Sunny said:
The earth naturally has an ebb and flow. I live in the middle of South Carolina, about 2 hours from the shore and yet where I live was once beechfront property. Fossils of shells and sand are common here.
I think it would be ignorant to believe that sea levels won't change again. I do believe that in the grand scheme of things, humans are not mighty enough to destroy the earth. She is much older and more resiliant than we are. The earth will heal herself of what we do. If (when) there is another ice age, our population will decrease but survive and then we will have another go at it. Hopefully next time we will take better care.
Bike to the beach, hop on your sail boat, bike to the mountains and run a river in a kayak (yes, you can tow one behind a bike). Both you and the earth will be in better shape!
As a systems engineer I believe humans are powerful enough these days to "trip the system", however I also believe that humans are too dumb or stupid to do anything about it.
Wouter
I agree with the latter half of what Sunny said and the first half of what Wouter said. The rest I take issue with.
There are many areas that we have already dramatically changed. Off the top of my head: the Colorado River no longer flows into the Gulf of California, changing the salinity of the upper gulf, 20% of the Amazon rainforest is gone, resulting in a massize release of carbon and a change in solar albedo and local weather patterns and simulations of proposed tidal power generating plants using portions of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia have shown tidal increases of 20% in Maine and changes in tides as far away as Boston. We can make significant local changes that we can see, measure and remedy if we chose.
Globally, our effects are not as easy to see, measure or remedy, but that does not mean that it can't be done. Saying that we are too stupid to fix it is as dangerous and fatalistic as anthropomorphizing or deifying a rock that happens to be our home, claiming immaterially that she can heal herself. We
have taken global action on the ozone depletion problem and while it will take decades for the CFCs to work through the system, we can expect to see improvements within our childrens' lifetimes. Global remedies for global problems that we caused can happen. Why can't we do the same for greenhouse gases? Is it because the likelihood of skin cancer is more frightening than a few inches of sea level rise and some nebulous, unknown tipping point?
No, we can't hurt the Earth as a planet, but we can hurt the Earth as a home and that is what we need to change.
