How Silly is Climate Change Denial?

[mike]

Jacques Cousteau – conservationist 1910 – 1997“We must alert and organise the world’s people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises — exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.”

Richard M. Nixon – US President 1913 – 1994“One of the most serious challenges to human destiny in the last third of this century will be the growth of the population.”

Isaac Asimov – author 1920 – 1992
“…democracy can not survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn’t matter if someone dies. The more people there are, the less one individual matters.”
“Which is the greater danger — nuclear warfare or the population explosion? The latter absolutely! To bring about nuclear war, someone has to do something; someone has to press a button. To bring about destruction by overcrowding, mass starvation, anarchy, the destruction of our most cherished values-there is no need to do anything. We need only do nothing except what comes naturally — and breed. And how easy it is to do nothing.”

Martin Luther King – clergyman and activist 1929 – 1968“Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victims.”


Professor Aubrey Manning – zoologist b1930“Looking across the world at present it is obvious to anybody with even the slightest biological knowledge that human numbers are out of balance.”

Jane Goodall – conservationist b1934“It’s our population growth that underlies just about every single one of the problems that we’ve inflicted on the planet. If there were just a few of us, then the nasty things we do wouldn’t really matter and Mother Nature would take care of it — but there are so many of us.”


Morgan Freeman – actor b1937“We have seven billion people on this planet. It’s not that there’s not enough room on this planet for seven billion people, it’s that the energy needs for seven billion people are seven billion people’s worth of energy needs, as opposed to, say, two billion. Imagine how much pollution would be in the air and the oceans if there were only two billion people putting it in? So yeah, we’re already overpopulated.”

Stephen Hawking – physicist b1942“In the last 200 years the population of our planet has grown exponentially, at a rate of 1.9 per cent per year. If it continued at this rate, with the population doubling every 40 years, by 2600 we would all be standing literally shoulder to shoulder.”


Plenty more here
Quotations « Population Matters

You'll forgive me if i bow to their collective wisdom and not yours

 

[BoyintheMachine]

Please consider the big picture. This is a unique period in human history. Never before has mankind had the ability to see itself wholly in relation to the earth on which it lives. Never before has the human population been remotely close to its present levels and consuming raw materials at its current rate. Never before have we had the ability to literally blow ourselves off the face of the earth.

With or without climate change, and whether 10 or 50 years from now, something must change. In any closed system, the game is zero sum. There's an inevitable balance between 'x' number of humans at 'y' standard of living. Of course, nature has an uncanny way of balancing its books. We may stumble rather than walk carefully into the future, finding a kind of Malthusian correction in starvation and disease. Nature does not care.

Great. There's only 2 problems. AGW has truly not been proven and over-population has already been debunked. There's just a few fear mongers left who still push it. I'm not sure how much research you've done and if you only read the fear porn. However, our population will peak in about 50 years or so and then it will decline. You should not be frightened by the myth of over-population. We're not even increasing exponentially. The growth is far more slower than you think.

 

[BoyintheMachine]

Jacques Cousteau – conservationist 1910 – 1997“We must alert and organise the world’s people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises — exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.”

Richard M. Nixon – US President 1913 – 1994“One of the most serious challenges to human destiny in the last third of this century will be the growth of the population.”

Isaac Asimov – author 1920 – 1992
“…democracy can not survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn’t matter if someone dies. The more people there are, the less one individual matters.”
“Which is the greater danger — nuclear warfare or the population explosion? The latter absolutely! To bring about nuclear war, someone has to do something; someone has to press a button. To bring about destruction by overcrowding, mass starvation, anarchy, the destruction of our most cherished values-there is no need to do anything. We need only do nothing except what comes naturally — and breed. And how easy it is to do nothing.”

Martin Luther King – clergyman and activist 1929 – 1968“Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victims.”


Professor Aubrey Manning – zoologist b1930“Looking across the world at present it is obvious to anybody with even the slightest biological knowledge that human numbers are out of balance.”

Jane Goodall – conservationist b1934“It’s our population growth that underlies just about every single one of the problems that we’ve inflicted on the planet. If there were just a few of us, then the nasty things we do wouldn’t really matter and Mother Nature would take care of it — but there are so many of us.”


