Why is anything else of interest to anyone?

July 15, 2005 3:04 PM

Global warming starts to destroy the bottom of the food chain.I'm actually not being ironic or anything here. It's a rainy, dark Friday and I feel like human beings really ARE all gonna die, like, soon. What do I do? What kind of Harlan Ellison/William Gibson/Neil Gaiman-esque world is my little daughter going to grow up into?
posted by jfwlucy (75 comments total)

Bird surveyors in May typically find an average of one dead Brandt's cormorant every 34 miles of beach. But this year, cormorant deaths averaged one every eight-tenths of a mile, according to data gathered by volunteers with the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team, which Parrish has directed since 2000.

Using one or two species as a predictor for nutrient effect may be questionable science, if not bad statistics. Was disease ruled out as a cause?
posted by Rothko at 3:11 PM on July 15, 2005

Too lately, I already killed my children rather than let them grow up a doomed world.
posted by jonson at 3:17 PM on July 15, 2005

Damn, Rothko. I kinda wish I'd read your post first. Left the "on preview" window open while I was finishing off the young 'uns.
posted by jonson at 3:18 PM on July 15, 2005

shouldn't have procreated, you selfish fuck.
posted by keswick at 3:22 PM on July 15, 2005

> What kind of Harlan Ellison/William Gibson/Neil Gaiman-esque world is my
> little daughter going to grow up into?


Possibly one like the last time it got hot. It has happened before, y'know.
posted by jfuller at 3:25 PM on July 15, 2005

y'know...say what you will about questionable science and all...but if you zoom out and look at the overall picture, it seems pretty obvious that our climate is changing. Suddenly now it's normal to have 5 major Hurricanes per year hit the southern states? Here in Iowa we're waaay behind on rain, Arizona has been in an 8 year drought, the polar ice-caps are melting (anyone see the depressing "get to alaska before it melts" (nyt link) article a few Sunday's ago?

I don't think we're going to have some sudden apocalypse or anything; but I do think things are shifting, and I believe it humanity's fault. We seem to be getting one step closer to having that Blade Runner sky...

Why not take your angst and think about ways to change how you use resources?
posted by atlatl at 3:26 PM on July 15, 2005

Personally I'd be less worried about a William Gibson/Harlan Ellison world than a Philip K. Dick one. Those books always depressed the hell out of me (but damn if they weren't fine fiction).
posted by raygun21 at 3:27 PM on July 15, 2005

I'm not going to hold up my life for crap that isn't chock-full-o-facts. Sure, I agree that global warning is real and needs to be addressed. Sure, I think that I can do something about that (I do, by pressing my representatives, consuming less, moving the heck out of the city). But I'm not going to spend every waking moment worried about it and stopping myself from having a good life with the only life I will ever get.
posted by Kickstart70 at 3:28 PM on July 15, 2005

I agree with jonson -- everyone, please, kill your children immediately!

Now then, what is this global warming we're all talking about?
posted by aaronetc at 3:28 PM on July 15, 2005

"I feel like human beings really ARE all gonna die, like, soon"

You say this like it's a bad thing. tsk tsk
posted by mischief at 3:36 PM on July 15, 2005

What about a Warren Ellis future world?
posted by zerolives at 3:38 PM on July 15, 2005

I think you're underestimating the survival power of humans. Yes, our environment is changing, and in a way that could spell curtains for many species of plant and animal. No, I don't think this is a good thing, but I really don't think anything like a silly 3-degree change in our overall temperature is going to wipe out humanity. Life always finds a way.

That said, the warning signs are safety-orange... and I'm pretty sure those biologists surveying the birds at least autopsied a sample of the birds to rule out other causes of death. Scientists are thorough like that.
posted by salad spork at 3:40 PM on July 15, 2005

Zoom out and look at the satellite picture, the earth is overrun. We got many problems. Civilization is doomed, and we're all going to die. I'm pretty sure I'll die within a hundred years, and I'm pretty sure all the institutions of the world I know will be dead in a few more hundreds. Thousands more species will be extinct, the world will be much less hospitable. Our species isn't all that likely to be eliminated, but the human population can't keep on increasing forever, you know. Has to end some day, so why not now?

