What the ethics of our destruction of our homes and families?

[meebs]

Climate change is normal, and part of a normal cycle of warming and cooling, following cycles of solar activity and not industrialisation. Take a look at any text book of temperatures through the ages, and you will see. CO2 follows temperature change; it does not lead it.

It may be possible that anthropogenic emmisions are accelerating natural climate change, or may even affect the natural balance a little. Pushing things further than they would.

To the OP: Im having two thoughts regarding this gulf stream business at the moment.

The gulf stream could be slowing due to the effects of fresh water (from the polar regions melting) being introduced into the ocean system, this may affect the bslance of currents anywhere.

It could be the system trying to reach "equilibrium"(no such system as true equilibrium as the system fluctuates. Thus it would have a cooling effect.

However an important note is that as things get hotter, the oceans evaporate more thus the salinity increases.

This throws the theory into a little doubt.

However im no expert, only a student. (plus my wording is off and people are bound to read me differently than im trying to put myself across).

 

[Marz Blak]

Take a look at any text book of temperatures through the ages, and you will see. CO2 follows temperature change; it does not lead it.

Maybe. It seems more accurate to say only that *up to now throughout the ages,* CO2 levels have followed temperature levels and have never lead them.

But whether any correlation between the two is *necessarily* unidirectional is something for which we lack data, because it is only in this age that human activities have had the capability to generate CO2 at levels that *could* cause CO2 levels to lead temperature if the effect is bidirectional.

 

[Marz Blak]

Where then the ETHICS and MORALITY in destroying our own way of life and killing billions of ourselves and families in the name of 'progress' and 'high standard of living' ???? :-

I'd like to step back from all the discussion about whether global warming is happening, whether human activity is responsible for it, etc., and go back to this question at the end of the OP, because it seems like a basic question to me.

It seems to me that the OP is implicitly asserting that we have an ethical imperative to do something to save ourselves and our progeny from the negative consequences of our current societal courses of action, economies, lifestyles, etc.

I am not sure that I completely agree with this.

Not to be contrarian, but one could argue that man's amazing success as a species has been at the roots of all sorts of devastation of the environment going back to the stone ages, and it is only now, that *we* as a species are in the crosshairs, as it were, that we as a species are showing any real concern about it.

With this consideration, all the crying about the potential devastation of global warming can be viewed as being not really about any altruistic concern for the planet, etc., but about self-preservation.

And I don't think that an interest in self-preservation, per se, has anything to do whatsoever with ethics; it's just instinctive. Everything that lives has an instinct for self-preservation: it makes as much sense to think of our desire to get ourselves out of this as being a matter of ethics as it does to consider a mother buffalo to be heroic for killing a lion to protect her calf from it.

This all said, if you cannot tell by now, my metaethics tend toward the non-cognitive: I believe there are no such things as moral facts, and that all moral statements are essentially statements of preference or intuitive response.

 

[stranger]

It may be possible that anthropogenic emmisions are accelerating natural climate change, or may even affect the natural balance a little. Pushing things further than they would.

To the OP: Im having two thoughts regarding this gulf stream business at the moment.

The gulf stream could be slowing due to the effects of fresh water (from the polar regions melting) being introduced into the ocean system, this may affect the bslance of currents anywhere.

It could be the system trying to reach "equilibrium"(no such system as true equilibrium as the system fluctuates. Thus it would have a cooling effect.

However an important note is that as things get hotter, the oceans evaporate more thus the salinity increases.

This throws the theory into a little doubt.

However im no expert, only a student. (plus my wording is off and people are bound to read me differently than im trying to put myself across).

The point of experts putting together 'models' is to take into account ALL these effects and their complex interactions.... that is what they do with their lives and they are dedicated to the the truth about it since otherwise their lives would be meaningless to them.... so why not at least read what they are saying instead of trying to guess without all the info they have... ?

The cooling of USA and Europe will not change the ever-increasing warming of the world on average , but it will worsen the weather even more and freeze our seas, and bring glaciers down to bury our civilisations... if it is balance the earth is seeking it is one without the human 'parasites' who are now known to be pushing the earth warmer faster than she ever has done by herself, and at a time when she was cooling naturally toward another Ice Age...

