I appreciate that, but our current mode of living is clearly unsustainable in the days, decades, centuries beyond our existence. We've denied it long enough. We have to change our ways. Now try convincing big pharma, big oil and big money.

Because we never had tornados and floods and hurricanes and mudslides and so on before, right?
I See climate change in the Fact that my grandmother's daffodils, and many other flowering species, bloom a month earlier than they used to...you can't fool daffodils, nor are they swayed by rhetoric. They show up when it is warm enough, period
But the weather has Always been a problem for people who think building on flood plains, seashores and Tornado paths is a fine idea.....and in fact because there are so many more people, it is now a Big problem.

@annewimsey500 It's true that there are more people than ever, and many of them are building in places where they shouldn't. It's also true that there has been a big increase in the frequency and magnitude of all the climate disasters I mentioned above. It's been measured and documented.
(There is a whole "new" science, called attribution science, concerned with parsing out the extent to which the probability of any given climate event was caused by anthropomorphic climate change.) And again, we have only (ONLY?) raised the temperature by 1.2°C so far. The temperature can spike way higher. We want to avoid that if at all possible.

We are, literally, star stuff!

So no concern about other people's grandchildren?

@TheoryNumber3 I think we should not leave a blasted planet for future generations. But I fear that's exactly what we are going to do.

@TheoryNumber3 Why do you think I care about the planet, science and who gets control on Nov.5th?
I wish humans would not be so greedy or uncaring about trashing the earth. Hey if folks listened to my opinion we would not have had trump win in 2016. Chances of them listening to me about over population and our species extinction are very low.

Problem is, this will not happen suddenly but gradually. Right now climate change not only is making conditions worse for us but other species thousands of which are going extinct. We have created the sixth greatest extinction of this planet. Many of us are very concerned but it seems a typical reaction to many is to simply deny the problem and are going ahead full steam.

@pedigojr Many do not seem to realize, or not want to realize, what is going on. In this respect we are much like the frog that can be boiled in a slow heating pan of water. They tell me he did not know to jump out. I admit that greed is a driver in all of this and the greedy are there to tell us nothing is going on. It is not real, etc. People today have what I call a Burger King attitude. They want it their way and they want it right now. If people are conditioned not to see anything going on then nothing is really happening. This will do us all in.

@DenoPenno I agree and the boiling frog syndrome has been around a long time. Too bad most humans are very short sighted.

I agree.

Nice to see you again. Anything you post has not been available to me. Missed you.

@DenoPenno Absolutely. We are our own worst enemies. The individual who says "I'm only one person... how much damage can I do"... and the greedy capitalist who ravishes the planet with impunity.

@pedigojr indeed--as TS Eliot wrote:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper. 

@Gwen_Wanderer

Nor did it start with a bang.

@yvilletom Tom, you mean no big explosion? Too many think our world and universe started when a tiny package was opened up with a bang. IDK coz I was not there. Maybe no sound at all except that I do read it is all still expanding and they have an ongoing sound recording of it. I also read that space stinks. It reportedly has a burnt smell.

@DenoPenno

Though I majored in math and minored in economics, I studied enough physics to teach that subject at a state university before I did a year in graduate school at another university until I tired of poverty.

Like you, I have an active IDK file. It contains a inactive IHNE — I Have No Evidence — file where I keep my astrophysics stuff. Artificial and real intelligence — AI and RI — keep my IDK file in turmoil.

@yvilletom I'd like to end mine with a bang

@TheoryNumber3

Two people I met later started mine with a bang. If I had been there I would have told them to instead take cold water showers.

@yvilletom I majored in Geology.

We probably do not take ALL life down with us. In every mass extinction, there have always been a few survivors.

@DenoPenno There is no sound in a vacuum, because there is nothing to carry the vibrations. Nor is there any smell, for similar reasons. There is, however, residual heat from the Big Bang, and it is known as the cosmic background microwave radiation. The image that the Hubble space telescope took of this radiation is sometimes called the Universe's baby picture.

@yvilletom, @DenoPenno cosmic background microwave radiation

@pedigojr Extinction is the Norm, not the exception, throughout all of the Earth's existence.

@annewimsey500 Oh yes, there is always extinction. But MASS extinction, where 80 to 95 percent of species go extinct within a relatively short period of time, has only happened 5 times in the last 400 million years.

@Flyingsaucesir

Those are pix of something that someone wants you to believe is CMBR.

Some other people want you to believe there’s a god out there.

@annewimsey500 I'm well aware of that and there are only a fraction less than one percent of life forms still around. I predict ours will be one of the shorter ones and it's totally of our doing.

@pedigojr sooner or later, we will be extinct. And if we don't kill ourselves, we will evolve into "something else." I think we will die before evolving.

@Gwen_Wanderer Problem is evolution never stops. We would have continued to evolve past our natural, selfish impulses were we to pass this present hurdle. As you probably know, evolution has several blocks to keep going and those least able to survive go extinct. It is not about power it is about recognizing our place in the greater scheme of things.

@pedigojr but of course.