But in case you hadn't noticed, we're not exactly living in the best of all possible worlds right now. We're spending our immense wealth on soldiers, wars, and DVD players. The air, water, and food are already bad enough to make a few billion people sicker than they would be anyway. The medicine that keeps the rich people a little less unhealthy has already poisoned the water supply, with effects we probably won't live long enough to see understood. The average person alive today will never visit any place that hasn't been transformed in one way or another, usually for the worse, by human development. From the perspective of some environmentalist from a thousand years ago, we're already in hell.

So don't let the future get you down too much.
posted by sfenders at 3:44 PM on July 15, 2005

Arizona has been in an 8 year drought

How long was the drought that led to the Dust Bowl? If I remember it was just as long, but nobody thinks that was global-warming related. That doesn't prove that global warming isn't occurring, but you can't pin weather events on climate change that easily. The plural of anecdote is not data.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 3:50 PM on July 15, 2005

There's an article today in the Globe and Mail about the disastrous breeding season on Triangle Island, just north of Vancouver Island, and one of the richest seabird habitations in the world. Article is here, but may be only on the site for a few days, so here are some excerpts:

As he scrambled over the rocky outcrops of remote Triangle Island this spring, seabird population biologist Mark Hipfner knew immediately something had gone wrong.

Tens of thousands of nests that should have been brimming with eggs were empty. And in the weeks that followed, as hundreds of thousands of seabirds flocked to the windswept islet, 45 kilometres north of Vancouver Island, the problem only got worse.

Data are still being collected, but with the nesting season almost over, Mr. Hipfner says, it is now clear that Triangle Island's internationally significant seabird population is experiencing the worst breeding year on record.

"We are seeing a very severe nesting failure -- the worst ever," said Mr. Hipfner, who works for the Canadian Wildlife Service. According to Mr. Hipfner, the Cassin's auklet population of 500,000 pairs is unlikely to produce even one chick that survives.

[...]

The plankton blooms, which are caused by upwelling of cold ocean currents, didn't occur this year for reasons that aren't clear, but which may be linked to global warming. Without the plankton, the small fish species that support the seabirds have died off, creating a scenario where the adult birds lack the energy to produce eggs and the chicks that do hatch soon starve to death.

The nesting failure could be an early warning sign of problems facing other species -- from sockeye salmon to baleen whales -- that depend on zooplankton such as krill, a tiny shrimp-like crustacean that has vanished along much of the West Coast.

"If you've got a failure at the base, it cascades throughout the food web," Mr. Hipfner said. "It's a single big system that's all interconnected. . . . Without plankton, essentially the whole system comes to a standstill."

He said oceanic plankton has disappeared along the full length of the California Current, which circulates on the West Coast of North America from California to British Columbia's mid coast.

Triangle Island, which supports one of the most significant seabird nesting colonies in North America, marks the northern edge of the California Current.

We are so fucked, is all I can think.
posted by jokeefe at 3:59 PM on July 15, 2005

Personally I'd be less worried about a William Gibson/Harlan Ellison world than a Philip K. Dick one.

I think the William Gibson world pretty much already happened in like 1997. In fact, I think it might still be 1997 right now, and a group of ancient venture capitalists are trying to tell me something... something about the Internet...

The plankton blooms, which are caused by upwelling of cold ocean currents, didn't occur this year for reasons that aren't clear, but which may be linked to global warming.

Huh. A little more evidence for Debbie McKenzie I guess.
posted by sfenders at 4:14 PM on July 15, 2005

so, yousa tink wesa people goan die?
posted by keswick at 4:14 PM on July 15, 2005

Crap. Plankton's already used Plan Z.
posted by Dr. Zira at 4:18 PM on July 15, 2005

Yep we are well and truely fucked...but hey the new Harry Potter book is out today.
posted by aaronscool at 4:38 PM on July 15, 2005

I think a lot of people will look at this report as fear mongering since the science on why this is occuring is unknown. It may be natural variation, it may be caused by non-human reasons. Personally, I dont know, but just saying, there's a lot of people who don't buy into the fear mongering without evidence because they see environmental causes as self serving to the liberal cause .. just like many didnt buy into the fear mongering about Iraq for the same reasons about the conservative military-industrial complex.
posted by stbalbach at 4:41 PM on July 15, 2005

The plural of anecdote is not data.

