Bravo! Thank you Mr. Romm, for a much-needed clear-cutting of the usual cant.

After a few decades of "environmentalism", it should be crystal clear that very few of us actually love "the environment". Most of us can tolerate the environment only for a few hours at a time, on those days that meet a narrow range of conditions that we consider "nice weather". Otherwise, we go to great lengths to avoid actual contact with the environment we claim to love -- we crank up the heat or the air conditioning inside our homes and offices, and try to stay inside in a sealed metal box whenever we have to travel through the nasty environment to get from one cocoon to another. We might, however, watch beautiful pictures of the environment, somewhere else, on TV or in books. We might even plan an exciting trip, for some carefully limited contact with the environment in some "nice" part of the world.

Somehow I think "Triage Day" sends the wrong message. If people are willing to do so little now, how much less will they do if they are told "you might as well give up, the Earth is beyond hope. Just dig a deep hole and try to save yourself, there's nothing much else you can do".

Not exactly inspiring, is it?

Even if we can't save everything, we have to at least aim to do so.... partial success on an ambitious goal is much more success than partial success on a much smaller goal.

The sentence "But if we warm significantly more than 2°C from pre-industrial levels -- and especially if we warm more than 3°C, as would be all but inevitable if we keep on our current emissions path for another decade or so -- then most of the environment that human civilization developed will be lost, probably for hundreds of years."

should end

"... then the environment and climate that made modern human civilization possible will be ruined, probably for hundreds of years."

This about sums up what humans are to this planet - pests.

And we aren't "natural" pests the way cockroaches, certain cactii, and plankton are. We are the ones who need to change to adapt to this environment, not try to change it to adapt to us.

The natural "pests" have evolved pretty successfully. They breed and die off naturally and are replaced by sometimes different varieties that are stronger and more capable of surviving and thriving in different circumstances.

We don't do this. We just keep procreating, expecting that science and technology will keep up with our unnatural needs and desires. Meanwhile we aren't forced to adapt in any serious way to environmental changes.

The Southwest is a perfect example. Instead of cutting back our population, or our use of Kentucky bluegrass, or our use of the limited water supply, we keep expanding ever further into the desert, onto once-fertile farmland. The Southwest's water shortages are not primarily a result of melting glaciers. They are caused by over-use of limited aquifers and by drying up water basins (Arkansas River Basin, for example) and selling that water to ever-growing suburbs and exurbs, rather than adapting ourselves to this.

So, I say let's call it Human Pests Day. Maybe then we would get the message.

International Year of Planet Earth is in progress right now. UNESCO and the International Union of Geological Sciences are behind that.

But Earth Day is still useful--litter pickups, children's parades. Some things are simple enough for children to understand, but the grownups need to start raising their game. The grownups need Earth Life, and we need to teach today's children to be tomorrow's engineers and scientists.

"The reason that many environmentalists fight to save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or the polar bears is not because they are sure that losing those things would cause the universe to become unhinged, but because they realize that humanity isn't smart enough to know which things are linchpins for the entire ecosystem and which are not."

Which is why general concern for the state of these interconnected systems isn't a bad idea per se.

Of course, the earth will be around for a longass time. We might not, though, so it's true that "save the earth" is hyperbolic and perhaps even cringe-inducing when we actually mean "preserve conditions suitable for human life."

And about these environmentalists: there are many caring people in the world with Disney-fied notions of nature who want to blot out suffering in the natural world in a way that just isn't feasible. Michael Crichton even has an essay on his site about environmentalism as religion, and I think he makes many good points.

But I think environmentalists get a bad rap (though some tend to have an ardor and idealism that don't make them relaxing to be around). I think the right wing has a lot to do with it: Limbaugh paints a good caricature.

I also think it's because they play the role of the nagging mother, and who wants that?

But what it we need to be nagged? I mean, a lot this stuff our culture does is absurd on its face and we know it, but we all collude to create this notion that it's fine—that there will never be any consequences for our actions, that the Enviros are just a bunch of loony alarmists—so we can go on not taking it too seriously.

Henry Miller wrote Enemy of the People, which is a good play about this phenomenon.

A great many enviromentalists are knowledgeable about science, too, and aren't trying to save the fictional Bambi.

They do tend to think differently, though. Studying the natural world and human body make clear that things being connected isn't just a feel-good metaphor but a practical reality. Holistic thinking, like preventing disease instead of treating symptoms, is based on both pragmatism and philosophy.

I am for feeling good, don't get me wrong. And, if looking at the world we come from and depend on for life happens to instill in you a sense wonder, awe, or connection, I'm all for that, too.

Scientific studies have shown that human animal is mentally healthier when it gets regular exposure to grass, trees, birds, etc.

Plenty of good spiritual/philosophical systems are rooted in knowledge of/reverence for the natural world. Lao Tzu reminding us that, over time, the soft water will overcome the hard shore and so on.

As this article ably makes clear, though, whether we share exactly overlapping motivations, there are a great many practical reasons to pay attention to "the environment":

1) environmental issues affecting human health have a disproportionate effect on the poor (dirty air and water can mean asthma, emphysema, birth defects, hormone problems, etc.) You think that lead paint on your baby's toy is bad, what sort of conditions do you imagine for the Chinese workers who made them?

2) we live in "the environment," and also drink the water and breathe the air and eat the food (pesticides, antibiotics, mercury, etc., etc.)

3) climate change could lead to global turmoil as droughts, fires, freak storms wipe out crops, as sea levels force shifts in boundaries, etc.

4) this is the exquisite corpse part ________________