Embrace change

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Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 12:31 am

Puzzling thing about environmentalists; for folks dedicated to Gaia, they’re oddly given to analysing the planet according to narrow human-centric measures. For example:

The world’s deserts are being threatened “as never before”, particularly by climate change, but can still be used as a key resource if action is taken to protect them, according to a report released on Monday.

Those deserts were formerly lakes or forests or something else other than deserts. But it is their current status—as deserts, during the relatively brief time in which environmentalists are alive to stare at them—which must be preserved. Weird, no? Same deal with the once-tropical North Pole, now forbidden to return to its previous Gaia-ordained condition. Change is the planet’s normal state; why do environmentalists wish to arrest it? Why are they anti-nature?

Posted by Tim B. on 06/05/2006 at 11:02 AM
    1. A valid question, but first and foremost, they’re not anti-nature. They’re pro-employment; namely, their own.

      Posted by James Waterton on 2006 06 05 at 11:15 AM • permalink

 

    1. I thought most Gaia devotees are anti-human, myself.

      Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 06 05 at 11:19 AM • permalink

 

    1. I have it on good authority that the prime movers behind the effort to arrest the tropicalization of the North Pole are Miami hotel operators.

      Posted by paco on 2006 06 05 at 11:21 AM • permalink

 

    1. Religions are generally opposed to change.

      Posted by Dave S. on 2006 06 05 at 11:22 AM • permalink

 

    1. Read somewhere recently: “One attempts to play God but then the Diety points out that the post is adequately filled.”

      A little humility might let the environmentalists learn that drawing large conclusions from small amounts of data isn’t a sound basis for policy decisions.

      Posted by Retread on 2006 06 05 at 11:28 AM • permalink

 

    1. Fortunately, deserts are expanding northwards, I read just the other day, because of global warming, expanding this vital resource for silicon chip makers.

      Posted by rhhardin on 2006 06 05 at 11:29 AM • permalink

 

    1. #5: A little humility might let the environmentalists learn that drawing large conclusions from small amounts of data isn’t a sound basis for policy decisions.

      Wise words. I have found that a large dose of humility is the best course
      of action in practically all walks of life, and in connection with all of our various speculations.

      Posted by paco on 2006 06 05 at 11:35 AM • permalink

 

    1. I’m looking into buying some desert property in Nevada. When the Big One hits, voila! Beachfront!

      Posted by mark from monroe on 2006 06 05 at 11:49 AM • permalink

 

    1. Religions are generally opposed to change.

      Spot on, Dave!

      #5: A little humility might let the environmentalists learn that drawing large conclusions from small amounts of data isn’t a sound basis for policy decisions.

      Applause.  I don’t know all about the environment, and I’m willing to do my bit to “help, but I won’t do it because some “learned savant” changed their minds again.  Which characterizes the environmental movement over the past 30 years or so.

      Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 06 05 at 12:19 PM • permalink

 

    1. “Religions are generally opposed to change.”

      Yes, but most religions, at least, claim to have received their truth from God.  As gods go, Al Gore strikes me as a bit cut-rate; somewhat lacking in the ability to generate awe.

      Posted by paco on 2006 06 05 at 12:39 PM • permalink

 

    1. #8—you are not friends with Lex Luthor, are you?

      Posted by Room 237 on 2006 06 05 at 12:44 PM • permalink

 

    1. Every time a feral preaches at me, I cut down a tree. Seriously. I have a special axe, I call him Sap-Bringer, and he hungers for the sweet heartwood. But then, I make a point of doing the opposite of anything a tree-hugger says. Feel the spite, ferals, feel it!.

      Posted by Daniel San on 2006 06 05 at 01:17 PM • permalink

 

    1. Hmmm.

      Frankly I’ve always wondered at the Endangered Species Act.  Liberals constantly hammer on the theme of evolution, but yet they take great pains to prevent it from ever happening.