Touche, Dr. Science. It turns out, though, that a few scientists have produced some data from time to time, and a close read of that combined with the increasing piles of "anecdote" - wettest June in decades here in southern Alberta, hottest summer ever in parts of Ontario, the snows of Kilimanjaro melting rapidly, etc., ad nauseum - begins to form something like a broad-strokes portrait of the sky falling.

My advice, jfwlucy, is to start rethinking every consumer choice you make, and as best you can to force your elected officials at every level of government to make this the top priority on every campaign platform and agenda. And hope our survival instincts as a species kick in before we've entered endgame (if we haven't already).
posted by gompa at 4:43 PM on July 15, 2005

stbalbach: Thanks...well put. Whenever -ANYONE- says something similar to "we are fucked" (in any more worksafe language or in a form that doesn't sit on top of a stack of paper a foot thick proving the statement) I ignore them.

It's unfortunate that has to be the case, but since so many people with their own pet causes keep throwing Chicken Little scenarios without the stuff to back it up, what else can we do? If I accepted them all as gospel truth, I'd have put a bullet through the roof of my mouth long ago...though I'd likely never have the chance because if they were all true we'd all be dead anyway.
posted by Kickstart70 at 4:47 PM on July 15, 2005

Look at it this way: at least you're not a West Coast fisherman.

Or are you?
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 4:50 PM on July 15, 2005

Humans ruin everything.
posted by TwelveTwo at 4:54 PM on July 15, 2005

We did it to ourselves. Who are we to say to anyone else they can't chart their course of development the same we did -- through short-sightedness and immediate gratification? Thankfully, they're yet not up to the per capita consumption and pollution we are, otherwise who knows what kind of crash we'd be experiencing?

To those who say that more study is needed before we actually get around to doing something substantial: How much is it worth to let our children's grandkids get to see or hear all the diversity of critters we currently take for granted? It's not free... it never was. Better to start now than push it on to the next administration... and the next...

But - hey. Cormorants are eating all our fish, right? THEIR fault our fisheries are crashing. Fuck 'em.
posted by bloomicy at 4:58 PM on July 15, 2005

...yikes!
posted by Tlahtolli at 4:58 PM on July 15, 2005

Sure call me a chicken little...whatever. I'm certainly not saying the world will end tomorrow or that this particular piece of evidence is true, false, anecdotal, or hard facts.

What I am saying is that we have been having this discussion (global warming and its effects) for close to 30 years. Every year more hard evidence shows up to prove that yes it's a problem and every year more hard evidence shows up to suggest this problem is not insignificant. Yet every time we have the opportunity to make a decision and have a choice between action and non-action the choice inevitably is made for non-action.

So it breaks down like this we've had the heads up for 30 or more years and we've done bugger all for it. Personally I have resigned myself for the catastrophe because then and only then will we do something...anything.

I can only shake my head at our own hubris and ignorance. Much like the foundations of Capitalism are the belief that economic growth is infinite, I just don't get how folks don't understand the finite space our planet actually is...

/soapbox
posted by aaronscool at 5:24 PM on July 15, 2005

«Whenever -ANYONE- says something (in any language or form that doesn't sit on top of a stack of paper a foot thick) I ignore them.»

Me too. You can never be too careful!
posted by sfenders at 5:32 PM on July 15, 2005

We've done precisely nothing to what amounts to, essentially, the entirety of the universe.

What we do ruin is: baseball, the birthday song, playing with fireworks, sex, fast cars, rock 'n roll, school and, oh yeah, Earth.
posted by spincycle at 5:33 PM on July 15, 2005

the choice inevitably is made for non-action.

