[jupiters_release]

OLO @ thread title

OLOLOLO @ agent11!! saying the planet really is perfectly fine.

So much regression (not that progress was ever made for some) in the stages of grief here.

[AgentR11]

OLOLOLO @ agent11!! saying the planet really is perfectly fine.

I didn't know the rocks really cared much whether they got stepped on by animals or not.

My text was quite clear if you managed to read more than one line of it.

The planet is fine.
Industrial civilization is utterly screwed.
Humans may or may not soon go extinct depending on actions and luck.

Humans are only important to other humans. pretty much everything else, other than perhaps dogs, will be quite content to see us go away. And the dogs are probably wondering right now, what the heck happened to real humans that spent their days wandering and hunting and doing all that nasty prep work that turns a dead rabbit into delicious pieces of meat, with no icky fur and bunny poop on it.

[Peak_Yeast]

I wonder why people deliberately misunderstand the intentions of the thread.

We (almost) all know that there is overpopulation, overconsumption and that we are going to self-destruct in some way fairly soon.

But the thread is about how we try to do our own little contribution to prevent or slow that. - Even if we know its futile.

I suppose its a way of keeping your own path as clean as possible and in spite everything and almost everybody else trying to have a conscience.

In case there is a God it will mean something - In case there is no God (most likely) it will mean something to yourself, the ones you know and a part in 7 billion for everybody else.

The meaning of life is to be happy with what you do and enjoy it - after all even the universe dies and makes everything that happens here completely moot even if we were to spread everywhere according to the techno dreamers.

[SeaGypsy]

The Universe is a misnomer. Infinite space & infinite universes, infinite beginnings & endings.

[Peak_Yeast]

@SeaGypsy - I also tend to put my FAITH in that belief

[AgentR11]

I wonder why people deliberately misunderstand the intentions of the thread.

I didn't misunderstand the intent or the question, but when asked this sort of question, I like to contribute what I'm "doing", but I also prefer to place the caveat's I did because I object to the wording that is used for this question.

If the question was, "what did I do to contribute to the future survival of human civilization", I'd have no need for the caveats.

In short, you are permitted to phrase the question as you like; but I am permitted to phrase my text as I feel most truthfully represents my answer.

[Karle]

No reason to save the planet according to George Carlin: The planet is fine - the people are fucked.

So what most of you are writing here, you are trying to save us humans, not the planet. The planet could not be bothered if sea levels rose 100 metres or if it got three degrees warmer or if there is radioactivity all around. The planet just doesn't care.

So most in this thread are trying to save mankind, as opposed to those others who say No to children, or can't wait that humans disappear altogether.

Strangely enough those two parties do not fight each other ...

Anyway what did I do to save us humans?

- Made three children so mankind doesn't get extinct.
- As somebody further up said: I turned on hot water only when needed (as opposed to my neigbour who turns it on even when not needed)
- I did not fly. Instead I spent that money in the pizzeria, and the owner in turn bought gas for the pizza oven with the money I did not spend on flying, and the rest of the money I gave him to save the world by not flying he used to drive his diesel powered motorhome in his holidays. So yes, I did not fly and saved the world.
- Bought some energy saving light bulbs and paid less money to the evil power company that destroys the world by burning coal for electricity. I gave that money instead to a company who made energy saving light bulbs so they could buy electricity for the manufacturing process. Whenever one of those world-saving light bulbs breaks I call emergency services to clean our house from the poisonous mercury, and they usually turn up with their diesel truck within an hour.
- Thanks to the warm winter weather I ride my bicycle. If we had no global warming I would have to spend a lot of money on petrol. Now I am sitting here with all that money saved in my drawer and don't know what to do with it:

Should I give it to the poor so they can buy coal to heat their house?

Any suggestions?

[Pops]

I wonder why people deliberately misunderstand the intentions of the thread.

You get used to it. It is the PO version of So Much Cooler Online (caution, Sorta-Country Music)

Oh, and because they did nothing.

[dohboi]

Yes, 'planet' in this contexts clearly means something like 'the sum total of complex life currently on the planet, and the systems that support the same,' not 'the mass of magma and rock that circles the sun every 365 or so days.'

