>I think we are doomed as far as this goes and such acts while politically
>useful are unlikely to save the planet. The world is bigger than the UK, or
>western Europe, or even the west.
This is certainly true and whatever the political analysis at one
level the other issue is simply population.
We thought food would be the limiting factor for human population
growth, but now we've discovered we were so good at solving that
problem that we're on a suicide mission. My concern is not that the
oceans will rise a bit, which might be an reasonable homeostatic
solution, but that this planet will resemble Mars or Venus. Of
course this won't happen overnight, but it seems the upper atmosphere
has cooled about 5 - 10 degrees, and contracted.
It is perhaps also worth saying that _in some senses_ it really
doesn't matter whether the climate change is caused by human activity
or not. The key issue is the effect it will have on the planet, and
whether we are looking at economic, social and geopolitical effects,
fairly specific to the human species, or whether we are looking at
planetary sterilization which is _much_ less likely but should not be
considered impossible.
Our capacity to deal with these issues might indeed be a pointer to
whether we, or any similar species, will have the chance to find a
place in the wider universe, across time fragments that more than miniscule.
Julian
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