14th May 2008, 10:34 AM
Weltall Wrote:What I don't understand is, even if manmade pollutants are the primary cause of climate change, why this is construed as to be dangerous and damaging and evil. This ignores the fact that climate change, irregardless of this particular instance, has been naturally-occurring ever since the oceans formed enough water to absorb most of the CO2 from the atmosphere (which itself was mostly comprised of carbon dioxide some three zillion weeks ago). There have been countless instances of climate shift in the four billion-odd years that Earth has hosted enough water to form what we recognize as climactic patterns, and no shortage of catastrophes that have likely caused major and abrupt alterations in these patterns. And yet, we have the hubris and self-loathing to honestly believe that the Hummer, hideous, wasteful behemoth that it is, may be one of the man-made things that 'destroys the planet'.
Natural climate change occurs, no one is arguing that. The problem people have is that humans are facilitating this change. Climate change has been demonstrated to have increased abruptly, most likely due to human consumption of fossil fuels. We have to strike a proper balance between convenience and conservation. I don't think we'll destroy the earth, but we'll still make things uncomfortable as hell in the mean time. Just because we don't have the capacity to destroy the earth is no excuse to freely pollute without analyzing the consequences.