IMO, it is a distinction that is worthwhile. The universe is not anthropocentric. It doesn’t give two shits about humanity (it’s not, to our knowledge even sentient). Humanity is completely insignificant to nearly anything but humans. To me, it puts into perspective that noone and nothing in this indifferent universe is coming to save us from ourselves. It’s up to us.
Life will continue without us, just like it did before us. If the entirety of the world’s nuclear arsenals are used, there’s a good chance that microbes like Deinococus radiodurans will survive to evolve into new forms of complex life. The human species is far more fragile than the planet.
What distinction, pointing out that the existing astronomical and mineralogical structures will withstand even our worst impulses? Or changing “Saving the planet” to “slowing our inevitable dissolution due to corrupt thinking and possibly saving some ducks, too”?
The distinction is already very well known - as we can see, people drive for hundreds of miles so they can hop out and tell us the actual physical structure of Earth will remain, most likely. It’s the insistence on focusing on that distinction which slows our ability to talk about the core causes for this climate disaster. And it sounds a lot like the previous 100 years of:
there’s plenty of nature
we can’t live like savages, we must pollute to make money
what if we add lead to it and spray it all over everything and everyone? No knocks! Profit!
What the heck is an ozone layer
oh you’re a tree hugger huh
there’s no proof its caused by humans
there are always periods of heating and cooling
this is a Chinese hoax
well you drink water so you’re part of the problem
i’ll never give up eating meat, what are you, gay?
It’s too expensive to not destroy the environment
oil prices are the key to liberty and freedom
the future of clean energy is a nightmare because we’ll have to enslave humanity to extract rare minerals from protected wildlife areas to build large batteries
it’s fine, the earth will survive. Sure we’ll die and everything we commonly consider animal life will be killed but - ya gotta go sometime
Now you’re just lobbing together people who want to distinguish what exactly it is that needs saving with climate change deniers, conspiracy theorists and antivaxxers. Seems to me you just like boxes, really big boxes, in which to put in all the thing you dislike/disagree with or whatever.
You don’t care that I disagree with almost everything on your list except for 2 things that I think are really important to be specific about.
“Saving the planet”, which I’ve explained
”You drink water, so you’re part of the problem”, which is kind of true if you extrapolate and include it in your decision on if to have children.
Be my guest, I don’t care enough to continue this conversation beyond this point with a hammer that’s just looking for nails.
If the entirety of the world’s nuclear arsenals are used, there’s a good chance that microbes like Deinococus radiodurans will survive into new forms of complex life.
Y’all acting like this happening isn’t a literal catastrophe. You guys are all insane.
IMO, it is a distinction that is worthwhile. The universe is not anthropocentric. It doesn’t give two shits about humanity (it’s not, to our knowledge even sentient). Humanity is completely insignificant to nearly anything but humans. To me, it puts into perspective that noone and nothing in this indifferent universe is coming to save us from ourselves. It’s up to us.
Life will continue without us, just like it did before us. If the entirety of the world’s nuclear arsenals are used, there’s a good chance that microbes like Deinococus radiodurans will survive to evolve into new forms of complex life. The human species is far more fragile than the planet.
What distinction, pointing out that the existing astronomical and mineralogical structures will withstand even our worst impulses? Or changing “Saving the planet” to “slowing our inevitable dissolution due to corrupt thinking and possibly saving some ducks, too”?
The distinction is already very well known - as we can see, people drive for hundreds of miles so they can hop out and tell us the actual physical structure of Earth will remain, most likely. It’s the insistence on focusing on that distinction which slows our ability to talk about the core causes for this climate disaster. And it sounds a lot like the previous 100 years of:
Now you’re just lobbing together people who want to distinguish what exactly it is that needs saving with climate change deniers, conspiracy theorists and antivaxxers. Seems to me you just like boxes, really big boxes, in which to put in all the thing you dislike/disagree with or whatever.
You don’t care that I disagree with almost everything on your list except for 2 things that I think are really important to be specific about.
Be my guest, I don’t care enough to continue this conversation beyond this point with a hammer that’s just looking for nails.
Yeah, this is also what I usually mean when I say “Earth will be fine”.
Y’all acting like this happening isn’t a literal catastrophe. You guys are all insane.