Morgan Freeman – actor b1937“We have seven billion people on this planet. It’s not that there’s not enough room on this planet for seven billion people, it’s that the energy needs for seven billion people are seven billion people’s worth of energy needs, as opposed to, say, two billion. Imagine how much pollution would be in the air and the oceans if there were only two billion people putting it in? So yeah, we’re already overpopulated.”

Stephen Hawking – physicist b1942“In the last 200 years the population of our planet has grown exponentially, at a rate of 1.9 per cent per year. If it continued at this rate, with the population doubling every 40 years, by 2600 we would all be standing literally shoulder to shoulder.”


Plenty more here
Quotations « Population Matters

You'll forgive me if i bow to their collective wisdom and not yours

And not a one of them qualified to give a scientific opinion on the matter. The fact that you included actor Morgan Freeman is laughable. Seriously. This is called the bandwagon fallacy. All these people believe it so you should too. Problem is all these people can be wrong and their opinions are not educated opinions and are as equal as any lay person's opinion.

 

[mike]

Max Born – physicist 1882 – 1970
“Science and technology will then follow their tendency to rapid expansion in an exponential fashion, until saturation sets in. But that does not necessarily imply an increase of wealth, still less of happiness, as long as the number of people increases at the same rate, and with it their need for food and energy. At this point, the technological problems of the atom touch social problems, such as birth control and the just distribution of goods. There will be hard fighting about these problems…”

Albert Einstein – physicist 1879 – 1955
“Overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the health of people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organize peace on this planet.”

And i consider Jacques Cousteau to be as qualified as anyone to give an informed opinion on this

Jacques Cousteau – conservationist 1910 – 1997“We must alert and organise the world’s people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises — exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.”

 

[mike]

Lets try another pov

Imagine you have a bookcase, it can hold 100 books, and does so. A diverse collection of individual books from 100 different authors.

One book is Jamie Olivers Naked chef.
The next day someone sends you another copy of the Naked Chef.
So you remove Martin luther kings biography and throw it on the fire, gone forever.
You now have 2 copies of the naked chef

The next day 2 more copies of the Naked Chef arrive by mail, so you take Chris Obriens stalking the herd and Vallees passport to magonia and chuck em on the fire, replacing them with your two new copies of Naked chef.

That makes no sense does it, why would you replace a unique and diverse collection with copies of the same book.

Habitat loss poses the greatest threat to species. The world's forests, swamps, plains, lakes, and other habitats continue to disappear as they are harvested for human consumption and cleared to make way for agriculture, housing, roads, pipelines and the other hallmarks of industrial development. Without a strong plan to create terrestrial and marine protected areas important ecological habitats will continue to be lost

Losing their homes because of the growing needs of humans
Habitat loss is probably the greatest threat to the variety of life on this planet today.

It is identified as a main threat to 85% of all species described in the IUCN's Red List (those species officially classified as "Threatened" and "Endangered").

Increasing food production is a major agent for the conversion of natural habitat into agricultural land.

Why is it happening?

Forest loss and degradation is mostly caused by the expansion of agricultural land, intensive harvesting of timber, wood for fuel and other forest products, as well as overgrazing.

High land conversion rates

The net loss in global forest area during the 1990s was about 94 million ha (equivalent to 2.4% of total forests). It is estimated that in the 1990s, almost 70% of deforested areas were converted to agricultural land.

Around half of the world's original forests have disappeared, and they are still being removed at a rate 10x higher than any possible level of regrowth. As tropical forests contain at least half the Earth's species, the clearance of some 17 million hectares each year is a dramatic loss.

WWF - Impact of habitat loss on species

In what universe does it make any sense to lose so much as a single unique species, just so humans who are infesting this planet, living under its oceans and in orbit above its atmosphere can increase the numbers of their species ?
In this context its you whos playing the Elite card, suggesting your species has a right to breed like maggots at the expense of the "lessor" species who share this planet.

In the face of the reality that your species is directly causing the extinction of so many other species, just so you can add a few billion more to the 7 billion already infesting this place is obscene.

