Frankly, the world as we know it is going away, soon.

[johnlucas]

258. No, I'm just arguing from your framework

10,000 years.
That's NOTHING compared to the entirety of Earth's existence as a planet.

Once again all you're talking about is Humanity's existence on this Earth which is microscopically small in comparison to Earth's existence.

Unprecedented? Compared to what?
The past 10,000 years. What about the 100,000 years before that?
That's 10 10,000s. How did Earth change within each of those 10,000 year spans?
The science is settled? Science never settles. There is ALWAYS more information to be found.
Science is slow. The answers it finds tend to lead to more questions.

I'm talking about Earth BEFORE human existence.
This is what I mean about Earth changing.
I'm not talking about the Earth since we've been here.
In terms of Earth's existence, that's a very small amount of time.
Very big amount of time by our standards but we're a bunch of hairless chattering apes who only live for a few decades.
Our life spans probably look vast to a mosquito or a moth fluttering around street lamps.
It's sort of like when you were a kid & thought that 35 was old.
Yeah to a young kid 35 probably does look old. Until that kid grows & reaches age 35 & then it doesn't seem that long.

We don't control this, muriel_volestrangler.
I get it. We're amazing for what we are.
This silly little tailless monkey learned how to shape tools so well that they can send little spacecrafts into outerspace & take pictures of planets & solar systems far beyond our reach. Our little ape hands created lenses that can see stars & galaxies so far out we can never get to them even with those picture-taking spacecrafts. We even landed on the moon itself!!
That is AMAZING!!!
We learned how to manipulate magnets & electricity to create computers & super computer networks to communicate on.
We can fly in the clouds in airplanes. We can swim in deep blue seas in submarines.
We got radio waves, Wi-Fi, & 4G!!!

We do a lot for such a meager species. Our toolmaking abilities are outstanding for our species.
But because we have done so many amazing things, we got a big head about it.
We think we can literally do ANYTHING.
And we CANNOT.
We inflate our importance so much (it's part of our programming after all) that we think we can turn the entire world on its axis.

What I'm telling you is that this Earth is MUCH BIGGER, MUCH STRONGER, MUCH TOUGHER than all of us put together X 1,000.
And it's a small planet!
We can only corral the effects of the planet for our benefit.
We can't stop the wind from blowing. We can't stop the sun from shining. We can't stop the tides from cresting.
We DO cause SHORT-TERM damage to HABITATS, sure.
But the Earth will easily rectify that...even if it means getting rid of us in the process.
Habitats are small on the Earth's surface. They are WITHIN Earth.
We do not hurt Earth. We hurt habitats ON Earth. And we got to minimize that because we come FROM habitats on Earth.

Global warming is out of our control. What WE need to do short-term is preserve the habitats we built our civilizations upon as best we can.
Long-term we have the find better ways of building civilizations so they won't be so fragile to Earth's inevitable changes.
That's as far as it goes.

Trees weren't always here. Forests weren't always here. These are part of habitats.
If all of them disappeared, the Earth would still be here.
And one day it will set conditions for trees & forests to return.
The only reason why we have to be in better balance with Earth is because we depend on those habitats for survival.

Stop ignoring science? You know how many times in the past when science was WRONG?
You're dealing with humankind. Humankind makes mistakes. Humankind comes to wrong conclusions.
Good doctors don't pretend to know everything. They always say they are PRACTICING medicine.
They got a pretty good feel on how to fix problems in the human body but even THEY don't fully understand it themselves.

Just like you gotta be cautious with what religious ministers say, you have to be cautious of what scientific ministers say.
This bullshit about BMI—the Body Mass Index. Normal weight. What the hell is "normal weight"?
The human design is diverse & doesn't always neatly fall into the pigeonholes of humankind's petty little systems.
We don't understand reality without creating symbols for it first. Then systems of symbols.
But sometimes we get lost in our symbols & systems.

In an earlier reply to another poster, I bring up the fact that I'm a musician who recognizes the inconsistency & irregularity of the systems in music theory—the theory of sounds.
I'm also an amateur linguist who has developed a phonetic system for understanding every language in the world.
The existing phonetic system has flaws & I found this out in high school as a teenager.
I wanted to learn Spanish & other languages that were in my school libraries but the phonetic symbols they used were confusing & not entirely correct. College-degreed scholars came up with this system but I as a mere high school student saw what was wrong with it.

I knew there were flaws as far back as 3rd grade when my English teacher taught me about the 'schwa' which is supposed to stand for "unstressed syllables".
But I noticed that the "uh" sound the schwa made was exactly the same "uh" sound as what they called the "Short U".
When I was 15 & started developing this phonetic system in frustration at not being able to make sense of the phonetic symbols in those foreign language dictionaries, I discovered that THERE WAS NO SUCH THING AS A SCHWA!!

Also all in school they taught us the vowels were A E I O U sometimes Y.
No, it was ALL the times Y. And guess what? It was ALL the times W too.
Guess what else? In American English it's ALL the times R too!!
And what else? It's also sometimes L.
What did I discover? I discovered that there weren't 5 vowels but 10 vowels! 5 sets of 2 paired twins.
Sort of like Superman & Bizarro or Spock & Spock with the evil goatee.
I also found Lip Shapes which add extra flavor to those 10 vowels.

I figured out that Y is just I in shorter succession.
I figured out that W is just U in shorter succession.
I figured out that American R is a blend of the flat versions of 2 vowels U & O. Emphasis on O.
I figured out that the L we pronounce when L is at the end of words like 'bell' 'spell' 'toll' 'call' is just a blend of 2 vowels O & U. Emphasis on O.

I found the sound that expresses how Bushmen speak with that click-clack noise they make with their tongue.
I know how to write what they call a Raspberry, the THHFFPPBBT sound where you stick out your tongue in your bottom lip & make spittle.
I even know that panting sounds are just mild versions of the cough. You know that 'T' in how Americans tend to say "coffeepot" as in "fill up the coffeepot". We're not pronouncing the 'T' sound at all like the T in 'touch' & 'taste'.
Explains why you can't say certain words when you're sick with the cold. You may bring up the coughing reflex.

But I would never have found this system if I didn't question the systems that came before me.
And even with the system I developed I look for it to be tested to see if I made any flaws.
As good as I believe my system to be there may be something I have missed.

And I say the system they basing this climate change paranoia about has flaws.
10,000 years? That's it? Didn't they tell us Earth is about 4.5 million years old.

All we can do is try to preserve our habitats a little better.
But ultimately we're just hand-wringing about climate change because it is NOT under our control.
Just like we don't control the Earth's orbit around the sun. Just like we can't control the inevitability of the sun's explosion.
Earth can refresh itself at will. The only thing is it might take out our habitats in the meantime to do it.
Our very existence affects our habitats. The best you can do is minimize the damage.
Even then you may not be able to last if Earth makes changes that render our habitats null & void.

We just don't live on a perfectly stable planet. That was always the illusion anyhow.
John Lucas

P.S.: You haven't thought about the little metal bits of junk in orbit around our planet that come off the satellites & probes we launch into space. Those same satellites that help you see broadcast TV, that help you get Wi-Fi & 4G.
A cloud of metal surrounding Earth. Won't hurt Earth but may eventually hurt our habitats.