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Silence Is Deadly: I’m Speaking Out Against Canada-U.S. Tar Sands Pipeline
The U.S. Department of State seems likely to approve a huge pipeline, known as Keystone XL to carry tar sands oil (about 830,000 barrels per day) to Texas refineries unless sufficient objections are raised. The scientific community needs to get involved in this fray now. If this project gains approval, it will become exceedingly difficult to control the tar sands monster. The environmental impacts of tar sands development include: irreversible effects on biodiversity and the natural environment, reduced water quality, destruction of fragile pristine Boreal Forest and associated wetlands, aquatic and watershed mismanagement, habitat fragmentation, habitat loss, disruption to life cycles of endemic wildlife particularly bird and Caribou migration, fish deformities and negative impacts on the human health in downstream communities. Although there are multiple objections to tar sands development and the pipeline, including destruction of the environment in Canada, and the likelihood of spills along the pipeline’s pathway, such objections, by themselves, are very unlikely to stop the project.
An overwhelming objection is that exploitation of tar sands would make it implausible to stabilize climate and avoid disastrous global climate impacts. The tar sands are estimated (e.g., see IPCC Fourth Assessment Report) to contain at least 400 GtC (equivalent to about 200 ppm CO2). Easily available reserves of conventional oil and gas are enough to take atmospheric CO2 well above 400 ppm, which is unsafe for life on earth. However, if emissions from coal are phased out over the next few decades and if unconventional fossil fuels including tar sands are left in the ground, it is conceivable to stabilize earth’s climate.
Phase out of emissions from coal is itself an enormous challenge. However, if the tar sands are thrown into the mix, it is essentially game over. There is no practical way to capture the CO2 emitted while burning oil, which is used principally in vehicles.
Governments are acting as if they are oblivious to the fact that there is a limit on how much fossil fuel carbon we can put into the air. Fossil fuel carbon injected into the atmosphere will stay in surface reservoirs for millennia. We can extract a fraction of the excess CO2 via improved agricultural and forestry practices, but we cannot get back to a safe CO2 level if all coal is used without carbon capture or if unconventional fossil fuels, like tar sands are exploited.
A document describing the pipeline project is available here. Comments, due by 6 June, can be submitted here, or by e–mail to keystonexl@cardno.com or mail to Keystone XL EIS Project, P.O. Box 96503–98500, Washington, DC 20090–6503 or fax to 202–269–0098.
I am submitting a comment that the analysis is flawed and insufficient, failing to account for important information regarding human–made climate change that is now available. I note that prior government targets for limiting human–made global warming are now known to be inadequate. Specifically, the target to limit global warming to 2oC, rather than being a safe “guardrail,” is actually a recipe for global climate disasters. I will include drafts of the following papers that I recently co–authored:
Paleoclimate Implications for Human–Made Climate Change that can be found here,
Earth’s Energy Imbalance that can be found here, and
The Case for Young People and Nature that can be found here.
I will also comment that the tar sands pipeline project does not serve the national interest, because it will result in large adverse impacts, on the public and wildlife, by contributing substantially to climate change. These impacts must be evaluated before the project is considered further.
It is my impression and understanding that a large number of objections could have an effect and help achieve a more careful evaluation, possibly averting a huge mistake.
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55 Comments so far
Show AllThank you, Dr. Hansen, for all your efforts on behalf of LIFE, itself! The 21st century has brought with it a mental disorder akin to the Midas Touch. It has apparently left so many in power with an inability to appreciate anything other than gold (or in this case, profit, its symbolic equivalent).
George Lakoff has published evocative material on the power of framing. I would venture to point out that the word DEVELOPMENT provides cover for what's truly akin to massive waste and careless, ceaseless ecological destruction.
While some argue that human beings are only hard-wired to change when they face IMMEDIATE danger, there is something else at work. I'd define it as a lack of empathy, and due to its deficit, a great many fail to take into account the fact that all living systems are ultimately tied together, woven, strand by strand into the same complex web. When too many strands are torn asunder, the integrity of the whole is compromised. That's the status of the hour.