This planet already has plenty of humans, do we need more when the cost of doing so is to steal and then destroy the habitat of the other species that live here too ?

The loss of even a single unique and diverse species so we can have more humans is obscene

Over the past 200 years, over 400 species have been lost from England alone. This incredible loss of biodiversity has been caused by a range of factors, such as habitat degradation and modification, the intensification of agriculture, pollution and poor land management

Population might not seem a "problem" for your i'm alright jack mentality, but it sure as heck is one for this planet and its biological diversity.
Its only "not a problem" to those who dont value pristine wilderness and old growth forests, clean air and waterways and thriving biodiversity.

If the only life that of value to you is human life and the heck with the rest, then you are small in a way that is very sad

And frankly that mindset, that blind stupidity should never be let off this planet, it should be quarantined here till it wipes itself out

 

[Gene Steinberg]

And I suppose this is also a government and/or UN conspiracy:

History Under Water: Climate Change Imperils Historic, Cultural Sites

 

[Charlie Prime]

And you claim that believing that the energy companies want you to accept climate change as a human-created phenomenon to fatten profits is critical thinking? What about the reverse theory, that the energy companies are doing everything possible to debunk the climate change issue?

I love Conspiracy Theories. Let's investigate your theory that research which does not support AGW is driven by money from "energy companies" because they stand to lose money if Carbon Taxes are increased.

What "energy companies" are you talking about?

If they are so important to Climate Fraud, please name the 5 largest providers of funding.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Asked and answered again and again and again.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

And:

National landmarks threatened by climate change

But I have no more comments to make beyond what I've posted already on the subject. Maybe those denying climate change will read them rather than quote and misrepresent.

 

[Charlie Prime]

Asked and answered again and again and again.

In which post did you list the 5 largest engergy companies who are funding research which does not support AGW?

I missed that post.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Do your own research and start with Charles and David Koch and their energy company.

And:

Political activities of the Koch brothers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I found this in 2 seconds. Do some of your own Googling instead of repeating drivel, OK? Time to listen to my own words, and go elsewhere.

 

[Charlie Prime]

Where are the carbon tax benefits anyway that somehow benefit the employers of these scientists?

Do your own research and start with my link above regarding corporate green subsidies.

Do some of your own Googling instead of repeating drivel, OK?

 

[BoyintheMachine]

Max Born – physicist 1882 – 1970
“Science and technology will then follow their tendency to rapid expansion in an exponential fashion, until saturation sets in. But that does not necessarily imply an increase of wealth, still less of happiness, as long as the number of people increases at the same rate, and with it their need for food and energy. At this point, the technological problems of the atom touch social problems, such as birth control and the just distribution of goods. There will be hard fighting about these problems…”

Albert Einstein – physicist 1879 – 1955
“Overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the health of people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organize peace on this planet.”

And i consider Jacques Cousteau to be as qualified as anyone to give an informed opinion on this

Jacques Cousteau – conservationist 1910 – 1997“We must alert and organise the world’s people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises — exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.”

None of these people are qualified to give scientific opinions on either overpopulation or AGW. Yes, even the beloved Einstein is not qualified to give a scientific opinion on either matter.

Look, I was hoping you would figure it out. You need to post quotes from real climate scientists and those associated with population statistics. Otherwise it's meaningless. But I'm growing tired of this back and forth stuff with you when you are not capable of realizing what is necessary during a little debate or exchange. I don't want to discuss this further.

 

[Burnt State]

Ok, so no one is qualified to talk about this, and truth be told, it seems that climate scientists have their own complicated conflicts about contemporary data interpretations. Most of the discussion about the past climate changes is accurate in only a rough manner. Most of the specifics around past temperatures, shifts in co2 and WEATHER is mostly speculative as most climate scientists will tell you. (We always get the weather wrong.)

Resources are limited. Doom and misery will to continue to be the theme for the poor on planet earth. Reversing the carbon cycle has not been clever of us at all; it's created disease. That is not fear pornography. It is a measurement of our impact. Now of course the human race can't live here forever except in interesting speculative fiction. However, our impact on our habitat and the habitats of other life forms has been reprehensible.