Really? There has been a lot of positive work done in the past 30 years to reduce global emmisions of carbon and other greenhouse gases.
posted by stbalbach at 5:38 PM on July 15, 2005

I remember about a decade or so how a small number of scuba divers totally altered the coastal environment along the west coast, and on a budget.

The took old bleach bottles, cut off the bottoms, then tied a string around the neck, attached to a brick. They used these to anchor giant sea kelp cuttings to an otherwise sandy sea floor. Pretty quickly they had created large kelp beds, and with kelp, other lifeforms of all types show up in abundance.

What had been underwater desert was turned into jungle.

The important thing to remember is that the thin stretches of coastline are the most important part of the ocean, as far as life goes, this "arable ocean" having a big percentage of all ocean life.

Optimally, reefs are the best environment out there. If you can stimulate reef growth, it helps an entire region of ocean. Currently, there is an odd experiment in creating an artificial reef off the coast of Africa--creating a reef much faster than usual, and again, at low cost.

A grid of uninsulated cable is laid on the ocean floor, and two leads climb the beach to a generator. A tiny current flows through the grid, which mysteriously has an almost magnetic attraction to the coral microorganisms that grow into reefs. Within a short time, the cable is covered with a thick and growing layer of coral, again turning a sandy sea floor into a rock-like reef, teeming with life. When it has progressed beyond a certain point, the beach cables are removed and it is self-sustaining, continuing to grow.

Last but not least, there was the extraordinary experiment of dumping iron fertilizer into the iron-poor Antarctic oceans, resulting in a huge bloom of plankton. A profusion of plankton can increase ocean surface temperatures by a degree or two, which doesn't sound like much until you realize that that much difference in surface water temperature can turn a Cat 1 hurricane into a Cat 2 or Cat 3.

Ironically, in that hurricanes take a vast amount of energy out of ocean water, by artificially creating a plankton bloom to heat the water slightly, a larger hurricane might cool the water significantly, much more than a smaller hurricane without a plankton bloom.
posted by kablam at 5:43 PM on July 15, 2005

Haha. Stupid bottom-of-the-food-chainers. Serves them right - they should be at the top of the food chain like us, then they wouldn't need to worry about dumb ocean thermals.

/Stupid top-of-the-food-chainer destined to someday feed the bottomers.
posted by -harlequin- at 5:43 PM on July 15, 2005

Really? There has been a lot of positive work done in the past 30 years to reduce global emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gases

Such as? I don't really mean to be such a cynic but last time I checked the rate of Greenhouse gas emissions have yet to stop climbing, much less reaching a plateau, and much, much less declining which is what really needs to be happening.

Outside of the US (in the EU in particular) there has been some small movement and traction. But this won't amount to much if the US, China and India don't ramp up and make some progress too...
posted by aaronscool at 5:44 PM on July 15, 2005

Kickstart70 mentioned helping to slow global warming by
moving the heck out of the city.

Do you burn up a lot of gas driving to work in the city every day?
posted by davy at 5:49 PM on July 15, 2005

I think we passed the crossover point somewhere around Reaganism. After that it was all downhill, environmentally and otherwise. The only thing that has changed year by year is that the slope just keeps getting steeper.
Oh, and the young ones emerging into their early twenties keeps going 'I don't see what your concern is, it's *always* been like this (said with big, naive puppy dog eyes).
I don't think people are going to do much to change this because they're largely in a state of denial now and pretty much locked into that like lemmings charging off a cliff.
Look at political process in this country these days: the suggested nostrum is 'well, contact your legislator *they'll* listen to you. . . ' Yeah kid, I got your sucker right here. . .
At some point the circle of trust and belief in a solution is going to become smaller and smaller (surprising how much cynicism there is now since Nixon, forward, yet no real change).
And then, who knows what might happen. Revolution? Everyone going home to lie down in their beds and wait for the last sunset?
Revelations?
There was so much more that needed to be done to turn this whole thing around, but instead we all went out to the mall one more time, got one more gadget, leased one more car or mortgaged a bigger house or just tried to otherwise tune out the whole thing.
Well, perhaps the naysayers are wrong and everything will 'just work out'. But I really doubt it. I read a lot, as I know many MeFi'ers do and everything I've read says the loan is due and the debt collectors don't take I.O.U's . . .
posted by mk1gti at 6:08 PM on July 15, 2005

Dude. George W. Bush was re-elected with an increased majority. Over 40% of the US population believe the bible is "totally accurate in all it teaches". Coldplay are hugely successful.