Dr. Hansen has been on the front lines seeking to convey this understanding. However, many Amerikans receive their "news" from the same media that gets its advertising dollars from those corporations intent upon the current decimation of the living world,. Therefore, the dots are never connected, and few understand how the vanishing rains to the Amazon (among many recent climate changes) impact things where they stand. So long as they can still sit in their AC-cooled living room and watch their favorite PROGRAMMING, they don't understand the threat already in motion.
I pray that enough people will wake up before it's too late for our species... there are prophecies that suggest those human beings who do survive will learn to live in caves. The surface world will otherwise present them with immediate extinction.
What a way to treat a planet as beautiful, amazing, and miraculous as the one we've been given. Because raw power has shaped so much of history and led to our own nation's primitive allegiance to the archetype of Mars, its unstated ethos is to prepare citizens for the make-war state. To satisfy this goal, empathy levels must be dramatically reduced. Ironically, it is precisely those empathy levels that are required for sentient beings to recognize the way all living systems influence one another for better or worse.
One hope is seen in efforts coming out of South America, and initiatives on the part of Evo Morales to see Earth Mother recognized as a living entity, a force to be considered on the so-called balance sheets that drive (and sometimes determine) global trade.
Hello Siouxrose!
100% !!!
Evo Morales & Pablo Solon, Bolivia;
Ecuador - both in South America
Rights for Mother Earth - YES.
"Should Trees Have Standing?" (Chris Stone) - YES.
Manysummits
=======
Thank you Dr. Hansen for speaking for the future of life itself on this fair and lovely Planet.
It seems the wealthy that are treating her like a fire sale about to go out business are putting their money not into fixing a thing, but rather into high tech cave dwelling.
http://chaospreppers.com/component/content/article/3-newsflash/177-from-underground-hqs-to-ghost-cities-capable-of-holding-millions-of-people-governments-are-preparing
(I posted the link last evening and it disappeared, so I have posted it a couple of times today.)
Hi siouxrose,,, Sue,,, you wrote,,, > (" there are prophecies that suggest those human beings who do survive will learn to live in caves.")...
Does that mean the only ones left will be the nuke, coal and oil shills?
Dear Sioux Rose. I must ask you if you mean the existence of homo sapiens only when you use the word LIFE. I hope not because as I have argued repeatedly, global warming and its attendant consequences will not, cannot end all life on Earth.
It sure can end (your) life and any offspring you may have _ Crowsnest_, along with the rest of almost all life, life down to the microbrial level... So what is your point? __ Never mind, we know what it is.
As so often, Dr Hansen has shown us the way.
I've entered my strongly-negative comment at the State Dept's site.
Way to go Jim - glad to see you here on Common Dreams!
I'm here in Calgary, and we are all too familiar with the Tar Sands. As in many areas, where decent paying livelihoods are to be had from what have turned out to be toxic industries, people are averse to leaving a highly paid oil job to flip burgers at McDonalds.
I like James Kunstler's take on things - "The Long Emergency", i.e., peak oil and its implications (non-fiction), and his series (fiction) on where we are headed, led off with "World Made by Hand".
I switched from the 'patch' (oil fields) to climbing, then to building with wood, as much with hand tools as possible.
Crazy? We'll see.
Manysummits
======
Missing from this web of life is evidence that those who peddle products and services that destroy our planet are held accountable so that similar actions are not repeated. Without this feedback of negative repercussions our system is out of balance, the path distorted and our way lost. We have all the information we need that our actions are destroying our planet, as Dr. Hansen and others, from Aldo Leopold to Rachel Carson to David Brower have made clear for over 70 years. This absence of consequences to prevent ecocide leads to "well informed futility syndrome" and an increase in self medication. Regardless of how this turns out, our generation will be vilified forever as having squandered the richness of this planet on flat screens and Hummers.
