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[ladyelaine]

The topic today was "Global Warming as a Religious Crisis." The last article was Global warming is the new religion of First World urban elites. The class quickly proceeded to prove Mr. Pilmer correct, without even realizing it

Comments

[cinnabari]

While I agree that we should be careful before we launch into fixing things--and introducing non-native species to clean up other non-native species is fucking stupid, as a general rule--the whole climate change argument is on a different scale.

Yes, the climate will balance itself. And yes, we're going to suffer and learn to adapt (or we'll die). But I think it's bloody imperative that we try and amend our behavior in the interim. So we agree on that. But I think it's hella more useful to work for attitude and behavioral changes than to sit back and say "yeah, nature's gonna do what she's gonna do." I realize you're not saying do nothing, nor are you saying let's continue on this stupid merry path, but the argument you've espoused is used by the people who think that's exactly what we should be doing.

I'm not saying sink carbon into the ocean floor. I'm saying take public transportation. Live green. Recycle. That's changing the environment, too. It's a matter of scale, and if people would pay attention to the climate models, it's kinda clear that little things add up to big things. So let's do little things.

[ladyelaine]

But that's the thing. "Living green" involves changing an entire culture, which is a massive affair; but even if we magically converted to an insant planetary "green" culture, there would still be massive effects from our history. That's what I'm trying to express (and failing miserably) when I said that nature's going to do what it's going to do.

I'm scared about what the climate and environment is going to do, how it's going to affect the world and my descendents. But I also have this weird, totally illogical trust that nature "knows what it's doing" (in a totally non-anthropomorphic metaphorical way) and that things will sort out. Eventually. After the human race (and a jillion other species) have the shit kicked out of them.