Paul B. Farrell: Forget going green -- Earth doesn't care

[marmar]

Forget going green -- Earth doesn't care
Commentary: Hybrids, recycling, solar won't halt species extinction

By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch


ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Cover story: "The Earth Doesn't Care If You Drive a Hybrid!" Or recycle. Or eat organic food. Or live in a green house powered by solar energy. Or squander commodities. The Earth just doesn't care how much you waste.

Was that a cover story in Mother Earth News? Or The Onion? No folks, it was the cover story in the elite American Scholar Journal by Nobel physicist Robert B. Laughlin of Stanford University. I bring it to your attention because in today's resurgence of Know-Nothing party politics few care what scholars say about anything.

But you better care. Laughlin pinpoints the key reason a global crisis is coming soon: What he says has everything to do with America's global warming policies, our deficits, hot commodities, investment strategies and how to live in an age of increasing warfare.

The Scholar's editor hammers home Laughlin's warning that "humans have already triggered the sixth great period of species extinction in Earth's history." The what? Yes, we are in an age of species extinction. And it's happening fast. The last extinction was 65 million years ago, at the end of the 250 million year Mesozoic era. But this one is very different. Ask yourself: Will the human species be the new dinosaurs, which vanished long before we arrived?

Your brain needs to shift into a new mindset to think like Laughlin, a physicist who thinks in geologic time, in hundreds of millions of years, about a planet that's been around over five billion years. Yes, geologic time is very long. But get this: The end may catch us by surprise. A sudden accelerating geologic quickie, like the asteroids that wiped out the dinosaurs. Or like the Earth's beginning, a sudden Big Bang. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/forget-going-green-earth-doesnt-care-2010-09-07

[ejpoeta]

1. sure the earth will go on when we are gone. the earth may not care if we protect the environment,

but our ability to live here depends on our doing these things. because if we don't we will waste our way into extinction and take a bunch of animals along with us. sure the earth will survive. it is our survival we need to worry about.

[XemaSab]

2. Here's the meat of the article:

So what's Earth now telling its old friend, Nobel physicist Laughlin? Earth is exposing the real problem that's forcing us into the sixth species extinction, the elimination of toxic species threatening Earth's survival: The "real problem is human population pressure generally -- overharvesting, habitat destruction, pesticide abuse, species invasion and so forth."

[greenman3610]

3. this feeds into a toxic meme

Which I hear often, where people go immediately from climate denial to despair -
game over man. If they can't have you firmly in the brain dead tea party
camp, this is where the fossil fuel companies would prefer that you to.
I suspect this message fits well for the audience of "Market watch".

Sorry, I reject this. I have kids. Will work to turn things around till
I go extinct myself.

[Uncle Joe]

9. I agree on all counts, greenman.

I also believe the author doesn't make the connection between the impact of an aggressive global ethos of green sustainability re: energy/environment and societal development on that of attitudes regarding population growth.

I do agree with him that population growth is critical but I don't view that issue as insurmountable.

I don't have any children, but I feel connnected to everyone elses' and will do the same.

[The_Commonist]

4. The "Earth" doesn't care...

...but all of the critters who live here certainly do!

[zipplewrath]

5. It's not "save the planet"

I've often said if I could go back to the beginning of the environmental movement, I'd give them a new slogan. It wouldn't be "save the planet", it'd be "save our own butts". The planet will be fine, WE might be in trouble though.

[glitch]

7. I've been saying that for decades. The only way to light the bulb in conservative eyes

is to make it very personal.

[eShirl]

6. meant to rec, accidentally unrec'ed

"humans have already triggered the sixth great period of species extinction in Earth's history."

[pscot]

8. The rats will miss us

when we're gone.