Whatever your feelings about the anthropomorphic basis for global warming, or lack thereof, that's just nonsensical. To (some) environmentalists, "Business" is the enemy because it is affecting "Nature." In the absence of increasing levels of greenhouse gases, those bogs stay frozen. Release of methane, from Siberian bogs and undersea traps in the Arctic, has always been part of the global warming doomsday scenario. Now it's being proved accurate, and it's the environmentalists who must come to grips with it?

Environmentalists have never "come to grips" with the fact that their belief that some vague yesterday Nature achieved perfection and that any change since is humanity's fault, is just downright wrong. Nature is dynamic, with a wide range of possible states and we've seen only a tiny fraction of them.

For example, the whole "climate change/global warming" is premised on the unsupported belief that the world's temperature last century is some sort of ideal, and we must expend heroic efforts to maintian it everywhere. The notion that maybe, just maybe, the temperature changes we are seeing is a natural process, as the previous comment demonstrates, is just unimaginable to those who claim to be "in tune" with, and speak for, Nature. North America was once covered in ice, and it will be again someday, and human activity has nothing to do with it.

These are the same people, by the way, who have no problem with Darwinism, but somehow believe that all present day species must be preserved, no matter what the cost, as if some sort of evolutionary perfect state has been achieved.

"Nature is dynamic, with a wide range of possible states and we've seen only a tiny fraction of them."

Certainly. But the question is, among those other states, are there any that we'd rather not have to live in?

"...the unsupported belief that the world's temperature last century is some sort of ideal, and we must expend heroic efforts to maintian it everywhere."

It is ideal in the sense that modern civilization has evolved in that context. If global climate changes drastically in the next century, whether due to human influence or not, the adjustments that will need to be made could be wrenching.

"North America was once covered in ice, and it will be again someday, and human activity has nothing to do with it."

Personally, I am a skeptic of blanket pronouncements as to the cause of the current trend of global warming. But to believe the opposite - that human activity has nothing to do with it - is ludicrous. If we painted all the rooftops in New York City white, we'd decrease Summer temperatures there by 5-10 degrees. Anyone who thinks that less dramatic, but still significant, effects aren't possible when "human activity" at one scale or another spans the globe, is being foolish.

"...somehow believe that all present day species must be preserved, no matter what the cost, as if some sort of evolutionary perfect state has been achieved."

I'm not sure that this is the philosophical bedrock of preservationism, nor does it need to be. When the last elephant dies, perfect or not, have we not lost something that we'd rather have kept?

M.:

You prove the point.

I don't think the article absolved industry of damaging the environment. Just thought I'd point that out.

JP

"are there any that we'd rather not have to live in?"
So why is the assumption that warming is bad? Other than that it will further Canadian Imperial ambitions to dominate the world's ice supply.

" If we painted all the rooftops in New York City white"

I don't have the time nor the inclincation to attempt to reverse the ignorance displayed in giving this as example of human environmental engineering. No wonder people belive in "anthropocentric climate change". Let's just say that you really need to get out of cities like New York more often to understand just how small and insignificant they really are.

"It is ideal in the sense that modern civilization has evolved in that context."

No, its considered by Environmenalists to be ideal, because they have no understanding of dynamic systems, and don't care to learn. Read what they write, and in it you'll see Nature is the ultimate in Static Creation. All they know is what they experience first-hand, coupled with the assumption that any human activity is automatically making things worse. It's their total lack of understanding that this planet still has a few billion years left in it, and things aren't suddenly going to stop changing just because humans founded the Sierra Club and Greenpeace.

"When the last elephant dies"

Of course the last elephant is going to die. What's the factoid Darwinist like to use, that 99% of all species are extinct, or something like that? What makes elephants so special that they must be preserved, especially if you believe in Evolution? Something will come along to replace the elephant, just as things came along to replace all the species killed off in all the extinctions this planet has had in the last few billion years.

I still half-jokingly believe the real reason the dinosaurs died was because one species developed enough intellegence and hunted the rest to oblivion. Even a few thousand years of dino-civilization on the order of the Aztec or Inca can easily get lost in a fossil record lasting hundreds of millions of years. If it turns out we really are changing the planet, then a few million years from now things will have adjusted and adapted and Nature will be just a varied and thriving as it is now, just as it was 65 million years ago. It'll just be different.

" So why is the assumption that warming is bad?"

Because depending where you live, it could be. And because the impact of relatively rapid climate change on the subset of flora that we subsist on isn't known.

"Let's just say that you really need to get out of cities like New York more often to understand just how small and insignificant they really are."

I don't live in a city like New York. I don't live in a city at all. The point was not that what we can do to New York, we can do to the world. The point was maybe it's worth considering that 6 billion people might have an impact on the planet at least a fraction of that which 20 million people have on New York. Hell, you refute your own argument against "foolishness" yourself, when you note our ability to wipe the planet clean of whatever animal species we wish. On this very site we've been treated to favorable mentions of recent studies suggesting that the Great Plains are an inadvertent creation of the Native Americans. Human activity creates and enlarges deserts, dries up large bodies of water, and creates no small amount of high-altitude cloud cover (as the flight stoppages immediately post-9/11 demonstrated). What's the obstacle, at least in principle, to anthropogenic climate change, after all of that?

"...this planet still has a few billion years left in it, and things aren't suddenly going to stop changing just because humans founded the Sierra Club and Greenpeace."

Which again evades the central issue, which is what impact those changes will have on the one species we really care about.

"What makes elephants so special that they must be preserved, especially if you believe in Evolution?"

I can't answer that question. But at least the environmentalists are trying. And a "belief" in evolution is ancillary to an aesthetic appreciation of the flora and fauna we are presented with now.

If one rejected evolution in favor of a literal interpretation of Genesis, insofar as such an interpretation is possible, we would still be presented with our role as stewards of the Earth. Some stewards, to decide that 90% of the species with which God graced the Earth were simply in our way and had to be eradicated.

One doesn't have to "hate humans" to wonder if maybe something better couldn't have been arranged.

"Something will come along to replace the elephant,"

Something already has: us. Large fauna are incompatible with a global human presence; thus, the last elephant will die. And that's the extent of diversity that we have to look forward to, not your mythical rebound: humans and the selection of species that can live with them.

M - is man better adaptable to global warming or global cooling and why?

Because according to some Russian scientists - we're in global cooling.

And, in the face of retreating ice caps and glaciers, warming oceans and continued desertification, you believe them? Or it's just more convenient that way?

M,
check out the web site
http://iceagenow.com
And read the book Not By Fire But By Ice by Robert Felix. He has an interesting argument for ocean warming due to volcanic activity and how this will usher in the New Ice Age. He also denumks some of the hysteria around shrinking glaciers and and ice caps.

OK, checked it out. The man's a complete quack. He gets a lot of very basic science wrong, and his knowledge of climate is negligible. Referring to this guy on the topic of climate change is akin to referring to Erich von Daniken on the history of space flight.

M.:

Is this intentional self-caricature, or unwitting?

What???? Van Daniken isn't a real prophet! What a bummer.