Gen X doesn't care about climate change...

Sure is good a UK judge absolved all humans from polluting and generally killing every aspect of the planet's biological functioning. I guess I can sell my Prius and buy an SUV and go cut down some ancient forest and build a strip mine, because clearly if a judge in UK is going to defend my rights to misinform people about my innocence while I destroy all life without any logic or limits, clearly I don't have a care in the world! Sure is great we solved that climate problem we thought we had!

 

I hate to spoil the great guilt trip you’re on, but you haven’t destroyed anything. I looked out my window this morning and saw all kinds of biological functioning going on, so what is it we supposedly killed? Don’t worry about the forest either, we can grow more, that’s what it means to be renewable. You can also strip mine if you want, but that seems a little harsh, we have invented much better techniques now days. Speaking of techniques and technology, that is what the Prius is all about, you can sell it and buy an SUV if you want to, but the point is we are using our science and technology to do things better, to pollute less and do more. You can sit and feel guilty if you want, but unless you were out clubbing baby harp seals this morning, you aren’t guilty of killing anything and the UK judge was right.

 

He's a Red Sox fan....the one in a PiP

 

I've spent my life learning of the biological functionings of every forests on the planet and human-induced extinctions are at an unprecedented level... A decline in moisture cycling and carbon uptake by green leaves is currently unprecedented... Land clearing of primary forests through the use of fire is out of control on every continent! Complex interactions with the green leaf and the atmosphere is being turned into a raging burning fire and no clueless person looking out a window and saying everything is fine is going to absolve us from that. Each and every one of us is responsible every time we make a purchase... And if you by a Prius you're more respectful than buying an SUV. But if you want to get paid / be brainwashed to lie to the world about humans not having any negative influence on the functioning of the planet, go right ahead... Myself and others will always point you out as the most disrespectful-clueless person in the chat room!

 

You may have missed some early science education, if you think ghg are the cause of all of this. Axes, chain saws, fire, cities, etc are responsible for most changes of land use and habitat loss. Pollution and habitat loss along with over hunting and fishing are at the heart of many extinctions. Man carrying invasive plants and animals also add to this. Although many factors have a human component, it is not the direct effect of burning fossil fuels. The death of the dinosaurs and giant sloths did not wait for the industrial revolution. Fires are essential to natural clearing of forests, but man prevents them and lives near the trees, creating the conditions for stronger more expensive fires.

This seems like quite a judgmental attitude for one that seems to have missed much of middle school science. That is unless you would like to add something to make this rant sound coherent. Buying a prius does not save the world, and people that drive SUVs are not evil because of them. Gay people do not cause huricanes. Global warming didn't create slash and burn agriculture.

 

Actually PHD science in forest ecology... And saying a Prius buyer is "more respectful" than an SUV buyer in no way implies saving the world. But I guess if you use the logic and reason of an 8 year-old maybe what you're saying is coherent? At least in a selfish, personal-denial temper-tantrum oriented way....

 

Your previous comment seemed quite abrasive and incoherent. Perhaps I can make my objection more clear. You seemed to be blaming everything on ghg. Can you then with your doctorate explain to me habitat loss, fires, and extinction loss before industrialization? Does that make my point any clearer? As I said a middle schooler should be able to understand that point of view, and with your doctorate, you should definitely understand it. If you don't ask some of your collegues, I'm sure they will be able to explain it to you.

My cousin has an SUV, that he uses. We had 8 people in it last weekend. He hauls building materials and people. I don't feel he is disrespectful in owning a vehicle that fits his needs. Do you? What in the world do you mean by more respectful. The prius uses a great deal of material. You could walk or bike. Are you disrespectful when you drive one. Don't judge unless you know circumstances. We all use energy that someone would call a waste.

No temper tantrum here. I think that poster was responding to exageration in your previous post. btw climate change may have something to do with fires, but forest management has much more to do with it. Building houses and factories in harms way is the chief cause of loss. Colorado has very pretty country, but there has always been risks to fires.

 

don't recall anything like aurora or columbine, but i'm sure you'll link me to something similar from the 50's or 60's.

 

same area as now, do you recall all these kids hiding in their rooms with drugs, guns explosives, blueprints for wmd's and what have you? okay, maybe the drugs.

 

There just wasn't as much news coverage of the violence. The two events from the 60s are Kennedy's assassination, and Charles Whitman shooting people with a rifle from the Texas tower. Unfortunately that last one hits close to home, since I went to grad school at the university of texas, and they have only recently reopened the tower.

Boston and Colorado may indeed be more violent than the 60s, but I'd like to forget what happened in texas.

 

You're the one talking about GHG, I'm talking about Forestry! And yes, the earth has experienced many changes over millions of years... But I'm focused on how some intelligent human cultures find ways to live that sustain biodiversity and increase abundance of wildlife and general ecologic fecundity.

Of course those cultures are being killed off in favor of a human culture of 'more money at all costs,' which is a mostly unintelligent culture that's based on not what you give back to the health of the land for future generations but on how much you can take from the land and how fast you can take it irregardless of long-term consequences to the people and creatures who need that precious piece of land to survive.