And why, in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event since complex life evolved, one already promising to be the biggest of all even before the full effects of rapid GW really have gotten going...why anyone in this context thinks 'the planet will be just fine' (planet as defined above), is beyond me.

They are either (willfully?) misinterpreting the rather obvious meaning of the title, or are ignorant of or in denial of the current state of life on the planet and it's inevitable trajectory.

We have already taken out tens of thousands to millions of species and will take out many times that as GW revs up and society collapses.

Yes, when we're gone, things will start to recover. But that will take a long, long time...potentially much longer than for other mass extinction events.

[dohboi]

I didn't claim otherwise. But it took millions of years for those recoveries. And there is never a guarantee that they will go well.

If someone has survived being shot in the gut five times, one doesn't just say, "Oh, they'll be fine." as you shoot them in the gut once again.

As Lovelock put it, the living earth is now a very old and frail lady. She may not take this blow as well as she has taken the others.

[AgentR11]

Yes, 'planet' in this contexts clearly means something like 'the sum total of complex life currently on the planet, and the systems that support the same,' not 'the mass of magma and rock that circles the sun every 365 or so days.'

And why, in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event since complex life evolved, one already promising to be the biggest of all even before the full effects of rapid GW really have gotten going...why anyone in this context thinks 'the planet will be just fine' (planet as defined above), is beyond me.

By stating a full definition as you do here that is clearly more than just "planet", you put in place the same sort of caveat I used to my answer. Which is fine. But it is disingenuous to suggest that my caveat is somehow purposefully misunderstanding the question, while yours is not.

[dohboi]

"trillions of years"

The earth certainly does not have trillions of years in any form.

Somewhere between a half billion and a billion years from now, the sun becomes so large and hot that life on earth of pretty much any sort becomes impossible.

We have no guarantee that some other source of extinction won't come along, one that would not have been much more than a 'bump in the road' had we not so weakened life on the planet, but one that, with our weakening, destroys the chance of a full recovery of life on the planet before the enlarging sun obliterates all life on the planet forever.

(Apologies to you and your more careful statement, Agent. I was addressing more the broad statement of those such as Karle.)

[dohboi]

yeah, earth is in rough equilibrium...till it's not.

There is another 'theory' or comparison besides 'Gaia.' It's called 'Medea,' you know, the rather scary sorceress who slew her children (and many others) to spite Jason.

Earth is nurturing of 'her children' until something throws her out of kilter, and then she slaughters them in droves.

This time it is us who are throwing her out of kilter.

I know, you all want an nice warm and cuddly theology that will forgive you ultimately of all your and of all of humanities 'sins' with Mommy making it 'all better' eventually.

We have no guarantees that this will be the case.

That is the story we will have to leave the earth with--not the comforting one you cling to like a child clutching his snot-moistened comfort blanket.

[Logic]

We have, and continue to try to contribute less to the damage.

We continue to educate ourselves on the issues, as well as educate others.
We have eliminated our gasoline use.

We have designed (with help) a house that will produce (through solar panels) as much energy as both our house and cars use, on an annual basis.
All LED bulbs, smaller than our current house, Geothermal, no natural gas (we don't even have a natural gas line to the house).

When we do need grid energy, we pay for wind RECs.

We try to use local resources rather than importing. The closer the better.

We also are sharing how easy and healthy this can be through various media sources and tours in an effort to get more people building more efficiently.

We have both cut way back on meat, and have no kids.

We also contributed towards getting one of the dirtiest coal plants in our state shut down. It will take a few years, but the process has been started.

[dohboi]

Newsflash to pstarr: science doesn't stand still. Other ideas have developed since you stopped paying attention some decades ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea_hypothesis

The Medea hypothesis is a term coined by paleontologist Peter Ward[1] for the anti-Gaian hypothesis that multicellular life, understood as a superorganism, is suicidal; in this view, microbial-triggered mass extinctions are attempts to return the Earth to the microbial-dominated state it has been for most of its history.[2][3][4] It is named after the mythological Medea, who killed her own children.