These protests and lobbies and boycotts DO work. Now I am under no illusions here and having lived in that area I know full well the destruction being wrought which has increased 10 fold since I left.
But due to all this pressure from other States and nations the Government of Alberta announced it was putting a vast swathe of the lands in that area under protection and forbidding development in the same.
They blinked. It not enough but if that pressure kept up they will blink again.
My comment objecting to pipeline project has been sent to State Department.
Does everyone who smokes die from lung cancer? It's a gamble that some people take with their health, and the tar sands are the cigarettes we are feeding to this beautiful planet. She looks sexy, no?
Writing from a Canadian's perspective, I see a Prime Minister who loves to play with the tough boys, and who is willing to do whatever it takes to be accepted by them, them being the Yanks, the Isrealites, the Euro-trash, etc.
Huntz -- I heard recently that the NAFTA agreement signed by Canada, Mexico and the U.S. forbids Canada from cancelling the tar sands project. Considering what it has done to Alberta's forestland the river running south through tribal lands (fish dying; water poisoned), wouldn't Canada have a good case for telling the U.S. to Go Home and take the agreement with them? If I were a judge, I'd certainly rule in Canada's favor in such a case.
Honestly bernice, what little I know about the laws governing the free trade agreement comes from what I hear on the radio. The soft wood lumber dispute between the two went on for years, and even after the courts sided with Canada, the Yanks still managed to convince 'Steve' the Prime Minister to accept less cash then was granted by settlement.
I suspect that Canadians still have a voice at the table, for how much longer depends less I'm afraid, on how the citizens of the Country feel.
I certainly do agree with Dr. Hanson on this issue, 100%. The comments posted here are excellent also.
Now I do not wish to sound like a (chicken little) or toss a wet blanket, but something seems to be wrong and I am confused about a few things.
First of all; I have supported Bill Mckibbon ever since he first began writing about atmospheric Co2 and started 350.org. __ 350 was the upper maximum safe linit. Was!
Okay, 350 ppm atmospheric co2 level has long passed 350 ppm,, it's history! Not a single person on this planet will ever see 350 ,,,or (390) ppm, they are history. The atmosheric Co2 level will be past 400 ppm within three more years or ess no matter what we humans do or don't do... I certainly do not mean we should then just forget the tar sand mess, I mean it won't matter if it is never allowed, the Co2 level will still keep soaring up and what do we do about that? __ Not much.
Global warming and atmosheric Co2 and Arctic ice thaws are happening about 50 times faster than any scientists ever dreamed. Just two years ago scientists were talking about the Arctic being ice free in a (100) more years. Hah! A hundred, how abot three more.
And I hate to harp on the subject as I don't get any response from hardly anyone about it but shills and trolls anyway, but within three to five years, most likely three, the methane in the Arctic will have released by (trillions of tons)!. __ I do not understand why that does not seem to bother anyone. That will cause Hell on Earth. That is no exaggeration.
That methane releasing alone is what is going to set off global warming like Hell would not allow it. That will most surely kick off the tipping point of no return for global warming and there will be (no return),,, no do-overs, no turning back. We will be screwed and not a single belessed thing we can do about it. None I am aware of anyway.
Hell, global warming and the results of climate change are already devistating and that disaster has just begun.
Dr. Hanson wrote,, > ("an overwhelming objection is that exploitation of tar sands would make it implausible to stabilize climate and avoid disastrous global climate impacts.... Easily available reserves of conventional oil and gas are enough to take atmospheric CO2 well above 400 ppm, which is unsafe for life on earth")... I agree, totally agree... But that is going to happen regardless within three years unless somethng drastic is done (now) to prevent more Arctic ice from melting away... Or am I wrong? __ Should I just shut the F up about it and go fishing? Does anyone else care?
"And I don't know what to do or say about it."