The stopping of the Gulf Stream will happen suddenly , jsut as it has done in the past and will thus take away half the nergy input to USA and Europe as the water around the South of Greenland ceases to sink any more...

We know now, despite millions of pounds worth of propaganda by exxon, that mankind is the only possible explanation of such a rapid change unparalleled in earth's whole history and against the current trend in the very period of our industrial development and churning out of masses of CO2 which we know causes just this ammount of warming... it is not a natural phenomenon then, but even if it were, we would still need to act to save USa and Europe from utter destruction [if indee we can stop mankind killing off billions by simply burying head-in-sand and doing nothing as we all or most die and civilisation ends]

 

[stranger]

Maybe. It seems more accurate to say only that *up to now throughout the ages,* CO2 levels have followed temperature levels and have never lead them.

But whether any correlation between the two is *necessarily* unidirectional is something for which we lack data, because it is only in this age that human activities have had the capability to generate CO2 at levels that *could* cause CO2 levels to lead temperature if the effect is bidirectional.

It is ceratinly true that there are massive positive feedbacks of release of CO2 from peat bogs and melting permafrost decaying as well as from land in genearl and from the ocean, but that does not change the scientifically established fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and so causes warming , more CO2 , more warming ... the other effects just make it more dangerous to warm the planet as we are undeniably doing by menas of Co2 output that has swamped the earths ability to absorb CO2 [so that its percentage is not only increasing, but the rate of increase is rapidly increasing too [now over .75% per year and rising more rapidly than ever before in earth's whole history]

It should be obvious that waiting until the Gulf Stream stops and USA and Europe are then condemned irrevocably to freeze at -20C is NOT PRUDENT ....it makes no sense to ignore taht teh Guld Stream has slowed and w know it will stop if we carry on driving around in petrol-driven cars and importing things from all over the world ... every car o the road will be responsible for seven deaths in possibly as little as three years or a few decades [we only know the gulf stream will stop or stop-start in stuttering manner , we do not know whebn as yet , data is still being gathered on that... but action in changing our whole way of life is what is required if we have any intelligence and prudence at all ,whereas all we have for now is a state of denial and people re-hashing false propaganda put about by Exxon which has been discredited by the facts already... the irony is that Exxon may have killed themselves too by paying for lies , simply because they are too short-sighted in their goals and wrong in their morality and judgnments on what is good for even themselves... people are so easily convinced by what they want to hera, and Exxon knew that... it is the same with the differenec between what the bible actually says and what religion claims it says...

 

[stranger]

I'd like to step back from all the discussion about whether global warming is happening, whether human activity is responsible for it, etc., and go back to this question at the end of the OP, because it seems like a basic question to me.

It seems to me that the OP is implicitly asserting that we have an ethical imperative to do something to save ourselves and our progeny from the negative consequences of our current societal courses of action, economies, lifestyles, etc.

I am not sure that I completely agree with this.

Not to be contrarian, but one could argue that man's amazing success as a species has been at the roots of all sorts of devastation of the environment going back to the stone ages, and it is only now, that *we* as a species are in the crosshairs, as it were, that we as a species are showing any real concern about it.

With this consideration, all the crying about the potential devastation of global warming can be viewed as being not really about any altruistic concern for the planet, etc., but about self-preservation.

And I don't think that an interest in self-preservation, per se, has anything to do whatsoever with ethics; it's just instinctive. Everything that lives has an instinct for self-preservation: it makes as much sense to think of our desire to get ourselves out of this as being a matter of ethics as it does to consider a mother buffalo to be heroic for killing a lion to protect her calf from it.

This all said, if you cannot tell by now, my metaethics tend toward the non-cognitive: I believe there are no such things as moral facts, and that all moral statements are essentially statements of preference or intuitive response.

I would largely agree with that , ethics can be seen to be purely relative [which results in it being subjective most of the time and merely consensus of subjectiities the rest of the time , even when the consensus covers whole areas of people]

But the question addresses those too who do not believe this [or have never even thought about meta-ethics] ... so it has meaning and significance as much as most human discussion does [not really much use to man and certainly no use to God except to prove that men are easily led by the nose down either the path of lovingness or the path of unlovingness (sin) ]

So we study in the hope that something will squeeze throuh the cracks in our 'reality' to show us what teh spirit is like... and still we come to realise eventually that we only do this because we are moved to do so...

