I said I doubted our current methods of engaging the planet. Last time I checked that is doubt opposite of hubris. Hubris is to continuing normal conduct without consideration from outside yourself. I don't know what is up stream but thinking humanity has little to nothing to do with our future is just not realistic.
Why do you think I think trees never regenerate? Yet again you erect a strawman version so you can knock it out of the park. All your buddies are like "hell yeah, he is so smart and that liberal is so dumb."
The problem that I allueded to is that regeneration does not happen suddenly or instantly. It happens subtly and over decades. Once there is any significant imbalance, the region has many generations before it can be restored it its normal state. For example, America will not be 50% forests again for decades and maybe not for centuries.
Only when the land is unused, unmined and left fallow can the ecosystem restore itself as a rule of thumb. Of course food production can be increased by planting certain crops but no such technique is applicable to whole ecosystems or the globe.
The fact is we are consuming resources at never before seen rates. This means less and less regions are untouched. You clearly disagree that depletion of resources has anything to do with limits on production. Your answer is "keep the mills runnin' boys! We got plenty more elsewhere and when that runs out we'll go elsewhere and eventually return to our original spot!"
That's inaccurate because trends of resource extraction are increasing, not decreasing. What does this mean for those regions and real estate? Continued extraction and development prevents the necessary amount of time for an ecosystem to regenerate itself. We must take stock of not just how much America has leveled itself but how globally the same trends apply. I hope you can agree an ecosystem weakened by extraction and development cannot regenerate overnight. Each individual life form depends on the ecosystem remaining balanced. With continued depletion, what does this lead to?
It leads to the inability for the ecosystem to restore itself fully. Therefore many ecosystems will transform and adapt to new conditions since they cannot return to normal conditions. Indeed ecosystems are always changing (very slowly, not usually noticeable in a human life) and won't return to their normal state for potentially millennia once the global ecosystem is imbalanced. What was rainy once may become desert. That means bad news for food production. Famines are bad for poor people.
You seem to think none of this matters. That the world is so big we cannot possibly effect the planet. Fine, we disagree but your methods are mostly smear tactics using conservative talking points over and over to misconstrue my points rather than shutting your conservative motor off and just replying with genuine interest in the future of civilization. I'm not claiming you don't have an interest, it just seems your view makes agreement the most vile thing on the planet when its between a conservative and a non-conservative.
I can't claim anything without you disagreeing. It's very comical to watch the lengths you go to grasp at straws and debunk them. It is unbecoming of an intellectually honest, doubting person to misrepresent their claims intentionally, as I've demonstrated repeatedly.
The quote you posted bears little on my claim, which focused on decreased rainfall along with deforestation as the primary cause of the Mayan collapse. Whether I think it jumped 6 degrees is irrelevant. I was arguing the how the Mayans experienced a change in weather patterns which caused one of the most advanced civilizations to disperse and eventually lay in ruins. This story has relevance for us today: natural changes in climate along with human resource extraction brings about problems and famine. In other words, not living within our means can cause troubles down the road, as it has.
Why must you misconstrue so much? I've pointed out 10+ instances where you twist my words into dumb liberal stereotypes that I preemptively note are stupid so we don't get hung up over non-issues on which we agree already. Yet you continue to apply them as valid critiques to my posts. They are mere distractions from addressing what you know to be valid points, taken with a dose of skepticism of course. You're unwavering bigotry towards this "golden age" of human growth prevents any recognition that our actions may have consequences. Thus, our discussion bears no fruit. I doubt you would change your beliefs under any circumstance.
I'm trying to reach some basic consensus and you cannot nor will ever admit 1 single fault. I have continued to rework my beliefs since 15 when I began reading the Bible and have humbly noted my misgivings on this board when I'm wrong. The typical individual is a lot less like me, having formed their central beliefs by 19 they only do minor edits to peripheral views, almost never challenging their own core beliefs. I have undergone 4 major transformations from Christian and conservative to staunch agnostic and humanist to hedonist living on the streets with nothing but dumpster diving and needles with continual run-ins the the law. Now I espouse Taoism and it's path of inclusion. This is meant to show you I am very aware of how my beliefs can overpower any logic or evidence and once I realized I was on the wrong path it took time but I adjusted to what I believed to be the better path.
Don't come at me as if I am intellectually dishonest person who is more interested in shitting on you than healthy debate. It's clear where you stand. My pursuit of truth and better ways of living have strengthened my willingness to accept things I disagree with and adapt accordingly. You're view espouses loyalty, which has been an opposite of honesty--nodding to the royalty despite any internal hiccups.
If we engaged on an intellectually honest level, we wouldn't have spent the last 5 pages of discussion reaching no compromise. But when you say humans have little or nothing to do with pollution, deforestation, oil spills etc which in turn exacerbates ecosystem hiccups, you are using a defense mechanism to justify business as usual rather than participating in real intellectual dialogue.
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