My reply to Wayne is also aimed at you, scribe. There's really no good tonic enabling one to deal with the coming reality. The nature of the planet will be grossly altered, but it will not end. Life is very resiliant and will rebound over the millenia as the continents continue to change their locations on their path to rejoining again. The Anthropocene will end in a crash, and perhaps Nature will decide that intelligence was a fatal mutation and disallow its occurance again. If I could, I'd erect a stele capable of lasting at least a billion years of tectonics in hopes it will be discovered and inform those who found it of our folly as humans, as I suspect Nature cannot outlaw the intelligence mutation from occurring again.
Well..... I think humanity is doomed because the Barbarians running the show don't give a damn, while the optimists remain hopeful that things can be turned around in an instant if only they can get the Barbarians to open their eyes.
I remain hopeful not because I believe the barbarians can be convinced (pathological needs are never satisfiable, by definition) but because I believe that *we* can depose them, take our power back, and make the needed changes in time to save ourselves. I would hope you will be among our number when the day to do that arrives--which I suspect will be sooner than we think.
Join the group to ensure the Ring gets properly dispossed of at Mt Doom--certainly. But lacking Magic, we will require a large, well-armed Host as deposing the Barbarians will generate carnage on a scale not seen for almost 100 years as they will certainly not relinquish power willingly. Indeed, the disposing of the Ring will prove to be a simple task compared with that of deposing of the planet's Barbarians.
It is tough, Wayne. I'm informed; I know the realities; I know the only effective "protest" would be to kill all the "First World's" politicians and business leaders--the Top Fascists/Psychopaths that would allow for the immediate cessation of fossil fuel utilization to become a real possibility instead of a fantasy; and I know as an individual I have zero chance of launching that protest; so, I fish and enjoy the remainder of my priceless life, while being as responsible as possible, like rendering my carbon footprint as small as possible. I feel that's unsatisfactory, but see no way to make the situation satisfactory. So I tend plants, animals and fish, while basking in the natural beauty of my locale on the central Oregon coast. Personally, I think we've already gone over the cliff's edge and are hurtling toward the abyss's bottom. That isn't saying I don't care; rather, I'm just resigned to our fate, which as I said is unsatisfactory.
Well scribe
I hope James Hanso is correct about reducing Co2 emissins by 6 % would bring the atmospheri Co2 level down to 350 ppm in a 100 years, but I do not see the possibility. We do not have a 100 years, even 20 years.
Here is why I am confused. At the current rate the Co2 level was rising during the past two years, we will see it at 400 ppm or higher by 2013. That rapid rise was during the past two years and now China is building coal fired plants by the dozens a year and we are not reducing the amount we burn.
And deforistation? Look what is now happening in Brazil, SE Asia and Africa, etc. Massive amounts of forests are dying in Canada and Russia too from drought and beetles. .
The primary thing is if humans stopped all Co2 emissins tomorrow, which of course is fantasy, the Arctic ice will continue to melt as fast as it currently is with the Co2 level already now in the atmosphere and the methane is going to burst out when the Arctic is near ice free. That is unarguable.
And you are spot on,,, things are happening 50+ times faster than any scienitst ever dreamed.. And Hillary Clinton could care less about it, she thinks it's wonderful in fact. Damn!
I suspect Dr. Hanson MAY fear sounding like a Chicken Little as that won't help either. I think we're screwed and the children don't deserve what we have done. It' s not fair.
scribe wrote:
The scary thing is how much we do not know about methane hydrates. I just read for the first time today that one of the things that could happen would be such a large shelf of methane hydrate deposits softening and slumping that a tsunami is triggered.
Also, the earth is just a big rubber ball, on the scale of ice sheets. It's squishy. There are serious concerns about earthquakes resulting from adjustments to the declining weight of the Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets. We're playing with tectonic plates, as it were. What an interesting experiment!
- - - - -
My Reply:
Interesting indeed!
