It did take science and reason to find this out. CO2 is certainly not a toxin to plants...its naturally produced from all of us.
This is not to say that I do not believe in anthropogenic induced climate change. And I believed in it before this report. Probably the best site on issues dealing with climate change is realclimate.org.
This is one of the articles that convinced me the most......
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...ities-updated/
But my overall point is that although I can sympathesize with you I think your really simplifing things in a pessimistic way. Sure there are problems today......and they are problems that threaten the entire existence of the Human species. But can you point to a time in human history were their werent serious problems? I bet most people living in Midevil Europe would trade their world for ours! Nor do I believe that this is the only time in Earth's history where our species looked like it may go extinct. The cold war, bubonic plague, etc produced some scary moments.
You sound a bit like an old man yelling that "these kids these days dont get it". Every generation has said that the next is worst and every generation has felt to some extent that the world was in serious jeopardy (although some had much better reasons to believe this).
Too often environmental issues are overly politicized and emotionalized into dogmatic hysteria and conspiracy theories from both sides of the political spectrum. This is quite easily to do to a population that suffers from a lack a basic scientific literacy, reasonable discourse, and intellectual honesty.
People on the right tend to create opposition to climate change and environmental issues by resorting to "common sense". Hey, look its going to be 0 in PA this weekend....and those scientists say the earth is warming? Many companies also like to create high paid "experts" to dismiss the latest scientific findings to that it appears their is a controversy. Tobacco companies did this and many oil companies are doing the same.
On the other hand, people on the left tend to believe in this ethereal thing called "mother earth". As if the sole purpose of the earth is to nuture the human species and always provide for its existence. Such people need to go back and see how the cavemen felt about "mother earth" during the last ice age. Or maybe they just need to live in the woods for a few days and try making everything on their own. There is a reason why people have longer life expectancy today and it has little to do with "mother nature".
There is some evidence that the Earth was warming even before industrialization due to human activities. This data suggests that when humankind left a nomadic hunter gather lifestyle and began what we now call agriculture, that our species help prevent an ice age. See this
link and this
link.
This hypothesis (called the early anthropocene' hypothesis) is still controversial. But I think it hightlights the need to really understand that while humans depend on the environment, its not enough to leave mother nature be. Mother nature will not just take care of us. Instead, we must intelligently mold it to suit our needs in a sustainable fashion. Humans are and always will be ecological engineers, we just need to be smart, socially conscious ecological engineers for future generations. I think of the sci fi novel
Dune.
Of course there are other ways of being smart, that aren't socially conscious. I'm sure there will be those that latch onto the early anthropocene' hypothesis if it is confirmed and say see we have been warming the Earth for a long time, so we mustn't have a problem.....in other words, Why should we worry about it now? The problem is the rate we are adding CO2 to the atmosphere is so unprecedented and not smart for a society with more people than ever living near the coasts. There will have devastating effects and currently more people than ever live on the coasts......there will be a lot of heartbreak and torn down dreams.
I believe in Societal Substainability, basically a peaceful coexistence of humans that allows civilization to maintain themselves. I think this must occur through a combination of 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle), practical species conservation,
and through technology. I also think we've made strides towards this culturally....as pointed out above for the first time it seems that many people will not look down upon you if you don't have kids.
If people really care about their kids and future generations, then they should show this by supporting substainability, not hippie, lets have a festival mother earth crap or the corporate bottom line.
I share your concern about bringing children into this world and I probably wont do so.......I think most people have kids for very greedy reasons....they have to have one cause their sister or friend had one....that kind of thing.....and they must also think something along the lines that they feel there is something special about them and their genetics.....because rarely is adoption the first choice. Think Richard Dawkins'
Selfish Gene. Furthermore, many people don't really realize the real sacrifice it takes to be a parent that will raise a socially conscious, contributing member of society.
For me personally....I feel as though there's nothing that outstanding genetically that I have to give. I feel as though I can give to the next generation and maybe even become immortalized a bit by becoming the best teacher I can be......an advocate for young people and an ambassador for science. Furthermore, how can I dedicate the necessary time to my students and to children? Some people think they can do both...but I'm much more modest or realistic...I'm not sure I can give 20-25 yrs of my life to being a great parent
and at same time be great, hard-working teacher.
Truthfully, I dont think that would give me any free time to be just me.