      Posted by ed on 2006 06 05 at 01:40 PM • permalink

 

    1. So… they’re complaining because deserts are going to become more… desert-like?

      Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 06 05 at 01:41 PM • permalink

 

    1. The Sahara didn’t just used to be a forest. It used to be a forest right up until pastoralists overgrazed it and turned it into a desert. That’s pastoralists with two legs. Pre-capitalist man living in harmony with nature.

      Posted by P. Froward on 2006 06 05 at 01:52 PM • permalink

 

    1. #15: “The Sahara didn’t just used to be a forest. It used to be a forest right up until pastoralists overgrazed it and turned it into a desert.”

      Damned bible-thumpers!

      Posted by paco on 2006 06 05 at 02:07 PM • permalink

 

    1. “The Sahara didn’t just used to be a forest. It used to be a forest right up until pastoralists overgrazed it and turned it into a desert.”

      Damned bible-thumping tree-eaters, apparently.

      Posted by Retread on 2006 06 05 at 02:22 PM • permalink

 

    1. Oops! Sorry. I thought it said “pastors”.

      Posted by paco on 2006 06 05 at 02:25 PM • permalink

 

    1. You ask any climatologist and they’ll tell you that the climate has fluctuated for millions of years; right up until about 1965. Right then it stopped and any change since then has been Republican’s fault.

      Posted by lumberjack on 2006 06 05 at 02:26 PM • permalink

 

    1. it is all about me-ism and no sense of history… the world mustn’t change because it never has

      Posted by embutler on 2006 06 05 at 02:32 PM • permalink

 

    1. #11.

      People are always blaming Lex for everything. Why did you melt the ice caps, Lex? Why did you drown the polar bears, Lex? Why did you use depleted uranium weapons that cause headless babies to be born in Iraq, Lex? Blah blah blah.

      Posted by mark from monroe on 2006 06 05 at 02:39 PM • permalink

 

    1. This nostalgia for all things never experienced applies only to things outside the realm of societal norms. The rule seems to be: keep the status quo for the Gaia, but a radical status quo-ectomy for Anglo-Saxon traditions and values.

      Posted by Dorian on 2006 06 05 at 04:40 PM • permalink

 

    1. Environmentalists are nought but the fleas in Gaia’s armpits, etc.

      Posted by blogstrop on 2006 06 05 at 05:12 PM • permalink

 

    1. There’s a Theodore Dalrymple column from a while back where he concludes by saying that a conservative believes they are just a drop in the stream, while a leftie believes they are (or ought to be) the stream.

      I think that sums up these sorts of things nicely.

      Posted by anagallis on 2006 06 05 at 06:09 PM • permalink

 

    1. paco #18: why’d you go and do that? A cute joke if you’d kept your mouth shut.

      Up on the Gold Coast the locals have formed a protest group to preserve a multi-story car park. Now there’s modern-day environmentalism at work.

      Of course I’m against them, and in favour of the developers who want to rip it down and stick up another 75 storey apartment block.

      Posted by Smithovitch on 2006 06 05 at 07:51 PM • permalink

 

    1. goodYa gotta unnderstan’, there’s good searing, lifeless sand, and there’s bad searing, lifeless sand…

      And besides, how far would Frank Herbert have gotten if he wrote a science fiction novel called “Wetlands”?

      Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 05 at 07:57 PM • permalink

 

 

 

  • Argh! No!

    (scarpers away to hide – surely this is a sign that Lucifer walks amongst us on such a fateful day)

    Posted by James Waterton on 2006 06 05 at 08:40 PM • permalink

 

    1. no one expects the italic inqusition!</i>

      Posted by Rob Read on 2006 06 05 at 08:47 PM • permalink

 

    1. Maybe this will fix it</i></i>… any luck?

      Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 05 at 08:52 PM • permalink

 

    1. Now!  On to the strikethough!

      Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 05 at 08:52 PM • permalink

 

    1. Jes’ kiddin’, ah hope.

      Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 05 at 08:53 PM • permalink

 

    1. #25: Because I failed the “just enough” course in clown college.

