Marko Beljac – you have expressed it beautifully.
Edward de Bono taught us to look for “solution multiplying solutions” when we are faced with a problem.
By mindlessly following the Bush, Howard, fossil fuel, nuclear corporate line, we would be adopting a “problem multiplying solution”.

By now – the penny, dime, 5 cents – is beginning to drop in the minds of people who can think further than watching the sharemarket index.

The nuclear industry must grind to a halt – and quickly, as international pressure focuses on the need to go for energy efficiency and truly renewable clean energy sources.
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com

Thanks Marco, your article makes much sense; The interdependency of our eco system on countless factors is obvious in the Macro environment and the example should easily extrapolate into our planet's ecology. Our so-called democracies are an impediment to reaching solutions when the leadership is incapable of grasping the message and is not answerable for their ignorance.

Christina,

That's a cool website you have. Did you see a paper by Robyn Lim for the Centre for Independent Studies that argued that Australia should have a uranium enrichment capacity for possible nuclear weapons?

Maracas,

I agree with your sentiments; you're right in a democracy they should be accountable.

I agree that our genes are from the jungle, and not yet adapted to a high tech society. Furthermore, our genes are selfish, and favor individual procreation, not group survivial.

Yet, I think global warming maybe a bad example of a species extinction event. Rather, it is an example of a "bottle-neck," where most of the population dies, and only a small number of survivers pro-create the next population-boom.

The problem of global warming is the game theory paradox "The Tragedy of the Commons," where if it is in each individual's interest to exploit a common resource, then rational self-interest brings about the over-exploitation of that resource, which is not in the best interest of the individual nor the group.

In other words, it is cheap to use the air as a dumping ground for the resulting GHG emissions from burning fossil fuel for energy, but if every individual exploits this resource, global warming will cause the individual and the group to be harmed.

Ironically, followed to the extreme, runaway global warming (human GHG emissions start a chain reaction which melts the methane hydrate-twice the carbon of all the fossil fuel in the world) will have to survive by going underground.

Unlike living above ground, living below ground would mean forming a much more restrictive authoritarian society (like missionaries cutting down the coconut and banana trees, forcing the natives to stop living like bohemians), leading to just the kind of favorable evolution that the article "Evolutionary suicide..." points to.

Let me add that super volcanos and large meteoroids also present a intermittent threat that living underground would help the human species survive.

I must admit anyone who talks of genes or evolution in this manner understands neither. No wonder so many people don't believe in the reality of evolution when the "scientific" viewpoint is presented so cartoonishly.

None of these doomsday scenarios are actually likely to happen. The major threat to the planet is certainly nuclear weapons, much more so than climate change. However noone can envisage a massive strike holocaust happening like they used to in the '50s-'80s, so even a few detonations are survivable. Climate change is not sudden, there will be plenty of time to move people if the coastlines change, it will definitely put a strain on "civilisation as we know it" and some species (depending on the scale of warming), but in the long run, it's not "evolutionary suicide", we won't cook there's a long way to go for anything like that. Local extinctions have been seen in many species including humans, but there is absolutely no evidence of a planetwide extinction event looming on the horizon for us. Unless you want to count those pesky asteroids.....

Yes Bugsy, the change is gradual,as it has always been ,over billions of years,all the more reason to take heed and not leave our descendents a barren desert.
I too am wary of a plunge into nuclear proliferation and I believe the issue of alternative power sources which are not likely to leave us with such a potentially deadly residue must be exhausted before we pursue a position of no return.
I also believe the rush to embrace nuclear power has more to do with wealth creation by the miners,Government royalty collectors, and power station constructors, than we simple folk who end up paying the ultimate price