There is no point to a planet without human beings; yet we are constantly browbeaten with nonsense about how bad humans are for the planet.

This contributor does say "The biggest threat to our own survival is the combined effect of our own successful propagation and our natural desire to improve our standard of living, not carbon dioxide in the atmosphere …..", which is a welcome change from the orthodox hysteria about an essential gas. But, what is he going to do about it? Diddly squat, just like the people who could do something but don't. If the problem is too many people, there is no point in preaching to educated Westerners who are not the ones doing the unsustainable breeding. If nature had been allowed to take its course, and the do-gooders in the West had stopped interfering in the Third World, including sponsoring mass immigration to the West, we wouldn't have the problems we do have now.

ttbn,
> There is no point to a planet without human beings;
There'd be a lot less point, but not none at all. Other life is not completely worthless.

>yet we are constantly browbeaten with nonsense about how bad humans are for the planet.
On the contrary, we are occasionally reminded of the valid point about how much damage humans are doing to the planet. The damage is not due to any intrinsic feature of humans, but rather the decisions that humans are currently making. Once your generation die off, there will be a lot less intransigence and the problems are likely to be addressed quite quickly. But the task will be a lot greater due to the damage that's occurring in the meantime.

If nature had been allowed to take its course, the problems would probably be much worse, as it would still be the norm to have many children in the hope that some of them would survive.

As for the article, it's deeply flawed. I'll explain why later today.

Seems like a well informed sane assessment of the humanly caused situation of Earthkind in the "21st century".
This essay provides the same assessment.
http://www.da-peace.org/excerpt-two-is-not-peace

Numerous corroborative references: http://www.beezone.com/news.html

This essay provides a radical (meaning going to the root) critique of the now world dominant Western power-and-control-seeking (scapegoat) mind which has caused this situation.
http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/Aletheon/ontranscendingtheinsubordinatemind.html

There is no point to a planet without human beings;

I'd be inclined to say that there's no point in some humans on this planet !

A sober piece of logic by the author.

Climate change is fraught with complications of its many parts. That is why there is major disagreement in looking for solutions.

Politicians dishing up quasi solutions to imagined problems, is a bigger problem in itself.

What concerns me is who pays the piper. Invariably, that’s not the piper himself, which turns the whole subject of climate change into a dogs breakfast of capitalism, which in turn throws the burden of what is politically displayed as essential change, onto those with the least power to absorb the cost.

What highlights my conclusion is best displayed by flicking back through the pages of history a little way, to Julia Gillards “cash for clunkers” scheme.

It is hard to imagine Gillard driving her idea of an offending vehicle, so it is acceptable then, to cast the real cost of change onto those least capable of controlling outcomes inflicted upon them, by politicians desperate for votes at the least cost.

Dan

Sadly the author, who claims to be an earth scientist, omits a major historical driver of climate change. The flipping of the earths magnetic polarity.

Shouldn't an earth scientist have detailed knowledge of this apparently recurring event and its effect on the earth's environment and specifically its effects on climate.

Surely that is scientific.

With the currently recorded facts the earth's magnetic poles are moving and appear to be in the process of flipping shouldn't scientists at least acknowledge this major influence or is it that earth scientists haven't yet explored this event?