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I am very surprised by the increasingly apocalyptic strain of environmentalists posting on salon. It runs the gamut from saying the Earth is dangerously overpopulated (where's the evidence), global warming will be the end of the world, to having a child is the worst thing you could do for the planet. There was a time in the Earth's history, some 55 million years ago, when temperatures in the Arctic ocean were in the mid-70s F. This was most certainly not caused by human activity since there were no humans on planet Earth then. The dinosaurs lived on this planet for about 135 millions years, 67 times longer than homo-sapiens has existed as a species on this planet. The only reason the dinosaurs aren't around today, is because a 6 mile wide asteroid landed off the coast of Mexico 65 Million years ago, sending a cloud of vaporized rock around the world, killing of the dinosaurs, and allowing mammals to become the dominant species. I am sure there are some of you who would be glad at the thought of an asteroid wiping out the planet, because then evil humanity wouldn't be around to wreak environmental disaster to the environment. So in the face of all of this, you're telling me that a few extra tonnes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a couple of degrees of atmospheric warming, will be the end of all life as we know it, and the only way to mitigate that disaster is to commit collective sepuku. I wonder, do you think a lion feels remorse when he kills a zebra, or that if you tell a grizzly bear how much you love the environment he won't tear your head off. Of course not, why, because that's nature, that's the environment. It is not some idealized forest where ancient elves dwell and birds sing happy songs. It's asteroids wiping out species, animals eating each other, young people dying in the woods for stupid reasons, and one species coming to dominate his environment, namely us. I have yet to be convinced that even if the worst nightmares of the environmental movement came true, that it would be the end of the world. Ironically, if all this gloom and doom did come about, there is one species that would most certainly survive, albeit in smaller numbers: humanity. If some super virus concocted by a mad scientist wiped out 90% of humans, it would still leave 600 million people, a far larger number than the small band of humans who left Africa all those millennia ago. So why all this sky is falling bullshit. So if you want to do something for the environment: walk more. Go ahead and have kids, even get on a plane once in while, in the long run we're all dead anyway.