Please don't delude yourself with any actual hope for humanity.
posted by Decani at 6:22 PM on July 15, 2005

stbalbach: There has been a lot of positive work done in the past 30 years to reduce global emmisions of carbon and other greenhouse gases.

Uh, has there? Sure, CFCs and a lot of the more noxious combustion products have been cleaned up. But CO₂ is an inevitable result of burning hydrocarbon fuels, and it goes right out the tailpipe / smokestack / flue into the air. If anything, CO₂ emissions have risen in the last 30 years, surely?
posted by Western Infidels at 6:26 PM on July 15, 2005

Oh shit, I forgot about Coldplay. . . Damn, we're screwed. . .
posted by mk1gti at 6:26 PM on July 15, 2005

There are some things going on that are more or less unique to this particular time. The American empire is crumbling away, the natural resources of the whole planet are getting sort of close to being gone (close on a geological scale, you know), the global warming thing, and so on. But one thing that isn't unique is that almost everyone alive is going to come to a nasty and unpleasant end, real soon now. That always happens. It's like the buddha said, that's just the way life is. Maybe bad stuff will happen to more people on average a few years sooner, or a little longer, for a while. Whatever. The basic character of suffering is the same, and *that* is the thing that should be of basic interest, when you're in the mood to ponder the existential fate of humanity on a personal level.

And on the global level, everything will 'just work out', oh yes it will. No harm in trying to make it work out more favourably if you see an opportunity to make a difference, but one way or another the world will go on just fine when you're dead.
posted by sfenders at 6:38 PM on July 15, 2005

Did any of you read the actual article?

But this spring's cool, wet weather brought southwesterly winds to coastal areas and very little northerly winds, said Nathan Mantua, a research scientist with the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington.

The surface of the sea is too hot, because the air is too cold.

I'm not saying the earth isn't heating up, but that's not what caused these plankton to die.

Also, as long as we can grow corn, we'll be fine.
posted by delmoi at 6:44 PM on July 15, 2005

Holy crap -- what a freaking bunch of worry-warts! LIGHTEN UP, Francis! We're all going to live long, relatively productive lives, and be pretty happy overall, and the earth will NOT end, despite ya'alls predictions of doom, gloom, and "man is bad."
posted by davidmsc at 6:53 PM on July 15, 2005

James Dobson's, Focus on the Family:

"Any issue that seems to put plants and animals above humans is one that we cannot support.”

posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 6:55 PM on July 15, 2005

Also, as long as we can grow corn, we'll be fine.
----------------------------------------------------------------
But I *hate* corn, it always gets stuck in my teeth . . .
posted by mk1gti at 6:58 PM on July 15, 2005

*uses delmoi for corn fertilizer*
posted by warbaby at 7:00 PM on July 15, 2005

Our climate is changing! Our climate is changing!
Fear! Uncertainty! Doubt! Fear! Most of all Fear!
Everyone makes a big fuss over the fact that the climate is changing, and simply assumes that it means something bad is happening. We simply don't have enough information to determine whether or not this sort of thing is normal or not. We've only been monitoring this stuff for a relatively short period of time, geologically speaking.
To assume we know everything already is just the height of arrogance.
This is just fearmongering and self-loathing mixing together into a message of doom, gloom, and people-suck-ism.
posted by nightchrome at 7:14 PM on July 15, 2005

Oh, and one other helpful thing to do when you're in the mood to ponder the sorry fate of the world is stay far away from people like davidmsc, so as to avoid his comments precipitating a premature end for either one of you.

Also, as long as we can grow corn, we'll be fine.

...unless this happens.
posted by sfenders at 7:22 PM on July 15, 2005

Everyone makes a big fuss over the fact that the climate is changing, and simply assumes that it means something bad is happening.

