I think we agree more than you think we do. I don’t think the human race could survive in bio-domes, at least not at present, and that’s not what I’m advocating. Nor do I think there’s much prospect of us tossing aside this planet and hopping onto a new one. We’re kind of stuck with this place for awhile.

What I am saying is that all of this drivel about “loving the Earth” is just nonsense. We should take care of the planet because the alternatives, as you point out, are pretty minimal if not nonexistent. You can’t “love” a big ball of rock. We should learn to live sustainably because we have to. Doesn’t mean I have to like it any more than I have to like taking out the garbage.

As for me clinging to some corporate-engineered lifestyle of decadent consumption that we don’t need… Let’s face it, we don’t need any of this. We could survive as a species perfectly well by sleeping outdoors naked and picking berries. We need practically nothing but water, food and occasional shelter from the elements. After that, it’s all a question of want. Underwear is a corporate-sustained conspiracy designed to keep us on a treadmill of consumption for a needless luxury, but I’m going to keep wearing it anyway.

Hardly objective, nor convincing. As for the comment DLE makes about living in glass domes and screw the planet? Well, you do really need to get your head out of scifi and come to your senses once in a while: you are a product – an emergence – from that same ecosystem you so casually throw away to oneside because you cannot imagine changing the patterns and luxuries of your consumption habits? That is – in a non-professional opinion – insanity. It also really does show a set of priorities that are so out of step with the propensity for tremendous and untold suffering for human and non-human species, those particularly in the global south (human species) and throughout the planet (non-human species), and all of this because you couldn’t be bothered to reconsider that your consumption-based lifestyle isn’t even yours anyway: it was manufactured for you, you were shaped into adapting and becoming coupled to it. Thereby you are now dependent on the very pattern that is causing all of this havoc. No doubt the film “The Matrix” must have kicked up some kind of associative thoughts for you? Being coupled to the engineered and corporate owned lifestyle that is completely unsustainable, and must be continually reinvented so that it doesn’t collapse under the weight of its own hubris. You like to think yourself sceptical, as a pathway to the “truth”? Well, here’s one for you then – how logical and beneficial is it for one species to eat its entire support base? Is the answer really to then throw away the empty container and go off into outer space to see if we can find another drive-through-planet to use up? Ecological wisdom would suggest that one do no more than consumes what one needs and not prevent any other species from doing similarly. Being homo sapiens sapiens suggests we possess some strange quality called wisdom. As far as I can tell, unnecessary suicide is probably not the pinacle of wisdom now is it, and yet this is – fundamentally – what you advocate with your “let’s live in bio-domes” adolescent enthusiasm. Did you not read about the impacts of BioSphere II? It was no go – they had to keep providing ecosystem resources to the inhabitants because the system could not do it itself. Really, do you think that’s the way to go … some kind of Moon Landing fantasy? We have an existing biodome – its called, inter alia, terra firma or Earth – and we can’t even take care of this one, and this one is far more tolerant and able to accommodate and self-repair in orders of magnitude at a better quality and reliability than anything that we can hope to come up with in 50 years time. What would you think is going to change us around now if we have to live in engineered bio-domes. You are entitled to your opinion of course, and maybe I’m just getting old, but I have to tell you – there are some just plain silly opinions being passed off to all and sundry on the Net which don’t evidence even the slightest bit of critical thinking. That’s okay in itself; what concerns me though is that these acritically considered opinions are then linked to in the blogosphere as if the sheer accumulation of foolishness suddenly created a critical mass whereby it is converted into common-sense. Quantity of information, not quality of information, seems to be the prevailing currency in the Internet economy of argumentation.

RealClimate isn’t the only climate science blog online. You may or may not have heard of these:

Climate Audit (Steve McIntyre)

Climate Science (Roger Pielke, Sr.)

World Climate Report (Patrick Micheals of Cato, and others)

EnvironmentNC

ICECAP

CO2 Science

Any way we have a better chance to get hit by a big rock than being destroyed by Green House Gases. Why do you think the Lord put a hole in the top so they could escape…I get tired of Hollywood and politicans running my life..thank you gary

Glad to see I’m not alone. BTW, to Alexey, on whether scientists were predicting an ice age back in the 70s, I’ve updated my original post to include an article written in 2001 by a member of the British Antactic Survey that addresses that specifically, and she says differently (I have to go on what I read, I was born in the 70s and don’t remember anything much except Abba).

Human beings are incredible and awesome, but we are a product of our ecosystem. We will eventually go the way of Erectus and our other extinct ancestors, but something else will come along. That’s the beauty of the Earth’s ecosystem and why it’s far more important than humanity. And our technology will influence our evolution, probably even direct it going forward. I also agree that we need to get off of the Earth and find ways to populate other moons and planets with life — not just human life.

Is global warming real, is it caused by human activity? For a long time I was very skeptical, the evidence was not strong enough for me. But these days the facts are clear enough (for me). What’s the big deal? Really, I see the biggest impact to be the melting of the ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica. In the very short term, flooded coastal cities will create a lot of suffering and economic upheaval. But humans will get over it, and the Earth’s ecosystem will hardly even notice.

The answer, whatever it is, should most definitely NOT involve the production of plutonium.

I think that the problem is not that we don’t trust or believe the scientists, but that it’s so much more often the politicians and the journalists who report on what the scientists are saying. I’m astounded at the idiocy that you find in the most basic science and health journalism. I mean, if they can’t even come up with a consistent take on the Atkins Diet, what hope do we have that they can understand and interpret global climate?

(Oh, and thanks for the Infoquake review, too.)

That said, I think that sorting out our rampant over-consumption of resources is still a worthy pursuit, if only for the fact that we’ll have to learn how to be damn frugal once we get off planet, and we might as well learn the basics while we have somewhere reasonably conducive to our existence to practice on.

Interesting and provocative post, though.