The more things change, the more they stay the same.......

I remember many years ago back in the 60's, there were VERY similar cries of doom and gloom about overpopulation and, in particular, air and water pollution. There even was a series of stories run in the local paper written by famous authors of the day about various scenarios for the end of mankind and civilization. Then there were the movies like Soyalent Green too. Funny, back in the 50's, there was a bunch of movies about nuclear weapons and such - Dr. Strangelove, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and all the mutant animal ones. Today, the issue is global warming. We have our Chicken Littles of the day along with our ostriches just like back then. And as back then, the truth is certainly somewhere in between. Pollution was a real problem. It was not as dire as it sounded but it was a problem. We had rivers in bad shape, we had our Love Canals, the smog in LA and plenty of other specifics. We've made changes, improved the situation, cleaned things up and changed our behaviours. Pollution is not a non-problem. We still have dead zones in the oceans, the air in Beijeng is news the world over, but we no longer ignore the subject. The same is happening now with the topic of global warming. Maybe we are causing it and maybe we aren't. Still, to be the good stewards of our Earth we are supposed to be, does it really matter if we are or aren't? Maybe what is more important is that we acknowledge that our actions could possibly have consequences on the environment and what matters is understanding our world better and living with it and not just in it. If we engage in activities that release CO2 into the air, what is the harm in trying to minimize that? To find better ways that release less? Just as with nuclear weapons, pollution and over-population, we learn that our actions have consequences and we must hold ourselves accountable for our actions. It may not mean the end of the world and civilization but neither does it mean we can ignore the issue either.

Well said. What is the harm in trying to reduce it? Can't people acknowledge the possibility exists? In the words of Kurt Vonnegut, "We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap."

Why I love the Internet

http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp

Looks like that UK judge should change the Untruth's Count to 10

its up to the kids

keep talking

from a diffrent planet

is gonna make a diffrence

n understood diffrence

nobody takes politicians seriously

its not a problem

nonsequiter even

demt

Dave, logic has nothing to do with the behaviour of the human race. It is our Cassandras, our Chicken Littles that produce overall change. Sad to say but we do need them. The human race is a cannonball in flight. Steering it is no simple matter. If you try to do that from behind, you will be totally frustrated. If you try to do that from the front, you will be dead. To steer a cannonball in flight, you have to continuously push from one side or the other and, of course, run like heck to keep up with it. We are equally enthralled by great leaders and great despots. Individually, we can think and reason. Collectively, we are driven by emotion. Our evolution as a civilization is a journey from emotion to reason. Auto safety would not be what it is without Ralph Nader's Unsafe at Any Speed. Silent Spring help galvanize the environmental movement. For Gore's An Inconvenient Truth to succeed as a lie, there has to be some kernal of truth on which it was based. It was when we started to understand the magnitude of MAD and how even a small exchange could result in a nuclear winter, then we as a race started to move towards disarmament. The value of our Cassandras and Chicken Littles is not in their message. It is in their getting the rest of us to consider the subject and to discover the real truth. That is when we as a lifeform start to act.