That's right! And given that chunks the size of small countries are falling off the polar ice cap, that the mean global temperature is unquestionably rising; that ozone depletion is a proven reality and that low-end micro-organisms are dying out, we should definitely do the sensible thing and wait for it to get worse rather than acting now! Hey, my grandfather smoked 90 a day and lived to be 87! Probably!
posted by Decani at 7:43 PM on July 15, 2005

Do you burn up a lot of gas driving to work in the city every day?

Nope, because the move is in the middle of happening, and the land we have purchased (free and clear, thanks to excellent rural prices) is very close to a small town and nowhere near a large city. By moving to the country, we end up commuting much -less- than we currently do living in the city.

Your point stands for those people who reside in the far reaches of the suburbs, but (surprise, surprise) not everyone lives in, near, or commutes to, large cities.
posted by Kickstart70 at 7:44 PM on July 15, 2005

This is just fearmongering and self-loathing mixing together into a message of doom, gloom, and people-suck-ism.

I used to believe this too (and I'm not just saying that for the rhetorical effect of increasing my credibility), but unfortunately, I'm pretty damn sure this stuff is real. Human activity has had massive impacts on our surroundings. Did you know, for example, that the results of carbon 14 dating methods actually have to be adjusted to account for the huge global spike in environmental carbon-14 levels (which more than doubled) following the first tests of the atom bomb (and I'm not an eco-freak who researches these kinds of things--I learned this fact while researching carbon dating methods for a science fiction story I meant to write once but never actually finished)? I mean, I point this out just to demonstrate how rapidly we're capable of making a big impact... These changes took place over the course of a couple of decades. But the thing that really turned my thinking around was exposure to the concept of "sensitive dependence on initial conditions" from scientific research in the field chaotic (non-linear) systems. It doesn't take much at all to radically alter a non-linear system: just make very minor changes to the input variables, and the outputs go all wonky and unpredictable. And our environment is pretty much nothing but a massive aggregation of interconnected non-linear systems, feeding on and being fed by each other (weather systems, wind, ocean currents, etc...)... Anyway, you seem pretty sure of your self on this, nightcrome, so I guess I won't waste too much energy trying to convince you and others who might share your incredulity. I guess, ultimately, we'll just have to wait and see, right? That's always the most sensible thing to do, isn't it?

Let's hope so.
posted by all-seeing eye dog at 8:09 PM on July 15, 2005

Human carbon output pales in comparison to these, but hey, whatever.
posted by keswick at 8:24 PM on July 15, 2005

Human carbon output pales in comparison to these, but hey, whatever.

Yeah, and Ted Bundy didn't kill nearly as many people as Hitler, therefore, why did we even bother locking him up?
posted by all-seeing eye dog at 8:29 PM on July 15, 2005

i am in awe of your apt analogy.
posted by keswick at 9:04 PM on July 15, 2005

Human carbon output pales in comparison to nothing.

Just one little click of the mouse away from keswick's link is this: "Volcanic releases are about 1% of the amount which is released by human activities." Volcanoes eject other stuff too, but carbon dioxide is basically it for volcanic carbon emissions of the kind that don't fall back down to earth.
posted by sfenders at 9:12 PM on July 15, 2005

Highly recommended: The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann.
posted by muckster at 9:14 PM on July 15, 2005

Watching this fight against those who believe we're destroying our world, and those who think those people are doomsayers, a fight that happens every time on this site (and just about everywhere else in the U.S.), I can't help but think of this:

Set aside for the moment the question of whether it's real or not. What if the people responsible for it, mostly heavy industry and automobiles, really were destroying the environment. What ends do you think captains of industry and auto manufacturers would go through to supress, obfuscate, cloud perceptions of, overshadow, and cast doubt upon that knowledge?

Do those people who think nothing is happening (among scientists in the relevant fields, it's a very small percentage) consider this? If those Big Men were confronted with incontrovertable evidence that they were causing irreversable harm to the environment, suppose the Hand of God came down from on-high and told them this in a way they could not deny. What would they do?