Is there a link or other reference that you can provide where you read about the possibility of that the softening and slumping of a large shelf of methane hydrate deposits might trigger a tsunami?
Thanks.
There is a misunderstanding about CO2 and global warming. Once the concentration in the atmosphere is sufficiently large to delay every absorbable infrared photon from the atmosphere into space by a constant time the increase of CO2 concentration has no additional consequences. The flux of these infrared photons is primarily controlled by the amount of primary solar photons reaching Earth's surface which can only change if the average annual cloud cover diminishes.
Crowsnest,,,, That is total nonsense... It's the "Anthony Watts" lying style of crap.
What you posted there goes totally against the laws of physics. It also is totally in conflict with every science text book on the planet which has chapters dealing with Earth's atmophere and how potent greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect works.
Write new science text books Crowsnest and sell them. You wil be rich and famous,,, another Albert Einstein.
Hey scribe
I don't believe I will ever post a comment on a LIbya issue thread again.... LMAoff. I'd better stick to enviromental issues.
Btw, you said Dr. Hanson is keeping an eye on the Arctic methane time bomb and I don't doubt that, but there hasn't been a report on the current status of it since the ISSS report published in a 2010 March issue of Journal Science. That was the 2009 ISSS study.
If you have seen a link for a current Arctic methane report would you post it? It seems as if the 400 ISSS team scientists were raptured in March of 2010.
No apology necessary __scribe__ ,,, we were having a good debate and mis-understandings are common when debating via internet conversations. I appreciate your comments and your logical and reasonable concerns here at CD and your frequent posts of excellent technical information. You are an excellent teacher. .
Re: The climate change threat to nuclear power.
scribe,
Interesting article in New Scientist. Thanks for the link.
Article URL:www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028138.200-the-climate-change-threat-to-nuclear-power.html
..
Doctor Hansen:
Did Fukushima change your mind about nukes or are you still willing to risk the lives of future generations on nuclear power experiments?
However, thanks for the great article.
Dr Hansen, like Dr Lovelock and others, is fully aware of the relative size of the nukes vs coal/oil problem. They don't compare, EZ. They just don't. Whether you measure the yearly nameable death toll, the actuarial death estimate, or the prospective death toll, they are simply not comparable.
Nuclear reactors cannot end all life on Earth. Fossil-fuel combustion can.
You say, "Nuclear reactors cannot end all life on Earth. Fossil-fuel combustion can."
I agree with your second sentence,,, disagree with your first.
Geothermal energy would (not) end life on Earth, neither will solar energy plants. Even _ Mark Abrams_, a very pro nuker who often posts comments here has finally agreed that geothermal energy is viable and is quite capable of producing ALL of our energy needs for at least the next 50,000 years. Geo is 24/7,,365.
It's that simple to end the disasterous use of coal and nuclear poisons. Geothermal is far less costly than nuke too and with no deadly wasted to hide away for thousands of years.
Several of my friends who own property outside Houston in the countryside of Texas have considered to heat and cool their places with geothermal. When they learned the costs of the necessary drilling they gave up. Please demonstrate to me with hard numbers what the cost of providing Houston (ca. 1.5 million persons) with geothermal at today's drilling costs would be and compare that to the costs of nuclear and gas/coal.
~~Crowsnest~~ Is that a fact? You don't have to (drill) for geothermal to use geothermal for a house or one's personal home for heating and air conditioning. If geo is that deep in your area it would not be practical for a personal home use. But it probably isn't that deep in that area.
Most home use of geothermal is laying pipes a few feet underground and connecting to a heat pump. The savngs in electrical cost$ are more than 50%. Where electricity costs and use is high the $ savings are often near 80%.
You are slinging bull again. Also I was speaking of geothermal for huge amounts of electrical use,,, not heating a house.
For a geothermal (power plant) used for generating a large amount of kWh electricity, drilling deep is necessary and the cost is far less than building a nuclear power plant and no more than drilling an oil or gas well.
