You left out the part about why I should care what happens to future generations. If I die rich, then I couldn't give two shits about the future-- I won't be there to see how shitty it is anyway.

Or you could do the smart thing and advance technolgy in an environmentally conscious manner and have a better future because of it.

@Oyster: Heh, what good is your personal profit when you're dead, anyway? I can never fully wrap my head around that kinda profiteering myself, but that's probably because it isn't so high on my agenda. Anyway, interesting question you bring up.

My opinion is that, for the first time in history, we are becoming conscious of our interactions with our habitat at a biospheric level: instead of thinking only about local environmental health, we're beginning to analyse the big picture. Simply put, we're going into another alien territory, exploring our own planet more deeply than Magellan or Cook have -- we're exploring what makes it tick the way it does. If you look back in history, industrial pollution has had many sources, and can probably be attributed to some effects. Population health was the primary concern, and so we began to single out products that provide direct, active harm to the human body: lead pipes, for example.

However, we're now looking beyond the health of singular human organisms, and toward the health of the greater Earthly organism, the interconnection of species as is understood by modern ecology. It also doesn't appear to be something we yet fully understand, because a lot of the yelling has to do with increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, and the like; sea levels and temperatures fluctuate through history, and though industrial output exacerbates it, we're not looking at increases that are supremely higher than they were 13,000 years ago. The problem is human, but it's in regards to the territories we occupy now: humanity stretches almost all the way across the globe, from coasts to mountain.

Technology exists as a means for the human population to live efficiently with its environment, whether it is man-made or the natural one: a problem in the environment, be it simply that communication is too slow between locales (telegraph, telephone, radio, TV, cell phones, e-mail) or that we can't live out in the open in the natural environment (housing), is generally responded to by a modification of that environment. Therefore, the only natural course that I can see is to modify our environment again, with technology, towards a more normalized setting. This isn't to say that we completely subvert the natural process, but rather help to restore the natural process to being natural, rather than driven by humans.

Hubris, maybe, but it seems that humans are best at manipulating specific environments.

indeed, what's the point of living if you're only going to die?


Gotta look at it from both sides.


on one hand, we ARE alive, we ARE here. might as well make it as comfortable for ourselves as possible.

on the other hand, what difference does it make if we're just gonna die anyways? what should we care if we or anyone else is comfortable?

It should be noted that there are billions of planets equally as unique as Earth is.

Hopefully we can have a world war soon and speed up our scientific progress, I think we really need it to boost the space programs.

that's exactly right, so we can have BIGGER wars with MORE people involved and SHINIER AND NEATER TECHNOLOGY!!! :O



seriously, we're just an extension of our planet. let's figure things out AT HOME first before we start disrupting MORE environments.

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions isn't the way to go. global warming exists, but Carbon Dioxide emissions account for a fraction of a percent of the amount of greenhouse gases. The major greenhouse gas is Methane, which we get from cow farts. Even if we somehow overnight removed all carbon emissions, nothing would really change. I read in a book about this group called intellectual ventures that have actually devised a way to get rid of global warming. If we were to just spray a little bit of sulfur into the stratosphere, we would be blocking out the sun, rather that keeping it in. Some people will be like D:< FIGHTING POLLUTION WITH POLLUTION and I'll be like go fuck yourself. I think it 's a ridiculous argument, when it is a theoretically harmless idea and could be stopped at any point if necessary. So, to stay on topic, technological development is fine, as long as we're not making methane.

btw, the source of pretty much everything I just said is from the book Super Freakonomics. You should check it out.

all "pollution" is, is "incompatible" chemicals anyways. by incompatible, i mean harmful to the environment the chemicals are introduced to, for example: sulfur isnt a good thing to be breathing, but it could help our stratosphere.


this is what im talking about when i mention things like balance people! all things are good in moderation and appropriation and bad in excess and misappropriation.

Justify why we should forgo technological advancements for the sake of this planet.
It's theorized (@SuicideDo; an actual theory, not a concept) that, with certain terraforming techniques, we humans could inhabit Mars. On top of that, one of the moons of Saturn (Titan, I believe) is similar to Earth in almost all aspects.
If, due to polution, we destroy Earth, we could simply inhabit the aforementioned planet + satellite and continue our progression there. To actually back-pedal our damage done on Earth, as someone here said (Odlov?) would not be beneficial for us.

Also, I agree with Oyster. Why on Earth (hurhurhur) should I give a shit about what happens to the planet 100's of years after my death?

Even if you can't find immediate or practical justifications for it, not caring about the environment 100 years from now is still an awfully selfish and egotistical thing to do. If you plan on having any kids and aren't a sociopath, you probably won't want to see them suffer from the problems you and me left them.

It reminds me of the issue someone else brought up in discussion once, about not giving a crap about anyone in poverty or starving (in fact was wishing them dead out of 'convenience', if i recall), or am I taking this issue a wrong direction?