From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Fri Apr 12 2002 - 22:08:59 MDT
Colin Hales wrote:
>My personal problem with CO2, methane is less about absolute levels than the
>_rate of change_ of levels. The trees can't grow/evolve fast enough to
>outrun the changing tree line.
>
They dont have to. We can plant ones that have already evolved for
the coming environment, should we manage to actually change that
environment appreciably.
> Coastal areas, sea life and land animals
>would have to have the same problem in a different form. Australian humans,
>85% of whom live in a thin coastal strip of a very low lying continent, have
>a grim outlook in the face of rising sea level impacting within 1 lifetime.
>
Australia is as new as the US. We can move stuff back a few meters if we
have to. Both continents have plenty of land. All the other continents
do too.
But that may not even be necessary. If we did water management correctly,
there are ways to store water on land, perhaps on the Antarctic continent.
We can do it with nothing more high tech than dams and pipes.
>It's a boyscout thing. "Leave
>the campsite as good or in better shape than you found it".
>
I was a scout, I agree with that philosphy. This planet is too cold and
there isnt enough CO2 in the atmosphere for optimal plant growth.
We could remedy both situations, leaving the campsite better than it
was when we found it.
>When I think of what I bequeath my 3 kids
>(potential immortality notwithstanding), it bites.
>
Colin! Take at least 3 seconds to think about that comment. Bud, your
three *children* *have* *it* *maaaaaaade.* They have it totally made
in the shade, pal!
Think of all the stuff they have that you and I didnt. Think of all the
things that
are waaay better now, the computers, the education opportunities, the WEB,
fer cryin out loud! They have all this stuff that couldnt have been bought
for any price when we were teenagers, yet they can trade for it for a few
weeks slave labor at the local burger barn.
They have all the improvements, and I can think of *nothing* that is
worse for them, not one damn thing. We had Israelis and Palestinians
fighting back then. We had global whining back then, hell 30 years ago.
And the beach is still in the same place I always remember finding it.
We had teachers assuring us the population bomb would blow up in
our faces back then. Well, what of that? Where is the Soylent Green
nightmare scenario? The bomb was a dud! This global whining about
greenhouse gas is also a dud. Assured nuclear destruction: dud.
Eradication
of the worlds rain forests: dud. Massive extinction of wild species: dud.
Choking on car exhaust fumes: dud. Pollution of all the world's natural
waterways beyond life support: dud. Universal famine, ecological disaster,
pandemic disease: dud, dud, dud.
None of that ever happened, because even tough problems have solutions.
If anyone had told me when I was 16 how good life would be 25 years
down the road, I would not have dared believe it. Lets ask your
countryman Damien Broderick, he remembers even further back in
time than I do. Damien, is it better now?
I cannot imagine a better time to be a young person, there has *never*
in the history of humanity, been a better time to be a young person, never
mind the possibility they will live to see technologically-supplied
immortality.
Dont worry about having bequeathed (what did you call it?) bites(!) to your
kids. If so, may we all be so bitten.
spike
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