      Posted by paco on 2006 06 05 at 09:17 PM • permalink

 

    1. Hotter temperatures have meant glaciers are receding, meaning there is less water to sustain deserts in places like Central Asia and both sides of the South American Andes.

      So, if a desert receives less water it turns into……what?

      Posted by rinardman on 2006 06 05 at 10:05 PM • permalink

 

    1. I guess it means the cacti will be, uh, cactus.

      Water-hogging, spongy, pricks of things they are anyway. Much like environmentalists really.

      Posted by The (WHMECDM) President on 2006 06 05 at 10:15 PM • permalink

 

    1. As I was putting my cd collection into itunes for syncing with my fabulous new purchase (just love the ipod!), I spent sometime reminiscing with my Midnight Oil albums.  It was clear peter garrett and co got progressivly more ‘activist’ and anti-american as the years went by, but, and here is where I get to the point, is that in the early days when they were just a surf pub band, MO was also clearly preservationist regarding old pubs, knocking car parks on sand dunes etc.

      Bottom line, at a basic level, a lot of greenies are actually conservative.  They just want things to stay the way they are.

      Posted by entropy on 2006 06 05 at 10:51 PM • permalink

 

    1. Can anybody explain why it is that only the plants that grow in places like the Amazon forest and deserts have possible life-giving properties, yet the thousands that grow everywhere else cannot possibly be useful?  Is this a trick by Gaia to give the radical environmentalists something to crap on about?

      Posted by SezaGeoff on 2006 06 06 at 12:44 AM • permalink

 

    1. Well I suppose the point is that we are supposed to know all about our local plants, while those in exotic locales are, well, exotic.  Besides, its no adventure to potter about in the backyard trying to parse the mysteries of subclover.

      Posted by entropy on 2006 06 06 at 03:50 AM • permalink

 

    1. People are always blaming Lex for everything. Why did you melt the ice caps, Lex? Why did you drown the polar bears, Lex? Why did you use depleted uranium weapons that cause headless babies to be born in Iraq, Lex? Blah blah blah.

      Posted by mark from monroe on 2006 06 05 at 02:39 PM

      Silly Mark from Monroe!
      All of that was Wronwright, of course. He does like his little jokes.

      MarkL
      Canberra

      Posted by MarkL on 2006 06 06 at 04:17 AM • permalink

 

    1. Hotter temperatures have meant glaciers are receding, meaning there is less water to sustain deserts in places like Central Asia and both sides of the South American Andes.

      Right, because glaciers turn into… wait a minute…

      Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 06 06 at 09:48 AM • permalink

 

    1. And then there’s Sam Kinnison:

      “You know what this is?  It’s sand[/].  You know what it’ll be in 100 years?  It’ll be sand.”

      Posted by Achillea on 2006 06 06 at 10:14 AM • permalink

 

    1. noooooooooo

      Posted by Achillea on 2006 06 06 at 10:14 AM • permalink

 

    1. Sod off, Sandy!

      Posted by Some0Seppo on 2006 06 06 at 10:47 AM • permalink

 

    1. Actually a large part of Norhtern Africa was the breadbasket of the Roman Empire.  I guess they just couldn’t build aquaducts across the Mediterranean.  (Probably the environmentalists wouldn’t let them.  Kept it tied up in the courts for centuries.)

      Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2006 06 06 at 12:18 PM • permalink

 

    1. I have been to Death Valley.  I cannot imagine any other desert being more deserty than Death Valley, except that huge penisula of Big Nothing in the Middle East, that big sandpit there, whatever it’s called.

      But wait–if the rising oceans destroy all our beachfront sand–we got replacement sand available!  By the ton!  We’re saved!

      Posted by ushie on 2006 06 06 at 03:16 PM • permalink

 

    1. I cannot imagine any other desert being more deserty than Death Valley, except that huge penisula of Big Nothing in the Middle East, that big sandpit there, whatever it’s called.

      I’ll confirm that, ushie—Kuwait is all desert, except for those parts irrigated or paved.  Ain’t much in between.

      Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 06 06 at 06:59 PM • permalink

 

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