ground where it will seep into water)
litter
cutting down nearly all forests
wasting paper
entirely killing off important species
endangering or causing extinction of almost every kind of wildlife
wasting energy - leaving lights on, poor driving habits, improperly inflated tires, etc.)
dumping chemicals
discharging freon from Air Conditioner Units for example when disposing of the unit improperly.
killing animals for sport
intentionally killing insects that are in their own habitat and not bothering you
killing plants that aren't even on your property, for ... fun?
urinating or dedicating into streams, lakes, rivers, even swimming pools.

These are things that directly affect the ecosystem and life on earth. They have nothing to do with protecting a rock in space.

and people agreed with me, and never had a problem understanding where I was coming from:

What Virustype said. Even if global warming is solely due to non-human activities, we're still ****ing up this planet pretty badly.

You see - he said, "****ing up this planet" Nobody but you thought we meant "****ing up a spinning rock in space"

You made up some abstract entity with made up problems to defend, and I pointed out to you that it was stupid.

Fine. So what if I got 'spiritual' about the Earth for a moment when I talk about the earth as a living thing? If that makes me an idiot, then I guess every civilization that's ever been on this Earth were all idiots.

I know that there is more to this planet than we know, and new discoveries are found all of the time. This is why I mentioned water as if it was a living thing. Tests done reveal that water reacts to a positive and negative human interaction in a way that cannot be explained yet. At only 2008 AD, we are basically n00bs.

A tree doesn't have pain receptors, but yet it is still alive.

I feel the same way about Earth.

Please remain calm, and absorb the high tech shit I'm going to tell you, as a friend and not my enemy:

How do we know any damn thing. We are like bugs crawling on Earth's surface. Humor me for a moment, and imagine Earth as a tiny organism, and space is a bloodstream of something much bigger. I don't expect you to imagine things like this, since you are too god damn logical. Do I actually believe this? **** no, but I think the universe is amazing, and I think we don't know shit. And every time a little bug crawls on me, I think about shit like this. The hairs on my body are like the trees on Earth for this little bug. Well we only know what our telescopes can show us. Like I said, the universe (as far as we can see it) might just be a minuscule part of a bigger picture. But I like to imagine crazy shit like this, and it makes me feel good. I'm sorry for daydreaming before, but not now.


Now back to logic and facts:

When you are talking about needing trees to breath, you are abandoning your previous position of defending the Earth for the sake of defending the Earth, and now you are relating it to an actual problem that we have.

I don't know how we could be 'defending Earth' could be misconstrued to mean other than protecting the ecosystem. It's not like anyone could think I was talking about aliens invading, and I don't see any other way you can defend it in the sense you are referring to. I don't think anyone but you thought I was talking about defending a pile of rocks, or whatever else.

Humans need trees to breathe, so we should protect the trees. As I have said the whole time (and I have never said otherwise once)

I never once heard you say anything about protecting trees! I could quote the part where you said "why not just mow them [trees] all down?" but you never once said otherwise... :hmph:

The problem that you have Virus is that you can't put up a constant argument that you defend from post to post while you attack statements that don't actually exist, all the while you throw together statements and thoughts in an unstructured verbal heap.

Wrong, and I don't have a problem. Never attacked anything. It was all defensive. And my writing is very structured.

Put it to you like this:

My first impression was that you were a 'wha wha what did he just say??' Kind of an irresponsible man who doesn't value life on earth, the species, the forests, or anything to do with any of those, and asks why it is his problem to be responsible, but now I understand you are a 'protect life on earth' kind of man, who likes to argue that we are definitely not protecting a spinning rock in space, for no apparent reason other than being a nit-pick on syntax and an annoyance with anything spiritual or unproven, but I am satisfied in the end.

You can't make an argument until you actually know what your position is

Yeah, I can't argue against someone who appeared to change what their position is, or says 'worry about yourself' and that is supposed to mean every ****ing thing, or any ****ing thing to me.

Get rid of your nonsense "planet", Nature, Mother Earth entity

No. Worry about yourself.

and start talking about actual problems that affect you, me, society, and you will be actually using your brain to make rational conjecture, instead of blindly making feel-good statements.

I listed over a dozen problems that affect me, you, and society, and you disregarded it as 'bitching about saving a mound of dirt.' ... and then I made 'feel good' statements when you made 'feel bad' statements.

If only I knew before I started arguing ...