And yes I agree that land use, overfishing of the oceans, etc. is where we need to focus. The whole notion of GHG tends to make people think of the abstract of pictures of smokestacks belching out pollution as the primary focus rather than seeing the problem as the new condo they moved into that replaced a healthy carbon-absorbing oxygen producing forest that used to grow there. And then once you add up the long-term carbon footprint of that one condo, it's significant.

As for the forests of Colorado... If you could of seen the ancient Pine, Spruce and Fir that grew there 200 years ago you'd think you were living in the PNW rainforest... But when you live in a society that goes after the biggest most profitable trees first for 180 years, the forest fires of today tends to eliminate all the thrifty trees that aren't fire proof because for the most part that's all that's left. And areas that could of regrown in Colorado... well our culture's love of beef and sheep made sure those trees never got started.

In my lifetime I hope to see the earth re-green.... But land use and profitability of that land use has to change for that to happen.

 

You say you have a degree in forestry, yet you seem to be completely ignorant about it. I have aerial photos of my home area taken in the 1950s; there is hardly a tree in sight, now it is nothing but rolling forests for thousands of square miles. Ever been one a plane and looked down? I had the pleasure of taking a puddle jumper from Rochester, NY to Reagan International airport. I was able to watch the forests pass below me, occasionally dotted with farms, and a city or two here and there. We no longer do endless clear cutting of forests. My father owns 140 acres where I grew up, and has let loggers come in and pick specific trees they were looking for and remove them. Within a few days you couldn’t tell anyone had been there, its called selective logging. You know if we did more forest maintenance, and removed the dead trees and debris, maybe we wouldn’t have the huge fires like we have had in Colorado. We can plant and grow trees and renew this resource. As for extinction, animals have gone extinct since the beginning, its called natural selection. You say we have never had extinctions like we have now, well what do you call the asteroid event 65 million years ago? Are you suggesting we are worse than that event? The earth recovered from that by the way. I am not suggesting that we purposely drive animals to extinction, but as we gain greater understanding of our planet, we are learning how to be better stewards of the planet we live on. You guys act like humans are not part of the ecosystem. If you believe in natural selection and evolution than we must be part of the ecosystem and we have just as much right to survive as any other life form, perhaps more so as we are the only one that I know of that actually can contemplate our own existence. We are the only life form I know of that actually has compassion for species other than our own.

I would think that someone old enough to remember the pollution and apathy of the 70’s would be able to see and appreciate the steps we have made towards better practices and stewardship of the world we all share. Your blanket condemnation of others who do not think EXACTLY as you do is the biggest obstacle to your own cause. A person can believe in being responsible without having to revert to the stone ages. A conversation only begins when both sides are willing to converse without condemnation.

 

I swear, you can't seem to demonstrate even the slightest ability to engage in meaningful intelligent conversation... The original forests and their complimentary mosaics of prairie and wetlands in Colorado were all but gone except in high elevation areas by the 1950's. Additionally, dead trees and snags are essential to supporting the healthy function of a forest... Yet what you described is industrial forestry, which isn't a natural science, it's an industrial science like growing corn or raising hogs and it's a scientific method that has more to do with rationalizing the maximization of profit rather than the careful objective scientific observation of reality.

But it's really no use talking to you. Your knowledge has more to do with what you're told to think rather than exploring new ideas, new knowledge, real scientific research and local knowledge of unique cultures that thrived on an ethic of improving the land rather than extracting every last scrap of wealth off the land. It's as if none of that even exists in your world. It's as if you lack all capacity for new experiences or the objective critical analysis of those new experiences, it's less than human...

The cultures I've experienced that actually care for the land, the ecosystems I've studied of pre-european settlement of the Americas, the abundance of life and the living in harmony within that landscape... Explaining that knowledge and evidence to you is like trying to explain what the sky looks like to someone who has never once come out of their cave to see the real world.

And why do you and your ilk stay in your cave? Is it because it's what your were told to stay and if you opened your mind to new ideas you might disobey what you were told and they'd kick you out of your cave and put you in a world where you might have to actually think on your own for a change? We wouldn't want that now would we? You're better off assuming everything you know is true and everyone else is wrong, because right-wing conservatives see no value or strength in diversity, only in their own mutually assured greed.

 

Those pine forests were born to burn.
Thats how the forest is rejuvenated.The cones release seeds in the flames and new growth appears.Without fires you get a bunch of 60 year old old dead trees.

 

Higher Carbon Dioxide May Give Pine Trees A Competitive Edge
"Pine trees grown for 12 years in air one-and-a-half times richer in carbon dioxide than today's levels produced twice as many seeds of at least as good a quality as those growing under normal conditions, "

CO2 Science
"Studies of the effects of atmospheric CO2 enrichment on the growth and development of pine trees"
"Therefore, under almost all conditions imaginable, the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 concentration should prove a boon to the biosphere."

 

priuscamper, can I ask what you are doing with your degree?

 

Fine Arts degree
But also I did study Gemology which is science based,as well as aesthetic.
It taught me how to identify real from fake.
My thinking is outside of the box.

 

is your name priuscamper? haha

 

Nevermind me.
Too many Prius**** names here.