The term “point of no return” is defined – in navigational terms – as the point along a route where the distance forward to the destination is now shorter than the distance back to the point of departure. The point where you might as well keep going 'cuz - as the saying goes - "there's no going back".
If we’ve reached the “point of no return” climate-wise, then we’re reached the point where we can no longer return the Earth to a pristine “not affected by humankind” climate.
Taking this one step further, if we have reached the “point of no return” climate-wise, then there is nothing we can do. Nothing. At. All. We’re screwed. Incapable of doing anything to fix it. Humans are on their way to extinction, along with all of the other animal life on the planet.
The analogy is like being in a plane that has lost all power and is going to crash and nothing anyone can do will stop it. This leaves you with a choice: you can spend your last moments screaming your head off in terror, or you can calmly reach for the drinks tray and get a serious load on. Either way, it’s over and you know it. Die with dignity? Gimme a break.
If the environment has really passed the “point of no return”, then any attempt to clean shit up is useless. Ya might as well stop worrying and get a gas-sucking big V8. Or heat your home to 78 degrees in the middle of winter with your pellet stove. Or get a camper and empty your black water tank all over the highway. Remember: it’s over – and there’s nothing you can do about it.
In the 1959 film “On The Beach”, a US submarine arrives in post-apocalyptic Australia. Nuclear fallout is wiping out human life around the earth and there’s no hope for a future (yeah, a really depressing film). Some people give their whole families – including their children – suicide pills. Others spend days in prayer in front of churches, hoping against hope for a miracle that will never come. Others just sit and stare at the clouds in deep depression.
But a few hardy souls decide to do the stuff they’ve always wanted to do - but never did. One of the protagonists enters a last car race with his rarely-used perfect-condition collectible speedster. His reasoning? “Why not!” It’s over. Might as well enjoy your last moments on earth.
If we’ve reached the “point of no return” climate-wise, then it’s over. Might as well enjoy our last moments on earth. Why not? If there’s nothing we can do about it, why not do whatever we want to do?
Unless, of course, the climate “point of no return” actually doesn’t exist, and the entire idea of a climate “point of no return” is entirely false and only exists in the mad fantasies of fear-crazed control freaks. And if the well-publicized climate “point of no return” doesn’t really exist and it’s all just a scare tactic, what else are those fear-crazed control freaks lying about?
Oh, the guy in the car race… wins. As if it really matters anyway: who’s ever gonna see the trophy?
Even if there is a "point of no return" and we've reached it, it does not automatically follow that we will become extinct. It could be that we would have to deal with storm or sea level rise or warmer average temperatures. Humans are adaptable, we live everywhere from the tropics to the Arctic, a degree or so of temperature variation is unlikely to kill us all.
ReplyDeleteI think it's mostly hokum anyway, I've been waiting for at least two decades for the sea rise, the temperature changes, the end of snowfall, etc.
Climate warming alarmists have yet to explain the ever-so-slight increase in temperatures on Mars, which even they admit is occurring. They try to explain it away by saying that it's the result of dust storms, variations in the planet's rotation, periodic changes in seasons, etc.
ReplyDeleteBut those same alarmists dismiss the same possibilities for the Earth, where any microscopic change in global temperature is almost always due entirely to humans. Poppycock.
That's why I have such a hard time believing that humans are *primarily* responsible for the "warming of the Earth". An extremely minor contributory cause, possibly. But the alarmists' dire predictions of worldwide catastrophe are hardly believable, and their attempts to frighten us with Hollywood-style warnings that "it's over" for us.
If climate change is actually happening at the rate of a degree per century (which is the most dire of the predictions anyway), we're talking about *centuries* before the change begins to have any negative effect.
Yes, we'll adapt. And if we're still using fossil fueled vehicles and energy production in the year 2300, it'll only prove that the alarmists were wrong anyway.