Well, and I've been saying since my first reply to you in Post #67 that no one is arguing that the Earth as a spinning rock is going to be destroyed. I don't see anywhere where I have turned to sudden agreement with you, in that each of my posts have responded to the specific content in each of yours. Unless you mean the part where I said "Yes now I agree if you mean 'yourself' as 'yourself plus all the interconnections between yourself and the environment,'" which was obviously a clear misunderstanding on my part of what you meant by the term "yourself."

To me as well, I guess I misunderstood, because how would I know how he feels before he actually said so. Because all we had to go on was - I loosely quote: "**** this spinning rock, who cares if I dump oil in my backyard, it doesn't matter if we mow down the forests - worry about yourself". And that was supposed to mean this: "protect the ecosystem and human life"

I think of you as a friend so far. Friends can argue and think the other is wrong on certain things, but I am tired of the insults. I don't mind if you think some of the things I've said are foolish, and some of them I will admit are. But insult the idea, do not insult me.

 

[bbson john]

maybe it's time for those animals to go the way of the dinosaur. Rats, squirrels, raccoons, and spiders etc seem to be pretty good at living in a human world.

Please read my fourth paragraph. Okay, I repost it.

Those who uses limited resources as an excuse to reject environmental protection are rather narrow-minded. It should no go unnoticed that the nature is a type of resource. The obvious ones are that trees provides us with wood and oxygen, mammals and fishes provide us with food. Animals on the top of the food chain, like whales and hawks, have their value as well. They are essential in the maintenance of food net and the maintenance of the number of pests. They also have great biological, artistic and inspirational values. Without bio-diversity, we will truly have a resource crisis.

In addition, a lot of medicines are extracted from tropical rain forests.

Your concept of nature and resource seems pretty much wrong.
Also from my another post:

...Furthermore, we protect the biosphere for we want our offspring to be able to gaze upon the beautiful nature. We want them to be able to touch every plants, animals and landscapes we have today. We don't want our offspring to be regretful because of our selfish behaviours. Let our children and grandchildren enjoy the wondrous mother nature.

Surely, you can shrug your shoulders and say, "who cares?". And you are integrating selfish, immoral and conscienceless into your personality. We are not beasts or prokaryotes. We should be more caring and provident about our future generations; especially when we are not so resource-deprived that we have to scarify everything just to prevent human from becoming extinct.

 

[VirusType2]

And I agree with bbson john as well. For some reason it didn't make it into my tl;dr post

the food chain, basically.

some species that are going extinct are the main food source for other creatures. so it's like dominoes. Once one species goes, it can take a large amount of other species with it. An entire chain in fact.

The end result is that all we have left are animals that humans force to breed - livestock. Food for us.

I really can't remember all of the facts but I remember hearing that some creatures on Earth are integral to the continuation of humans, and they are on their way to extinction because of the domino effect.


But I don't worry, scientists are looking into things like this, and it's not too late - obviously, since we are still here.


Off topic, I still want to buy a huge part of a rain forest if I ever get really rich. I would think about living there. Must have satellite internet.

 

[Saturos]

maybe it's time for those animals to go the way of the dinosaur. Rats, squirrels, raccoons, and spiders etc seem to be pretty good at living in a human world.

Uhh, those are pests? Even though I'm a skeptic on the whole greenhouse gas issue, our ecosystem still needs to be properly maintained. It is our responsibility as a *cough* dominant species.

Rats, raccoons, and spiders are not good eatin', (believe me, I've had it before) and even though I might not be here in 200 years, it would still suck for my great grandchildren to have to eat this shit.

Plus, the majority of the mammalian species are not very adaptable to toxic environments tbh. At least compared to the majority of insects and other pests.

 

[Raziaar]

100 posts and this thread is still going on? wow.

 

[VirusType2]

Plus, the majority of the mammalian species are not very adaptable to toxic environments tbh

as far as I know, marine coral reef life is the most susceptible to extinction from even very subtle changes. Those are some beautiful ****ing fish an invertebrates too. ****ing shame if they go. People can't keep them alive in cages for shit, with the exception of the tougher ones. best thing you can probably do is not get them as pets unless they are breed for pets, because it is thinning them out, and the coral as well. Just look at movies or pictures of them.

100 posts and this thread is still going on? wow.

OH, it's just gettin' started baby.

/air kiss

You're just in time for lunch. *smile* And you are going to be hamburger.