And we are also a species of promise. We ave incredible potential but lousy ethics. I don't think we should throw away all our imaginative prowess to create, explore and identify. Humans are beautiful, wild creatures of the earth with unknown capacities for everything including wickedness. We could be doing so much more than burning oil, buying plastic and breeding disease everywhere. Good grief, we can see to the beginning of time with our advanced optics, but can't agree that being kinder to mother earth is righteous and just?!

Yes we should give ourselves the time to get off planet, but at the expense of all the starving, diseased and impoverished? Then there's all the many other living things that have value, that we devalue arguing over carbon tax. I wish we were all as fanatical about the planet as Suzuki, and my other hero, Cousteau. These characters recognize and honor the diversity of life, in the way that matriarchies of the past taught us that all life is sacred. They saw early on before most, because they were studying the planet so closely for so long, just what a terrifying impact we are having.

Labeling everything you don't want to hear or know about corporate raping and pillaging and wasted days and nights in consumer delirium as fear porn or inaccurate or we're all going to die eventually is not a reasonable denial. Where these beliefs originate and who promotes these anti-planet ideas needs better scrutiny. Well, at least that's all I'm saying.

 

[mike]

Well said, we CAN measure the impact of overpopulation, and those measurements show its a real problem happening right now.

More than one billion people around the world now live in water-stressed regions, according to the World Health Organization, a number that is expected to double by 2050, when an estimated nine billion people will inhabit the planet.
“There’s not enough fresh water to handle nine billion people at current consumption levels,” says Patricia Mulroy, a board member of the Colorado-based Water Research Foundation, which promotes the development of safe, affordable drinking water worldwide. People need a “fundamental, cultural attitude change about water supply in the Southwest,” she adds. “It’s not abundant, it’s not reliable, it’s not going to always be there.”
Mulroy is also general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which serves two million people in greater Las Vegas. The city is one of the largest in the Colorado River basin, but its share of the river is relatively small; when officials allocated the Colorado’s water to different states in 1922, no one expected so many people to be living in the Nevada desert.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-colorado-river-runs-dry-61427169/#DdcLU2JFkBRwAeZ2.99


The overpumping of groundwater is causing water tables to fall across large areas of northern China, India, Pakistan, Iran, the Middle East, Mexico, and the western United States.

Using innovative satellite technology, a new study finds that groundwater supplies in the Central Valley of California, the nation's fruit and vegetable bowl, are dwindling at an alarming rate.

Using satellite data, scientists have recently estimated that groundwater in India is being depleted across the country's north, which includes the its bread basket, to the tune of 1.9 trillion cubic feet (54 billion cubic meters) per year. As wells run dry, the nation’s food supply—as well as the livelihoods of the region’s 114 million people—are increasingly at risk.

National Geographic Freshwater 101: Groundwater

Underground "Fossil Water" Running Out

The Colorado River provides an excellent example of what happens when demand for river water—for cities, industry, energy production, and agriculture—threatens to outpace supply

Rivers and their tributaries are the veins of the planet, pumping freshwater to wetlands and lakes and out to sea. They flush nutrients through aquatic ecosystems, keeping thousands of species alive, and help sustain fisheries worth billions of dollars.
Rivers are also the lifeblood of human civilizations. They supply water to cities, farms, and factories. Rivers carve shipping routes around the globe, and provide us with food, recreation, and energy. Hydroelectric plants built from bank to bank harness the power of water and convert it to electricity.
But rivers are also often the endpoint for much of our industrial and urban pollution and runoff. When it rains, chemical fertilizer and animal waste peppering residential areas and agricultural lands is swept into local streams, rivers, and other bodies of water. The result: polluted drinking water sources and the decline of aquatic species, in addition to coastal dead zones caused by fertilizer and sewage overload.

National Geographic Freshwater 101: Rivers

In Mexico-—home to a population of 107 million that is projected to reach 140 million by 2050—-the demand for water is outstripping supply. Mexico City’s water problems are well known and rural areas are also suffering. For example, in the agricultural state of Guanajuato, the water table is falling by 2 meters or more a year. At the national level, 51 percent of all the water extracted from underground is from aquifers that are being overpumped.
Since the overpumping of aquifers is occurring in many countries more or less simultaneously, the depletion of aquifers and the resulting harvest cutbacks could come at roughly the same time. And the accelerating depletion of aquifers means this day may come soon, creating potentially unmanageable food scarcity.