That's correct, for a home geothermal is not to develop electricity, it is used to heat and cool the house and drilling is not necessary. It is very cost effective and many new homes are now being built with geothermal heat and air conditiong. Read the article in the link I have posted below here.
You don' have to ("imagine it"), geothrmal use for heat and air conditioning is quite common, especially for new homes, rural areas and or farms.
For example a rural home in New Jersey has geothermal heat and A/C. Their average monthly electric bill is $90. Their next door neighbor has gas heat and electic for A/C, their average monthly gas and electric bill is $360.
That is our son's home without the geothermal. They are now having it put in.
A geothermal power plant is a totally different matter, it is designed to develop electricity for a large city and built by power companies.
Get this into your memory system: nothing can end ALL life on Earth until the Sun reaches its red giant stage. You are concerned with the end of homo sapiens which will come about by overpopulation/hunger/disease/nuclear war and not by fossil fuel combustion.
Crowsnest,,, you are absolutly wrong about that. Burning coal will end most life on the planet due to more than one thing. It's causing acidification of the oceans for one thing which is killing off perhaps the single most important life form on the planet, the green plant life phytoplankton, which supply us with most of our oxygen.
It is also causing the high atmospheric Co2 level and as that very serious problem advances it will cause the end of most life on Earth, life as we understand life.
Do, please, learn more about what's called the Microcosmos. The trillions of different bacteria will not come close to dying. Much Macrofauna is at risk, especially humans with their highly complex cultures that lack adaptability. But the planet will not become sterile and incapable of hosting life.
We think but do not know there's no life on Venus. And just what defines "moisture" as you term it? Water moisture? Aren't the various acids moist? "Liquid" hydrogen?
My understanding of what constitutes life allows for a very large realm of possibilities. If you know about the evolution of microfauna and microflora, then you will also know of the very great changes they made to Earth's atmosphere during their evolution. But I presume you made your comment because you assume life requires water to exist, while I don't assume water is an absolute requirement for life, just as oxygen isn't.
Tell ya what Karloff, I don't give a shit what kind of life is on Venus. I do give a shit about the children here on Earth who aren't guilty of the mess we have created for them. I get a bit tired of hearing "all life won't die". No shit! All life as we enjoy life will.
Sorry, Wayne; I wasn't trying to piss-ya-off. It's just that saying all life or the planet will die is hyperbole and detracts from the message. I view life as priceless and do not assume that only (some) humans feel that way. That the actions of the past 10-15 generations of humans threaten the future lives of untold future generations is abhorent to Civilized people like me and yourself. But Barbarians have control and wresting that control away from them in a timely enough manner isn't going to happen, IMO as I stated below in my other comment to you, because there are just too many of them and my heroic actions would be waved off as just another act of terrorism. So, it appears I've become what's known as a Doomer.
You didn't piss me off Karlof. Nothing I see on this computer screen ever pisses me off. I just get tired of hearing the (disrtracting comments) posted when I say "all life", I mean all life as we undertand life and that should be clear enough for any reasonable person to comprehend.
Yes, scribe, I'm very well versed on Lovelock's planetary life detecting hypothesis--that their detritus ought to be measurable. But, given the life history of micro-organisms, their early evolutionary stage has them living within their planet's dominant chemical structure and would thus be undetectable on a planet like Venus as opposed to Mars. Granted I haven't thought about the possibility of Venusian life for a long time, but even on earth we have organisms capable of living in extreme heat, at crushing atmospheric pressures, while being bathed in highly corrosive liquids and being highly successful. Venus has plenty of potential energy for an organism to reap; it's how the organism's constructed that would be well outside the box for any earth-bound organism. Clarke did well in "2010" with his outside the box description of Jovian and Europan lifeforms, and I think it very hubristic to believe that all life must be Earth-like, as it's quite possible we are the oddities. And Venus has proven humans are not capable as yet of constructing a machine with the ability to endure its environment for the time necessary to conduct a propper study.
