George Will - Newsweek
The dark side of George Will. The guy can be too smart for his own good sometimes, like here, when he grabs onto a bit of info in a faulty manner. His last paragraph contains some nonsense:
Six million years ago the Mediterranean dried up. Ninety million years ago there were alligators in the Arctic. Three hundred million years ago Northern Europe was a desert and coal formed in Antarctica. "One thing we know for sure," Laughlin says about these convulsions, "is that people weren't involved."
Coal formed in Antarctica, alligators were in the arctic, etc. when that bit of the earths crust was at a dramatically different point on the continental drift scale. I mean, none of this is known with absolute certainty, maybe tropical temps existed at the poles at some point, then again, good chance they didn't, at least during the period of the earth's history during which living critters roamed the earth. Just because a fossil is found at some location, doesn't mean that spot was anywhere near its current latitude when the fossil was a living thing.
The remarks about CO2 dissolving into the oceans so what's the worry was more nonsense. The oceans are nearing saturation point and the higher levels of carbolic acid that CO2 causes are melting the shells of shellfish and making it harder for new shellfish to form sufficient shells for protection. Who cares? The earth doesn't care what we do to it! Wait, what percentage of the earth's population sustains itself on seafood? And how does the chain of life work there? Silly me, it will all be OK . . . in geologic time.
Will is a tad over-confident, as in this bit:
Today extinctions result mostly from human population pressures-habitat destruction, pesticides, etc.-but "slowing man-made extinctions in a meaningful way would require drastically reducing the world's human population." Which will not happen.
Which will not happen? Not voluntarily, I'd agree with that. The aquifers that we are rapidly depleting will recharge . . . in geologic time. Most of the groundwater we use found its way there during the melting of this or that ice age. The soil that we are salinating (not a word, salting up at any rate) from foolish farming methods and covering with asphalt and concrete will once again thrive . . . in geologic time.
Yes, the earth will heal itself in geologic time. But uh, we don't live in geologic time. The rabbits on an island with no predators don't live in geologic time - the fact that that island will once again produce sufficient food to feed rabbits and that rabbits will once again live there has little effect on the 98% + of the rabbit population that dies from starvation. And that cycle will happen in a relatively short time span, not in the sort of span referred to by "geologic time."
Will's conclusions here are shockingly irresponsible. What need to husband our resources? The earth will still be here. No one will know or care in 100,000 years.
I could just see myself showing up at Will's house and pelting it with huge globs of axle grease. Will runs out, protesting, and cmac shouts: "We're all going to die! The sky is falling! Don't worry Mr. Will, the earth doesn't care what we do to it, this will all be healed over . . . in geologic time."
