Quote:
Originally Posted by aesthetect
that being said, i'm really not concerned with global warming. its a slow moving process, any damage we're going to do has pretty much been done, and the one thing to fear is that we will have years of reparations to pay for the amount we've already put up there.
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true no one is denying the climate changes, but there are those that put forward the argument that our actions are having no negative environmental impact, and i believe that this is what Reithofer's comments leaned toward if anything; and to me that idea of any form is ignorant and nearly blasphemous, if nothing else than for the simple idea that we do not understand our environment and our actions well enough to even say.
i should have been more careful with my comments regarding my disregard for global warming. both of the points you listed are certainly debatable from either end. if there was a clear answer there would be no debate. i believe point (a) is perhaps the most highly questionable, and i would even tend to agree with you on some days. my main point is that it is our overpopulation of this planet, leading to rapid unrenewable natural resource consumption and imbalance, is having an impact on the planet. its ecosystem, its future, we are having an impact. and it is not good. i cannot quantify this (let me start and finish my dissertation and then we'll chat) but to look at our actions as inhabitants of this planet and not be able to see the irresponsibility is ignorant. let me repeat what i said that i am not concerned with global warming. i beleive it is too highly debateable and right now the impacts are not there to justify a global scare simply on that basis. however, i do believe that the rate at which we are sequester CO2 from a solid state in the earths crust is not healthy. true it makes up a tiny fraction of the earths atmospheric gases but one cannot deny the importance it has to life on earth, what do plants and animals inhale/exhale? And given the tiny amounts in which they do so, how does that compare to the rate at which billions of people burning billions of gallons release each day? and the fact that every day we burn more, and even more as other nations industrialize and try to come up to our "standard of living"?
i apologize for trying to present a scientific argument with no data. what i am trying to present is then instead a moral argument. one based on logic and responsibility. if nothing else an argument that says we dont know where in the realm of possibilities what we are doing lies.. from OK to horrible irreparable damage to the ecosystem that sustains us. but if it IS as bad as it might be, i hope youre around to explain to your grandchildren why it was worth the risk.