What I suspect would happen, to my sorrow, looks exactly like what's happening now.
posted by JHarris at 11:25 PM on July 15, 2005

I can see this same conversation happening on Easter Island a thousand years ago.

"All those doomsayers are always talking about how we are going to quickly run out trees. Ha, Where is there evidence? I only believe something that's comes straight out of the mouth of those giant heads. If we just keep on going like we are now, things may be a little tough, but everybody will basically keep living happy productive lives..."

Then following years of civil war and cannibalism, the population on the island fell from well over 10,000 to around 2,000 today.

Human societies have always fucked themselves over. It's depressing that we actually have the science to watch ourselves screwing up, but we don't have the will to really do anything about it.
posted by afu at 2:05 AM on July 16, 2005 [1 favorite]

Kickstart70: how on earth do you think that "moving the heck out of the city" is an environmentally sound idea ? This is the kind of thing that really pisses me off, and I'm in a pissed off mood this morning, so I'm afraid you're going to get the brunt of it. In the US especially (but not exclusively), there seems to be some weird fucked up idea that the romance of "getting back to nature" is actually a useful thing. I can only assume that this is because people get their ideas about ecology from advertisements that are trying to sell them stuff. A person living in an apartment in the city is a VASTLY more efficient user of resources than a person sprawling their fucking single story home and huge thirsty lawn over another bit of countryside. Can you imagine what a nightmare the world would be if everyone moved out of the cities and smeared themselves across the landscape in some endless grim and featureless suburbia, that would then require them to drive 20 miles in their SUV to go to the shops ?
posted by silence at 5:37 AM on July 16, 2005

Global warming is a fact for each and every climatologist, government responsible and scientist.... except in the USA.

- ten warmest years since recorded occured in 15 last years
- ice cap & permafrost disappearing in artic countries
- north pole free of ice for the first time ever in 2000
- biological evidences of depletion (like those west coast birds) or move to the north of species following the climate heating
- insurrance companies becoming really worried by floods, extreme weather and so


Global impact of excessive human footprint let no place on earth free of overconsumption of natural ressources, or pollutions.
- Baltic herring, North Atlantic salmon becoming improper to human consumption with concentration of mercury, and almost fat fish repleted with PCB
- Australian reef dying
- Thousand of species vegetals and insects disapearing each year, especially in the amazonian zones
- Almost all wildlife species on the path to extinction, or at best endangered
- Primary forest disappearing in amazonia and south west asia
- Fisheries depleted, everywhere

But unlike america, if we don't love that way of harming life on earth, we can't leave. It's our only one vessel. so volens, nolens, we need a new steering, and fast.

This model of developpment based on the assumption that trees could grow to the sky is nothing but nonsense, fueled by greed, obscured at best by short-sighted views, at worst by selfish "après moi le déluge".

Our legacy is - still for how long - a wonderful eden garden. If we stay inactives, history will probably remind us as "waster generation", and our children will hate us, while trying to repair the damage done.
posted by BastilleWanderer at 8:16 AM on July 16, 2005

I don't see the connection to a Neil Gaiman-esque world, which would be very cool
posted by bingo at 9:09 AM on July 16, 2005

"Warmer Oceans May Be Killing West Coast Marine Life"

Self-boiled shrimp. What's the problem?
posted by ZachsMind at 9:13 AM on July 16, 2005

Living in a Phillip K. Dick world and arguing with your apartment door? That would be more amusing than the depressing truth of our apparent fate. (Not to say that some of Dick's novels I'd steer away from if I had a choice...)
posted by kozad at 9:35 AM on July 16, 2005

We're doomed....

Run away !

Errr.......
posted by troutfishing at 10:12 AM on July 16, 2005

Coldplay are hugely successful..

Or is Coldplay hugely successful?
posted by ackeber at 10:34 AM on July 16, 2005

ZachsMind writes "Self-boiled shrimp. What's the problem?"

The shrimp aren't being boiled, they are staying at lower depths depriving the fish of food.
posted by Mitheral at 10:56 AM on July 16, 2005

I see keswick hoisted himself on the Dixy Lee Ray canard about volcanoes. Gee. That's a really stale canard, how about some fresh crow to go with that duck?

