A rational. scientifically based, collective society could make the necessary changes to avert disaster. A profit based, competitive and nationalistic system cannot.

"...because we can't be that stupid."

Oh, please. Has McCarthy been aware of the activities of the United States Government the past six years? Not just the blatant distortions of science, and the utterly amazing denials that anything is wrong, but also the Bush administration's program to plant its clones in every department of government - executive and judicial - so that we will be stuck with these morons for years and years to come?

Also on the highway to extinction: population overshoot. And when taking into account the increasing food, water, air quality (apart from climate), prescription drug and disease problems, along with the insidiousness of current economic, political and military policies, it should be fairly evident where the human race is headed, who is taking us there, and why. With decades and decades of ego-based short-term self-aggrandizing priorities, we definitely have been that stupid, that anesthetized.

I just find it incomprehensible that so many folks are oblivious to how we got to this place, and how history will account for this time period. Prior history does reveal though, as like the acclaimed American Spirit, how folks can rise to the occasion. We have more than we need - we just don't have the future vision and collective moral conviction to care enough to do what we know is right (as opposed to self-serving and self-satisfying).

There has to be a changing of the guard, because the current guard cares only about protecting palaces. Expecting those that got us little people into this situation to care about any of this is really that stupid.

Oh, you are wrong about that Mr. McCarthy, Jaded Prole is right.

"The worst stuff is not going to happen because we can't be that stupid"

I hate to say it, but the minute I read that I knew we were doomed. Science has to believe and factor in human stupidity, in fact, its the only factor of our collective existence that we can rely on.

And Jaded Prole is right.

"The worst stuff is not going to happen because we can't be that stupid."

No, humans would never launch all or nothing resource wars as Earth starts running low on essentials. And said wars would never involve nukes. Nah, not us, we're too smart.

Just in case, "Mad Max" is available on DVD.

"60 Minutes" pointed out this evening that with rising temperatures, the glaciers that provide water to much of the world (including the glaciers in the Himalayas which provide water to many of Asia's river basins such as the Mekong and Yangtze) will melt away completely, cutting off that water supply. The process has already begun.

It's all over. The denial is so insane. The damage has already been done.
idiots rule

Here's what I posted on my blog greenprudence.com a couple days ago:

It's the End of the World As We Know It

Global warming is not only in progress, it is now unavoidable. There is no turning back. There is no way to prevent the continual heating of our planet before it reaches equilibrium, before Earth is a much different world from the one we know. When Earth reaches equilibrium, sea level will be much higher, climate zones will have radically changed, land that is now home to many millions of people will no longer be habitable.

That is the gist of Elizabeth Kolbert's presentation last night here in Albany. But she emphasizes that there is still hope for human civilization. We can continue on our current path of resigning ourselves to a catastrophic fate, maybe hoping for divine intervention. Or we can commit ourselves to the radical changes that are absolutely essential to make global warming manageable.

Numbers aren't as important as trends. You can find countless numbers relating to global warming, numbers that people will eternally argue over, revise, hypothesize, predict, prove, disprove. But the trends are irrefutable evidence of what is now taking place and what will happen in the future. You can easily find the evidence from many sources, including Elizabeth Kolbert's book Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change. Since she wrote the book, Elizabeth says that many of the estimates regarding time and degree of global climate change have been shown to be conservative. Change is happening much more quickly than originally anticipated by the leading experts.

So it comes down to determining just how radically we need to alter our lifestyles and how to accomplish the task. Elizabeth thinks that Americans (by far the largest producers of greenhouse gases) need to reduce their impact by a whopping 80%. That seems almost impossible to accomplish given the current attitude of nearly all Americans. Certainly there is much greater awareness and commitment to doing something, but how will it be possible to get so many people to do so much, and soon?

We not only need to convince individuals to change their ways... that will not by itself prevent catastrophe. We need to institutionalize radical change. We need an entirely new framework of energy use. We need to abandon fossil fuels as quickly as possible. We need a huge investment in technology (if only we had the money that was sunk into the destruction of Iraq). We need bold planning for larger, denser cities well above sea level. We need investment in infrastructure that doesn't rely on the internal combustion engine. We need local food everywhere. We need new ideas.

There is so much that needs to be done and can be done if we are willing to avoid catastrophe. I'll do what I can as a regional planner but I can't do it alone. Who's with me?

~Kurt

That last post should have read greenprudence.blogspot.com

Some very good comments above. There's a great deal of denial of what we're doing to the planet. We're already well along the path to extinction. In fact, scientists are calling the current period the "sixth extinction," the fifth having been that which wiped out the dinosaurs.

Population growth and the push for endless economic growth are both huge contributors to the problem, but neither gets nearly the press is deserves because each is a truth from which we are distracted by the powers that be. I try to encourage discussion of these issues at Growth is Madness!, and hope the global conversation on these topics will spread.

The salient question is: Are humans smarter than yeast?

Kurt has some ideas with real thought behind them, but I fear too many are not yet ready. It's too bad that the northern areas aren't more threatened. This is where the changes need to happen.

I think the phrase because "humans arent that stupid" and the idea of profit margin ruled thinking have already been well covered.

What hasn't been covered is the knowledge that each and every one of us is already on a government document to be opened on the knowledge impending factors imminant. They, our government are well aware of the percentage of life to be lost if the scenario is to be played out as it has been countless times on military computers.
The government knows how little effect national, and for that matter international aid services, hospitals etc will be able to cope with a "natural disaster". Who is for saving and whose not for saving.
Whilst I am still ever hopefull that the "monkeys" will not destroy civilisation as we know it, but human kind will step up to the mark and be more thoughtful and caring about the future generations. I for one wouldn't want to be part of a country that would be populated mainly by thieves, liars and terrorists that are going to be left after the flood!
Hope still has my vote
Ho WalkingBear

The epitaph of the 21st c. will read, "Too little, too late." By the time the kool-aid drinkers come to their senses and stop holding on to their investment portfolio wet dreams, the fires of man-made global warming will have already ignited the deadlier positive feedback loops that nature has built in to the system. White ice melting into black water, acidification of the oceans, mass-algae death near poles due to ozone depletion, increased forest fires worldwide, and methane escaping from melting bogs in Siberia and the northern reaches of North America are already beginning to show Mother Nature's ultimate power over puny homo sapiens. Geoengineering is our last hope, but it's like living on borrowed time. If there is the smallest miscalculation or malfunction, it's curtains for the vast majority of species and the vast majority of humans.

"The worst stuff is not going to happen because we can't be that stupid,"

By and large, no, we aren't that stupid ... ignorance, YES!

The quest for monetary wealth is at the bottom of this.

The frog is boiling, folks.

"Bye bye human race, you blew it".
I posted this a week ago and is worth repeating....

The reality is... even if carbon emissions theoretically remained at 2007 levels, by 2050 global temp would increase by 2-3 degrees centigrade. That's Centigrade not Fahrenheit.

Global warming is currently a run away train. It's just now a question of what version of HELL on earth do you fancy.

Global warming /Climate change is happening MUCH faster than any administration or bureaucratic official even understands or knows or is unwittingly in DENIAL ABOUT!!!!
Bush and Cheney et al are dinosaurs, stuck in the last century. Trouble is they taking the whole planet with them...
i.e. DOWN THE TOILET!!!

Just at a time when American Administration could be taking a WORLD Leadership role to reign in real culprits like China and India; Bush et al are STUPIDLY mesmerized by their own bullshit fighting ISLAMO FASCISTS…a term which defies any historical or academic basis or fact….