Global Warming - Not Our Fault

[Sternwallow]

Kate wrote

Cocoon

[Kate]

I always think of that when the Giant Turd Art thing is posted.

[Sternwallow]

Kate wrote

I always think of that when the Giant Turd Art thing is posted.

Gotcha. My guess was that Brian Dennehy and company were staring up at the unrelenting sun of global warming.
my bad

[ghoulslime]

BOF wrote

@choobus;

I say, I think the pic of the woman covered in shit is a bit much.

You're how old? Seven? (little boys are very scatological)

It must be a cultural thing. Here in the USA it is considered common courtesy to throw shit in the faces of others.

I thought the photo of the Australian lady on the toilet was rather cute.

[ghoulslime]

ubs wrote

Per a study at MIT



I can't remember what thread it was in, but it seems we owe one of our former posters an apology.

Oh new guy, where ever the fuck you are, we're sorry.

It doesn’t seem like any mainstream scientists deny that there are naturally-occurring cycles of cooling and warming.

The problem seems to be that man-made changes to Mother Nature’s chemistry are accelerating those cycles.

If an Ice Age sneaks up on us over a period of 20 or 30 thousand years, we can adjust to it. If it happens over the weekend, then we are fucked.

Corporate scum, end of world advocates, and other insane specimens of Homo sapiens don’t care about the future of our world. The environment is irrelevant to them. Their “studies” are much like the “research” done by tobacco companies to prove that cigarette smoking is good for our health.


The same mother fuckers who argue that emissions of a human origin have no lasting effect on our environment are the same pieces of shit who dismiss the extinction of other species as irrelevant to the interests of humankind.

Fuck them. And fuck anybody who backs their play.

[dogpet]

ghoulslime wrote

........the same pieces of shit who dismiss the extinction of other species as irrelevant to the interests of humankind.

What would be a non emotional explanation of the relevance of every creatures survival other than for food?

[Choobus]

ghoulslime wrote

I thought the photo of the Australian lady on the toilet was rather cute.

[ghoulslime]

dogpet wrote

What would be a non emotional explanation of the relevance of every creatures survival other than for food?

One could spend an entire lifetime studying biodiversity and still lack the fundamental data to offer a comprehensive explanation. Ignorance is hardly the proper response to complex symbiosis upon which the future survival of the human race depends. If the house is burning down, emotion seems justified.

What would happen if all of the bees died today? Would this have an impact on your life?

Where does the oxygen that you rely on to sustain your life come from, Dogpet?

(I pose these questions not for argumentation but rather as points for academic consideration by readers of this thread.)

Could we as humans not survive without other species of animals? Couldn’t we just keep the cows and chickens for food, the dogs, cats and bunnies for buddies, and let the rest die? Why would this strategy eventually cause our own extinction?

Do we as moral agents have an obligation to defend non-human life?

Should humans be afforded a higher measure of importance than other life forms on Earth? Should we continue to increase our populations until we eliminate all competitors for our habitat?

Do you personally think that humans will continue to persist as a dominant species on Earth? Will we at last become extinct?

[dogpet]

ghoulslime wrote

Do we as moral agents have an obligation to defend non-human life?

Should humans be afforded a higher measure of importance than other life forms on Earth? Should we continue to increase our populations until we eliminate all competitors for our habitat?

Humans will eat humans to survive, that probably overrides any obligations. I think other species will survive as long as we choose to feel emotional about them, or they are otherwise useful or inconspicuous.

Do you personally think that humans will continue to persist as a dominant species on Earth? Will we at last become extinct?

It's not something that keeps me awake at night.

[ghoulslime]

dogpet wrote

Humans will eat humans to survive, that probably overrides any obligations. I think other species will survive as long as we choose to feel emotional about them, or they are otherwise useful or inconspicuous.


It's not something that keeps me awake at night.

Hee hee, Dogpet! And I thought I was a cynical critic of humankind!

So your conclusion is that humans are mostly egocentric monkeys that ultimately act selfishly and with little foresight.

Mine too!

I’m trying to look at the bigger picture, though. Some of us are hardwired to sacrifice for the survival of the tribe. Some of us are willing to put up a fight, even if it might be a loosing one.

[dogpet]

ghoulslime wrote

I’m trying to look at the bigger picture, though. Some of us are hardwired to sacrifice for the survival of the tribe. Some of us are willing to put up a fight, even if it might be a loosing one.

We must do things because we want to, even if it's not to our own benefit. Therefore it is I guess.
What would be a victory?

dogpet wrote

Humans will eat humans to survive, that probably overrides any obligations. I think other species will survive as long as we choose to feel emotional about them, or they are otherwise useful or inconspicuous.


It's not something that keeps me awake at night.

My main worry is that human beings will not become extinct for another few hundred years.By that time we will have made the planet not only uninhabitable for ourselves ,but for some of the more attractive species,such as tropical fish, and more useful ones such as flies, sharks, crocodiles and rats.

When I say "my main worry" I mean "when I think of it at all",which is rarely.To be blunt I chose not to reproduce, I won't be here,neither will my DNA,so I really don't care..

It's my sincere belief the planet will be much better off without being infested by human beings.

[Sternwallow]

dogpet wrote

What would be a non emotional explanation of the relevance of every creatures survival other than for food?

For starters, food for what becomes our food. Second loss of natural sources of medicinals that we can either use directly or analyze and then synthesize.

If the Oryx disappears, what will we use for hides to cover our rude huts after the glaciers have destroyed our housing industry?*

Ghoulslime said: "Do you personally think that humans will continue to persist as a dominant species on Earth? Will we at last become extinct?"

Ghoulslime, I do think that humans, just as all other species on this planet, will eventually go extinct, if not from some planetery disaster, or virulent disease, then in the natural process whereby species give way to other species who evolve with some trait or characteristic which allows them the advantage.

Whether we have a hand in our own extinction remains to be seen.

Do we want to live forever?

[Sternwallow]

ghoulslime wrote

Hee hee, Dogpet! And I thought I was a cynical critic of humankind!

So your conclusion is that humans are mostly egocentric monkeys that ultimately act selfishly and with little foresight.

Mine too!

I’m trying to look at the bigger picture, though. Some of us are hardwired to sacrifice for the survival of the tribe. Some of us are willing to put up a fight, even if it might be a loosing one.

I am not willing to give up my life and that of my family to preserve a strain of bacteria that, most likely, but not necessarily, is harmful. My moral support for species of life in general scales up from that.

Does the tiger ever consider if the antelope it is bringing down might be the last of its kind? Of course the tiger is not a moral agent, but it shows that morality is not part of the equation of natural balance.

99.9% and more of all species that ever existed went extinct without our help, thank you. At one level, the fact that we have not only developed new species, but actively and deliberately preserved and recovered endangered species, has paid our dues of responsibility to nature as no other species has ever done.

As morality is a human construct, I think the moral responsibility we may have is not to other non-human animal species or to some endangered fern in Mongolia; it is solely to our own long-term (hopefully a very long term) survival and even, dare I say it, our prosperity and happiness. I would not mourn the passing of, for instance, the Malaria mosquito. Bees on the other hand, should not be wiped out because the rest of the ecology, including us egocentric apes, depends on them (not that another pollinator is impossible) and not because of any mystical spiritual moral debt we "owe" them.

But then, I'm feeling especially grumpy today for no particular reason.