I just love global climate change discussions; they're always so informative.

No, it's Rabbit Season!!!!
posted by warbaby at 12:14 PM on July 16, 2005

Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!!
posted by Captain Ligntning at 2:19 PM on July 16, 2005

Everyone makes a big fuss over the fact that the climate is changing, and simply assumes that it means something bad is happening

What assumtions are you making that result in your own inaction? Have you spoken to the 99.9% of climatologists who agree that something wicked this way comes or just the .1% who's research is funded by oil, gas and automobile industries who now for the most part no longer dispute man's impact on climate change but are trying to float the idea that "Maybe it's a good thing"?

Even the POTUS is not acknowledging the science that we are having an impact. If he's the most conservative voice (and I think he is) on the matter what does that tell you about the state of affairs?
posted by aaronscool at 2:27 PM on July 16, 2005

That would be the POTUS now acknowledges climate change by man...
posted by aaronscool at 2:29 PM on July 16, 2005

It's nuts to argue about global warming here. No one piece of evidence is going to convert the nonbelievers, no massive pile of evidence is going to convert them, until it has quite clearly and uncomfortably happened to them, in their own experience and not in some part of the world they heard about on the news while they were waiting for the sports. The guy idling behind the wheel in Boston is not going to believe it until there is no more snow in Boston, maybe, or until the Atlantic rises to cover the road between where he is and where he wants to drive.

(As for the environment and whether to choose city or rural life: never live anywhere that is not within walking distance of public transportation. Stay in the city, where all of civilization is, and sell your car, take the bus/tram/train to work, and walk for all walkable errands. Or fine, move to the country, but only if that means you can also get rid of your car.)
posted by pracowity at 2:54 PM on July 16, 2005

I won't feel any better dying from "natural" rather than manmade climate change. As far as i can tell if this is natural (which seems less likely the more we learn) it means we are even more screwed because this would mean we are accelerating an already occuring process that is, no argumment, really bad for all the current life on Earth.

So it's either manmade and we need to stop (if it's not already to late) or, it's natural and we need to stop making it worse and seriously consider if there's any artificial way to keep the planet livable. I don't see the third option of it's maybe natural so we can ignore basic chemistry and physics as being anything but ludicrous, insane, and suicidal.

Yes, there could be larger cycles which this is a part of but the chemistry of greenhouse gases won't be "cycling" into "global coolants" anytime soon. i for one would prefer to remain alive along with as much of the world as possible, even by artificial means. It doesn't matter in the least why the bottom of the food chain is dying, the coming result will not change.
posted by 31d1 at 3:15 PM on July 16, 2005

Ah, life is just a disease of matter anyway.
posted by herostratus at 4:35 PM on July 16, 2005

It's all a cosmic play in which we are fated to be squashed like bugs due to our own stupidity.

Or not.
posted by troutfishing at 9:03 PM on July 16, 2005

Holy crap. Nothing is happening because some people don't BELIEVE that global warming is a problem, despite the overwhelming evidence that it is.

fucking stupid, if you ask me.
posted by craven_morhead at 10:01 PM on July 16, 2005

Hey Silence,

Fuck your accusations, because you know nothing of my plans. I'm not moving to suburbia; we've purchased enough acreage to sustain ourselves food-wise outside of a small town that is literally hours from the nearest city. Actually, enough acreage to grow some of the food that you in the city may be eating in a few years. As well, I'm no city-dweller by birth, having grown up on a 1600 acre ranch and -really- living off home-grown food.

So don't accuse me of being some fancy-ass "back to nature" un-realistic fool, because you quite simply don't know what you're talking about.

Or perhaps in your city-loving, apartment-dwelling, small-mindedness you think that only cityfolk are on the 'internets'?
posted by Kickstart70 at 10:19 PM on July 16, 2005

Ellison, Gibson and Gaiman are good reading, but it's Brunner looking less and less outlandish each year that makes me sure my vasectomy was the right decision.
posted by flabdablet at 5:00 AM on July 18, 2005