You dont need to be a scientist to read the data, we can measure the reality easily enough, as populations increase the demand on resources does too, now many parts of the world are living on environmental "credit".

And thats just groundwater

Biodiversity is presently critical since we live in the era of the Mass Holocene Extinction, a period of species loss caused by man, and unrivaled in rate of species loss. Although the number of total species numbers in the tens of millions, most have not yet even been described. The extinction of a species is almost always related to destruction of habitat or man-made pollution.

Biodiversity

Our locust like behavior is not just screwing up our only home for man, but also for the other species who share it.

The best place to measure the awful effects of overpopulation is china. most overpopulated country in the world, the rivers are undrinkable, the air poisoned. they are now buying up huge tracts of land outside of china

The food rush: Rising demand in China and west spark African land grab | Environment | theguardian.com

And the worst part is that we are kicking the can down the road with these activitys, the water we drain from aquifers wont be replaced, but its being used to sustain exponential population growth, so when the crash comes it will come hard.

Loss of Species: Seventy percent of the world’s plants and animals live in forests and are losing their habitats to deforestation. Loss of habitat can lead to species extinction. This is not only a biodiversity tragedy but also has negative consequences for medicinal research and local populations who rely on the animals and plants in the forests for hunting and medicine.

Overfishing occurs when more fish are caught than the population can replace through natural reproduction. Gathering as many fish as possible may seem like a profitable practice, but overfishing has serious consequences. The results not only affect the balance of life in the oceans, but also the social and economic well-being of the coastal communities who depend on fish for their way of life.
Billions of people rely on fish for protein, and fishing is the principal livelihood for millions of people around the world. For centuries, our seas and oceans have been considered a limitless bounty of food. However, increasing fishing efforts over the last 50 years as well as unsustainable fishing practices are pushing many fish stocks to the point of collapse.
More than 85 percent of the world's fisheries have been pushed to or beyond their biological limits

People used to think that the oceans were too big for us to impact very much. Unfortunately, over the past few decades scientists have realized that in fact, fishing has already radically transformed our oceans through a combination of illegal fishing, habitat destruction, bycatch, and just plain catching too many fish.
Bottom trawling, a fishing method which involves dragging giant nets and chains across the seafloor, damages fragile corals and sponges which provide habitat for fish and creates scars on the ocean bottom which can even be visible from space

We CAN measure the effects of overpopulation, its right there in black and white

And each of these measurable disasters can be traced back to a single root cause, a species that puts the locust to shame .

This is why i laugh at schemes like carbon taxes, every single scheme with its "reductions" gets swallowed up by exponential population growth.
We have to treat the disease not the symptoms

BE NOT A CANCER ON THE EARTH - LEAVE ROOM FOR NATURE - LEAVE ROOM FOR NATURE

 

[Gene Steinberg]

When you wrote about our "locust like behavior," I was thinking of the popcorn flick, "Independence Day." Remember that the aliens were insectoid creatures that acted like locusts, exploiting a world's natural resources until they're depleted, and moving on to another world to do the same. What were they telling us?

 

[mike]

The idea that the human species who has not learned to respect the other life forms here, who's idea of "balance" is to increase its numbers at the expense of all the other species of this planet, would move on and show the same callous disregard for a new planets biosystems is horrifying.

We need to prove we can properly manage this planet, before we get given the keys to others

 

[mike]

When you wrote about our "locust like behavior," I was thinking of the popcorn flick, "Independence Day." Remember that the aliens were insectoid creatures that acted like locusts, exploiting a world's natural resources until they're depleted, and moving on to another world to do the same. What were they telling us?

