No such thing is obvious. I’ve seen absolutely no study (outside of the IPCC, who we cannot trust since we know from their own members that they lie, cheat and spin) that shows any increase in catastrophic weather or even any significant shift in our climate.
No offence mate, but scaremongering logic isn’t a sound basis for anything.
Siatd,
Perhaps I should have used a different term than environment. When I use that word I’m thinking of everything that is going on around me, not just the weather. So if it pleases you, fuck global warming. I don’t give a damn what the cause is, only what it might cost us as part of the mix of both global and local events that shape our daily lives. Right now, the big bugaboo is the cost of energy. It is going to change practically everything we do in one way or another. You’re in Britain, Tab is in Turkey, I’m in the western U.S. Each of us will have different problems, of different magnitude, and different solutions. As we deal with the energy problems, it will affect social and political structure. It will affect education, job opportunities, personal mobility, etc. The list of changes, large and small, is endless.
This forum is in part, a reaction to the scaremongering, the internet rumor mills, the sensationalizing crap in the media. We’re going to assume that those who participate are capable of asking what is going on, and finding reasoned possible solutions. But past that, looking at the ramifications of possible changes as they affect the future of humanity.
Every generation looks at it’s parents and asks, what the fuck were you people thinking? Isn’t it time to attempt to break that cycle? Are we incapable of assessing real time conditions, finding reasonable solutions to problems that not only serve us well, but serve future generations?
Of course, this is only my perspective. But I sense that there are many who participate in ILP who have questions, expertise in a given field, and reasonable solutions to many of those issues that will shape our personal lives, our societies and yes, the philosophies that attempt to explain it all.
Fact 1 - The future is coming.
Fact 2 - Things seem to be speeding up rather than slowing down.
Response to 1 - Throw your hands up in the air and enjoy the roller-coaster!
Response to 2 - This doesn’t necessarily mean things are getting “better” or “worst”. It just means they seem to be going “faster”.
Conclusion - Whether the whole of the human specie dies off completely (or evolves into something new), doesn’t really matter anyway…
‘Privileged’…? That’s funny, I thought children just came along free with sex. You know - like the toy in a cereal packet - frequently dysfunctional, often not closely resembling the illustration on the packaging and these days, increasingly made in China… 
I can see the cavemen sitting around with a cereal box trying to open it… 
So the entropy of you reading this can be unread so you never read it?
And why are we starting a huge debate in an invitation?
Fair enough, but I don’t see how the changes in our environment (broad sense) are moving faster than us as a species. Or how one could calculate such a thing. Again, I’m not trying to piss you off, but to me it seems like that’s the sort of belief one would just take as a given in a conversation because it suited one’s other beliefs to do so. I can’t see how you can make such a judgement, if you’re with me.
That doesn’t proclude it being from being true, it might be an unknowable truth. Though we’re getting into Rumsfeld territory there.
If it isn’t happening then it needn’t cost us anything, if you’re with me. It being used as the excuse for a preexisting agenda doesn’t give it any intrinsic value or consequence.
If you’re with me.
Of course, because it’s an all embracing philosophy. But it is, nonetheless, a philosophy. It can, therefore, be defeated. It needn’t fuck up anything.
I can only hope you’re right, because regardless of whether global warming is happening, we do have some tough decisions to make because for various reasons the world we’ve created will not be sustained for another century. That would be my prediction - not that the rate of change in our society is outrunning us, but that we’re building towards some sort of endgame for this particular chapter of history that we might find it difficult to survive as a species.
If we’re brave, imaginative and smart, maybe. So, given we’re humans, probably not. But that doesn’t invalidate the attempt. It’s certainly worth a try. We could sit around drinking vodka and playing chess until the seas rise up and turn black and the sky sets on fire. Or we could work out a way to colonise Mars.
It isn’t only your perspective. It’s shared by others. You might say this is just me being my predictably pedantic self, and if you wanna say that go ahead. But I’d suggest to you that using caveats such as ‘this is only my perspective’, however polite, is strategically counterthetical to your stated philosophy.
It’s not so much as external things like “climate” or the “universe” are expanding and changing more rapidly…
It’s that our consciousness of them has become enlightened. They physically appear faster to our minds, because our minds have evolved…
The universe and the climate may not be as “fast” as people are led to believe. Then again, the worry is about being wrong.
Well, I’m not sure what is happening in Britain, but I can assure you, people in the States are seeing large changes that they haven’t accounted for, and are very unsettled about what is happening and how to cope with the problems created. Other than our large cities, Ameicans are scattered from hell and gone all over the country. We live on wheels not because we love SUVs, but because of distances. We have depended on cheap energy for so long that watching energy prices double in a couple of years has created real problems. Those who pay attention are at least vaguely aware of rising food costs, large population increases, and whether all of this “evolving” activity is in reality negative, positive, or neutral, it is happening at a rate that leaves the folks uncomfortable. At the species level, perhaps it makes no difference, it is just more of the same, but at the local and societal level, the pace of change seems rather dramatic.
As to how fast or slow these changes are occurring, is of course, a judgement call. Some see the end of the world next Friday, and others see no problem at all. Again, the idea is to not play Chicken Little, or to throw up our hands in nihilistic despair, but to find a rational place somewhere in the middle.
True, But the question is how? What are those rational pragmatic solutions regardless the philosophical flag one flies?
I’d accept your prediction, I would only say that there is no building toward an endgame, but rather some sort of unbuilding going on. The fractioness of Global self-interest, the seeming inability to get world governments to even begin to address these issues as a global necessity leaves us a rudderless ship. Can we effect some sort of change in the way we approach these issues? Probably not. Historically, we never have, but that doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t try.
I’m no expert on anything except that I am expert on knowing that I can be, and often am, wrong. But it doesn’t seem to keep me from mouthing off. To the extent that others have similar views is great, but I don’t pretend to think anyone agrees with my particular point of view on anything.
I think you are wrong on that one, too.