ateday,

But we do have a good excuse: God told us we could do it.

To some extent we are the prduct of our genetically endowed nature!
And even there that is moderated and molded by what we live and what we learn!

Every human extant on the planet can do the most obscene evil, given the right circumstances? Say the need to survive!

Or after doctrination and brainwashing to believe that this evil is not evil but somehow good? Say the systematic elimination of a particular ethnicity!? The practice of slavery. The sexual abuse of children. Non conceptual sex and rape in marriage! Etc! The list is very long and there are word limits!

On the other hand we hear of some remarkable stories of humanity and heroism in the most difficult circumstances imaginable! Or the part played by love in any of the latter? Which makes love the most powerful force for good on the planet/universe. Given my druthers, I vote for humanity to man and for love! And for the almighty irrefutable truth!
Alan B.

read the bible. It describes human nature as very corrupt. Can't argue with that unless you are in denial.

Even if we all do our bit to reduce our carbon footprint! That will not be enough! And a nonsense if only one third of the population can afford to take such steps/make those choices!

We could change the direction we are headed in if we as a race,i.e., the human race changed a couple of things?

How we generate baseload power and how we transport stuff/perisables, durables.

The first means transitioning to a clean, safe, cheap carbon free, dispatchable, reliable 24/7 power. The second is the electrification of the economy.

Do those two things ASAP. And not only is a robust recovery assured but also, unprecedented economic growth and unparalleled universal prosperity.

The roadblocks are the usual suspects, greed and I'm alright Jack,individualism. Stupidity and idiotic ideological imperatives! Nothing else!

And its the same element that is virtually shooting themselves in their own economic foot to stop or delay what we know must be done.

Moreover, there has never ever been a better opportunity or excuse!
Alan B.

Just a couple of remarks to some of the comments on this thread.

Firstly, humans are not the only biological entities to have caused planet wide environmental changes. For example, the air you breath is a result of biological action. A few billion years ago their was negligible oxygen in the air but heaps of carbon dioxide. Then cyanobacteria evolved into existence and started converting the C02 into 02, such that today the air is about 20% oxygen while C02 is a trace gas below 1%. The changes we as a species have made to the composition of the atmosphere pale into insignificance compared to cyanobacteria. There are also many other instances of planet wide changes. For example, the grasses never existed until about only 55-65 million years ago. But now grassland, such as prairies and savannah, cover about 40% of the Earth's land area. The existence of grass has had a huge impact on the animal kingdom, in our own case mammals co-evolved with it and thus our species exists because of it.

Secondly, it's claimed here that humans are the only life-form that is greedy. If you define greed as action/behaviour that claims/protects/controls a physical asset to the detrimental exclusion of other life forms then greed is extremely common among the planet's species be they animals, plants, bacteria, etc. Many (most?) species either at the individual level or at the level of the group/community are greedy because it gives them an advantage to survive and reproduce. For example, many male mammals will mark and protect their territory and also isolate their breeding partners to the exclusion of other males. Another example, many species of tree will release chemicals into the soil that inhibit the growth of other species to limit competition for nutrients. In the biological world as a general rule: greed is good!

So, straight after I post what do I see: my most common personal pet peeve grammatical mistake. "their" should be obviously be "there" in "A few billion years ago their was negligible oxygen".

There's sure to be other mistakes if I read the post again- but that particular one always annoys me. I do it all the time and I only ever seem to notice it after posting.