So true Gene, and we dont need to be like that, we have the ability to reason, to make good choices

The guidestones have much wisdom

RULE PASSION - FAITH - TRADITION - AND ALL THINGS WITH TEMPERED REASON

BALANCE PERSONAL RIGHTS WITH SOCIAL DUTIES

GUIDE REPRODUCTION WISELY - IMPROVING FITNESS AND DIVERSITY

Habitat loss: This is one of the most severe threats to gorilla populations. The forests where mountain gorillas live are surrounded by rapidly increasing human settlement. Through shifting (slash-and-burn) agriculture, pastoral expansion and logging, villages in forest zones cause fragmentation and degradation of habitat.[43] The late 1960s saw the Virunga Conservation Area (VCA) of Rwanda’s national park reduced by more than half of its original size to support the cultivation of Pyrethrum. This led to a massive reduction in mountain gorilla population numbers by the mid-1970s.[44] The resulting deforestation confines the gorillas to isolated deserts. Some groups may raid crops for food, creating further animosity and retaliation. The impact of habitat loss extends beyond the reduction of suitable living space for gorillas. As gorilla groups are increasingly geographically isolated from one another due to human settlements, the genetic diversity of each group is reduced. Some signs of inbreeding are already appearing in younger gorillas, including webbed hands and feet.

These are our relatives, our family, and we are destroying them so more of our species can have its place under the sun. We dont need to do this.
The loss of even a single species so that a planet already overburdened with humanity, can have more of the same. Its obscene

To me its simple, its better to have less humans and more biodiversity, than more humans and less biodiversity.

The planet can support the needs of every single species here today, but it cannot support the greed of humanity, not indefinately

 

[mike]

Digby McLaren – geologist 1919 – 2004

“If an unseen intelligent being from somewhere else in our galaxy were to visit the Earth, perhaps the most incomprehensible phenomenon it could observe would be that the planet’s apparently wise and competent dominant beings are totally ignorant of the life-support system they are destined to live within. They are, furthermore, unaware that their uncontrolled reproductive capacity has grown to the extent that it is rapidly destroying this system, while they fight among themselves to preserve their freedom to do so.”

Tenzin Gyatso – 14th Dalai Lama b1935

“One of the great challenges today is the population explosion. Unless we are able to tackle this issue effectively we will be confronted with the problem of the natural resources being inadequate for all the human beings on this Earth.”
“The growth in population is very much bound up with poverty, and in turn poverty plunders the Earth. When human groups are dying of hunger, they eat everything: grass, insects, everything. They cut down the trees, they leave the land dry and bare. All other concerns vanish. That’s why in the next 30 years the problems we call ‘environmental’ will be the hardest that humanity has to face.”

Adrian Hayes – polar explorer & adventurer b1959

“I’ve seen melting ice caps with my own eyes and got very wet in the process, but it is pointless campaigning against climate change or to ‘save the Arctic’ without addressing the root cause behind it and virtually every other environmental issue we face: our unsustainable numbers on this planet. That is the real ‘inconvenient truth’.”

Stephen Emmott – scientist b1960

“…the worst thing we can continue to do globally is have children at the current rate…Only an idiot would deny that there is a limit to how many people our Earth can support…I think we’ve already gone past it — well past it.”

Kofi Annan – UN Secretary-General b1938

“The idea that population growth guarantees a better life — financially or otherwise — is a myth that only those who sell nappies, prams and the like have any right to believe.”

 

[Burnt State]

These are our relatives, our family, and we are destroying them so more of our species can have its place under the sun. We dont need to do this.

The loss of even a single species so that a planet already overburdened with humanity, can have more of the same. It's obscene.

The planet can support the needs of every single species here today, but it cannot support the greed of humanity, not indefinately

Normally I'm not one to bold posts but I feel strongly that we need to all pause on the wisdom espoused here. This needs to be broadcast large in neon lettering (energized by solar power or willing fireflies. )

I really admire this idea that other species are related to us, that we are family, for have we not sprung from the same evolving life source? We are equal; we are all necessary collaborators building paths in the forest together, passively. Our oblivious, indifferent snuffing out of other life frms, even just one, is truly an obscene act.

There are these lines from my favourite poet, Anne Michaels, "The dead leave us starving wth mouths full of love." and then elsewhere she explains how generous is the earth, that no matter how many humans are born, there is room enough in her - the planet has space to cradle all of us in our death. And yet how do we treat planet earth?