I wholeheartedly concur with the sentiment you express in your last paragraph. As I see it, a requirement of living is learning as much as possible about life so as to judge how we are living and what might be done to improve our condition without killing ourselves off in the process. Older scientists like Catton and Lovelock provide inspiration as they continue to enquire despite knowing the deep trouble we're in. We have just our one life to live, and we can choose to fulfill it or waste it, even under the most oppressive of conditions. My study of different cultures taught me that people can be very happy and lead very satisfying lives sans the "Westerner's" trappings of comfort, which is to say that all of our material goods are immaterial to living life fully. Some of the most Civilized people I've seen/met are deemed savages becasue their material culture is deemed primitive/pathetic by people who reveal themselves as Barbarians for having such views. Comeuppance for Barbarians will occur soon as the less complex cultures that are still mostly functional are those having the best chance of survival when the effects of environmental overshoot become oppressive as they must given the lack of any attempt at mitigation.
I remember the Venera "coup"--it worked while the US effort failed dismally--and its pictures were in my mind's-eye as I typed. And I cannot dispute Hawking's observation, although I think such molecules have a chance underground or within the atmosphere. Carl Sagan's first wife, Lynn Margulis the microbiologist, has teamed with their son Dorian Sagan to write some very interesting books about life, most of which you'll find listed here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Margulis
Thanks for your participation in a very interesting thread!
Why? It's what is occurrin now with life as we enjoy life that I'm concerned about. The bacterial sized life I am cocerned about are the oceans phytoplankton, they supply most of our oxygen. And the bacterial life that are the beginning of the food chain on Earth.
What sensible point is there in bringing up the who really cares point that bacteria may live after we have killed most other life on Earth? Tell me.. No, don't tell me, because it donesn't matter to me.
Let's discuss methods or ways to prevent a catistrophic disaster instead of discussing what type of bacterial life (may) live theough it.
You, like many others on this subject, are apparently blissfully ignorant of the geologic record. There were record CO2 levels in the atmosphere hence in the oceans during most of the Cretaceous era, yet after it ended with a bang and 75 percent of all species became extinct Earth recovered and evolution produced an even greater species diversity than ever. The circumstances then may not be the same as today but that record cannot be simply ignored.
You have ignored my statement that not ALL life on Earth will end as claimed by several contributors. Apparently you agree with me when you write: "end of MOST of life on Earth...". If I am ABSOLUTELY wrong, then you are. Then, why do you waste your time writing a diatribe against something we both agree on? Just to write something?
I agree that homo sapiens is likely to be wiped out completely unless the dangerous heating trend is not stopped and reversed. I still maintain that the most likely end will be due to overpopulation, crop failures, water scarcity, hence wars and possibly nuclear wars. Is that a calamity? I think that it is not. Hopefully evolution will produce a more Earth-friendly set of species than we have today.
Eventually, the sun will end all life on our planet, something neither coal nor nuclear fueled power are even close to being capable of.
Personally I'm more concerned about what happens during the next five years than I am about five billion years into the future. I'll let the people here, if any, four billion years from now worry about the sun becoming a red giant in a billion years.
Many writers use the term "Life as we know it," which is the apt descriptor. This writer suggests HIV/AIDS aptly desribes our situation, http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-06-04/dear-stephen-king-open-letter-one-american-who-really-could-scare-rest-us-action
"Nuclear reactors cannot end all life on Earth."
Maybe we'll evolve into beetles, and other radiation tolerant insects. I accidentally tried to microwave some ants and they survived no problem.
Do I understand that you would accept this pipeline if it were constructed with more reliable pipes or are you really against oil from sands?
Yes indeed Miss,,, that is what I was saying to _ Crowsnest _ in support of you. I see you failed to understand that however... I will surely try to ignore you from here on Miss.... Cheerio. .