 

[Krynn72]

Wow, glad I got out before the epic quote battle.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Here I was thinking the only possible way to label what is 'bad' is in relation to humanity, making human extinction pretty much the definition of 'a bad thing'.

I should say right now, Dan, that I agree with a lot of what you are saying. But I think you dismiss the gaea-hypothesis too quickly. It's easy to do that because of all the spiritualist bullshit that wraps it up, and because of the frequency with which people interpret it as meaning that the earth is actually alive, a mother, a presence, whatever. In the sense of life being a complex system this is true, but this is not a very specific definition of life - although such is the flux and complexity of the interaction of about all matter in the universe that our definition of life seems to be more the drawing of a slightly arbitrary venn diagram than anything else. But I digress.

Here's the thing: the idea of "gaea" was only originally intended as a metaphor, and as a metaphor it is a very useful one for thinking about the earth. The point of it is that ecosystems, indeed the ecosystem, are holistic, not to mention extremely complex. Thinking of the earth as a live god, every cell of which we need to have respect to, is simply a highly figurative and slightly roundabout way of accepting that almost every change made to one part of the earth-system will affect other parts of it, and that, accordingly, we need to be extremely careful with what changes we make.

How far the history of mankind bears that out I am not sure, but then, I'm not an ecologist, or a historian of man's interaction with 'the environment'.

 

[Saturos]

Humans are like a virus. A plague to this world. -Mr. Smith

I for one, welcome the agents and Mr. Smith. :|

 

[Sulkdodds]

If you welcome them materially you'll be helping human beings for no decent reasons, so it'll be fairly sensible for other human beings to gang up and kill you for the greater (human) good.

 

[Saturos]

If you welcome them materially you'll be helping human beings for no decent reasons, so it'll be fairly sensible for other human beings to gang up and kill you for the greater (human) good.

LOL, I know, but the agents did have a point about humans destroying everything for the sake of the human species.

 

[Krynn72]

I love how you say "destroying" like we're intentionally wrecking the planet.

"**** you earth!"
*drives car to work*
"Take that sucka!"

 

[MFD00M]

hahahahaha

 

[theotherguy]

I love how you say "destroying" like we're intentionally wrecking the planet.

"**** you earth!"
*drives car to work*
"Take that sucka!"

*Earth broods and writes threatening letter*
*Earth gets drunk and gets his gun*
*Earth totters around outside Krynn's house for an hour, gets scared, and goes home*
*In the morning, Earth decides to let off some steam by raising the global temperature by 0.01 degrees*

 

[[Matt]]

I certainly understand many of Dans points and agree with many of them also but can we get back on topic? i.e. Discussing the evidence that suggests humanity is the probable cause for the speed at which the earth is warming? This thread seems to have derailed in a way that isn't constructive towards the argument either way.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

BTW, why did you bleep out "f***king" and not "goddamned"? Is "f***king" an even greater dirty wordy or something? They do that s*** on South Park too.

Swear filter. It automatically bleeps out the "f", "c" and fa g words.

 

[Eejit]

Also I think Yankees tend to think of goddamn as being much more of a 'dirty' word than the other english-speaking nationalities, possibly due to the crazy number of puritans you have there?

 

[Saturos]

Also I think Yankees tend to think of goddamn as being much more of a 'dirty' word than the other english-speaking nationalities, possibly due to the crazy number of puritans you have there?

I reckon. :upstare: That's the only thing I can think of too.

Besides, if F*** is a greater dirty word in the UK, then no wonder why it's called, "The queen of all dirty words" here in the US.

 

[[Matt]]

C*** is worse than F*** according to BBC broadcasting rules

 

[Beerdude26]

I demand a portal to a parallel universe with a clean earth, move everyone over, and just see how much damage we can do to this one by doing everything that could be potentially dangerous or harmful tenfold.

The actual end products would be shipped to the parallel earth, think of it as a bit of a colony

 

[Solaris]

Humans are like a virus. A plague to this world. -Mr. Smith

I for one, welcome the agents and Mr. Smith. :|

For one he's called Agent Smith and two, he doesn't say that.

You fail at the matrix/life.

 

[Saturos]

For one he's called Agent Smith

Oh. :rolling:

and two, he doesn't say that.

You fail at the matrix/life.

No, but he says something similar.

BTW, why does it seem like your stalking me on these forums all of a sudden? Do you like me that much or something? :O

Quit being a weirdo Solaris.

 

[Solaris]

No, I don't like you at all.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Quite enough from both of you, thanks.