Thus the name of God is all we really need to understand to know ourselves , God says He is just what\He is, and has been and will be... thus God is changeless 'life', but not life as we know it in this universe [which only functions by change]

So humanity is not about intuitive self-preservation my comrade it is about seeing that we are what we are and not of our selves... that our reality is not even individual, but 'amorphous' spirit which merely 'images' a universe to have known it ,but not in time]

Thus through the cracks we seem to be simply God experiencing time which he cannot experience in His own mode of 'life' and confirming that hese two modes are separate , incompatible, despite that He alone moves everything in the image [much perhaps as we move the 'objects' in our dreams , but are not 'ourselves' in physical (waking)sense in our dreams]

The cracks in 'reality' then become most precious as portholes on the spirit which is our 'home' beyond space-time ...and preservation of self becomes as irrelevant as anything can be ... the self is fairly easily demonstarted to be incapable of saving itself and simply does not exist in the spirit , nor can it do so as it is time-depebndent through 'conciousness' ....

 

[stranger]

I'd like to step back from all the discussion about whether global warming is happening, whether human activity is responsible for it, etc., and go back to this question at the end of the OP, because it seems like a basic question to me.

It seems to me that the OP is implicitly asserting that we have an ethical imperative to do something to save ourselves and our progeny from the negative consequences of our current societal courses of action, economies, lifestyles, etc.

I am not sure that I completely agree with this.

Not to be contrarian, but one could argue that man's amazing success as a species has been at the roots of all sorts of devastation of the environment going back to the stone ages, and it is only now, that *we* as a species are in the crosshairs, as it were, that we as a species are showing any real concern about it.

With this consideration, all the crying about the potential devastation of global warming can be viewed as being not really about any altruistic concern for the planet, etc., but about self-preservation.

And I don't think that an interest in self-preservation, per se, has anything to do whatsoever with ethics; it's just instinctive. Everything that lives has an instinct for self-preservation: it makes as much sense to think of our desire to get ourselves out of this as being a matter of ethics as it does to consider a mother buffalo to be heroic for killing a lion to protect her calf from it.

This all said, if you cannot tell by now, my metaethics tend toward the non-cognitive: I believe there are no such things as moral facts, and that all moral statements are essentially statements of preference or intuitive response.

I would largely agree with that , ethics can be seen to be purely relative [which results in it being subjective most of the time and merely consensus of subjectiities the rest of the time , even when the consensus covers whole areas of people]

But the question addresses those too who do not believe this [or have never even thought about meta-ethics] ... so it has meaning and significance as much as most human discussion does [not really much use to man and certainly no use to God except to prove that men are easily led by the nose down either the path of lovingness or the path of unlovingness (sin) ]

So we study in the hope that something will squeeze throuh the cracks in our 'reality' to show us what teh spirit is like... and still we come to realise eventually that we only do this because we are moved to do so...

Thus the name of God is all we really need to understand to know ourselves , God says He is just what\He is, and has been and will be... thus God is changeless 'life', but not life as we know it in this universe [which only functions by change]

So humanity is not about intuitive self-preservation my comrade it is about seeing that we are what we are and not of our selves... that our reality is not even individual, but 'amorphous' spirit which merely 'images' a universe to have known it ,but not in time]

Thus through the cracks we seem to be simply God experiencing time which he cannot experience in His own mode of 'life' and confirming that hese two modes are separate , incompatible, despite that He alone moves everything in the image [much perhaps as we move the 'objects' in our dreams , but are not 'ourselves' in physical (waking)sense in our dreams]

The cracks in 'reality' then become most precious as portholes on the spirit which is our 'home' beyond space-time ...and preservation of self becomes as irrelevant as anything can be ... the self is fairly easily demonstarted to be incapable of saving itself and simply does not exist in the spirit , nor can it do so as it is time-dependent through 'conciousness' ....