The more you know the gloomier it looks. We're all learning to live with it. What other choice do we have. I've been wondering about the mountain What has your friend seen up on Rainier that he found so disturbing?

Rockfall, avalanches. What you'd expect of a melting environment

It may not seem like it sometimes, but people are changing. An awakening has begun. Perhaps it started with the decision to protect the last buffalo. I'm not sure. But, it definitely ramped-up when that picture of the Earth taken from space first appeared on magazine covers.

People are taking the loss of nature personally -- which is newer than you might think. An example: In 1936, the last known Tasmanian Tiger was allowed to die, to very little concern. Today, there are people who would move heaven and Earth to keep that species alive. In fact, there are those now who would resurrect it. I find that very heartening. I'm sorry for the loss you're experiencing, but that too, in its own way, is heartening. You love a mountain and want to protect it, and others are sympathetic to your plight -- what a marvelous thing!

"We wed this land and pledged our souls to meet its end"
–From an old, sad 'Kansas' song

(that I played on 8-track until the player under my dashboard ate it -- circa 1979).

And blessings!

Forgive me if this is not your area of expertise. But do you know if they have some way to let another tiger gestate a different sub-species? And are they working on a way to take preserved genetic material and use it to create a Tasmanian Tiger's egg and sperm? Is that something that is likely to ever be possible?

I'm not a scientist, but I've read plenty on the internet about how the Tasmanian Tiger is one of the most likely candidates for being brought back through genetic engineering. It went extinct so recently, that plenty of tissue has been preserved with viable DNA for re-implantation into something like a Tasmanian Devil's egg for gestation. Within the next 20 years, expect it to happen. The woolly mammoth, dodo, smilodon, and the Passenger pigeon are also good candidates, since they too have modern cousins that could give birth to them, and the flora and/or fauna they would need to eat to survive still exists today.

But all living things on the planet will die. The only good I can see is that the Universe, or God, will get a Do Over. Life will come back to the planet & maybe when it does, evolution will stop at apes next time around. Let's hope.

It’s unlikely that all living things will die.

There have been great extinctions in the past. They did not kill off all species.

I listened to a Bill Moyers podcast some time ago & he had a scientist on who said that most people get it wrong when they say we are killing the planet. He said, "The planet will be fine. Its life on the planet that will die. But life will come back, without us" or something to that effect.

So I was looking for the exact quote to reply to you, when instead I found this from a Moyer interview with David Suzuki ~

However, they mostly are refinements of what we thought we knew.

Still, and all, there will be species who are resilient enough to survive. You can count on that. I even think some Homo Sapiens may survive (although I know that will disappoint some.)

If we believe we can survive an extended stay on the Moon or Mars, it’s hard to imagine we could not employ similar technologies to survive on even the most hostile Earth.

Suzuki is a hero and a sage.

do not get past the dinosaur stage. Maybe the asteroid strike that killed ours off would have to be unbelievably harsh in order for the dinosaur numbers to drop completely to zero. And given time they are able to rebound.

Perhaps it is inevitable that early evolution will lead to dinosaur-type creatures, and on most worlds mammals will never be able to further evolve.

Finally, I wonder if there are some worlds, like ours, that are divided into two hemispheres. And in one hemisphere the dinosaurs survived, while on the other intelligent, human-type life ultimately emerged.

Like you, I love the outdoors and hope people awaken soon enough to take care of what is left of this planet. I sense the urgency but fear most don't have a clue.

In the right direction. Righting, I suppose, the ecological sins of the past.

I don't see it happening yet. I think what is meant is a raising of conscience. Along with the seas.

I wonder if this planet really will survive, though without us. Would like to think so. It's so beautiful here.

I also think I know why we're doing it, and why we won't/can't stop.

Because of this, I have stopped blaming anyone, and stopped trying to awaken the blissful sleepers. I now focus on the mindful joys that are right around me, with more time and energy spent cultivating the love of my small family, more time spent out in the disintegrating slivers of nature around me, more time spent in simple gratitude at being alive in this world at this moment.

As the homely saying goes, when life hands you a lemon, make lemonade. My lemonade tastes a lot like compassion-fruit.

I hear you. Thanks.

Here is why I say that:

You once wrote to me that some humans might survive the bottleneck. Maybe after a thousand years civilization can rebound. Perhaps we can persuade people to take just enough action--some of which, like solar power and batteries, may be cost efficient--that humanity can one day recover, even if there is a catastrophe in the mean time.

I choose my path, you choose yours, others will choose theirs. I don't see my role as telling others what might be valuable to do with their lives - I have no idea about that.

Well, part of what I do is try to keep track of current, reputable, science.

At this point, I would say, that, on-the-whole, science suggests that things are much worse than most believe, but not quite as bad as some believe.

I think it helps my sanity to try to do something about it.
http://climaterealityproject.org/
http://www.lcv.org/
…


Sadly, I have just about given up on the notion that “people will come to their senses.” Friends, and acquaintances who recognize and acknowledge the reality of “climate change” don’t let it get in the way of their lives. They continue to fiddle, aware that Rome has begun to burn around them…

In a way, I envy them.

I found his conclusion believable, but his methodology questionable.

Edit: The fact is that a lot of personality types are not interested in “Doing the Math” about anything. Some of the most environmentally aware people I know would never read his site. It’s just not the way they think. They look at changes they perceive in the world around them, and say, “Hey! That’s not right!”

And there are other forms of communication that are more appropriate for other personality types. For me it points out the need to match the language to the listener. Like an American tourist trying to order breakfast in Azerbaijan, the solution to the communication gap isn't simply to repeat the same message even louder...

Are the current crop of enviro activists effective communicators? I wasn't, for the reasons Murphy described, which is one reason I've resigned from the drum-beater's role.

... I love evolutionary biology and paleontology. In a million years this civilization will be a peculiar layer of trash in the geologic record, and the earth will still be a fascinating, evolving place.

We humans are just a flash in the pan.

That's also why we ought to love and protect one another and the natural environments our species exist within.

I approach life as an organic gardener. I don't aim to "control" anything, the best I can do is gently direct some things.

I can live with this. I just hate the idea of taking the whole biome down with us.

I haven't watched the entire talk yet but I like his concept of "Half for humans and half for the rest of the species."

Here is one group that has had impact and continues to. The fight is mostly for them and for their future. Their founder, Alec, has spoken to Congress and the UN and the organiztion is supporting a lawsuit together with Our Children's Trust, to bring more action on global warming:

is from the most extreme vision of our climate situation, http://guymcpherson.com/ and the Nature Bats Last website.

Be aware that Guy McPherson and his group are sort of the ultimate doomers. They believe that we have basically passed the point of no return, and that Climate disruption is going to happen very fast to the point that Mass extinction of most life on earth could happen in the next few decades, including humanity itself going extinct. That is Near Term Human Extinction NTHE.

I personally do not think that we are necessarily to the point that humanity will go extinct, but I do believe that we will see a massive reduction in population over the next century, and it will not be pretty. Unfortunately, their arguments on how bad things could get are at least plausible. Watching an interview with McPherson and Thomm Hartmann where McPherson was talking about NTHE did shock me to the point where I have been taking Climate change as real and finally do enough real study to see the climate denier stuff as the tripe it is, and how really serious this is.

Anyhow, they do have a great deal of writings to talk about what it means to be living in a time of impending "doom" for want of another term. You can sum it up as you should "live a life of excellence" and whatever this means to you.

I understand how once you realize that life and society as we know it is about to have an massive disruption from these climate changes, you go through all the same depression stages as if you were told you have a terminal disease and you are basically in hospice. It is even worse when no one you know will even acknowledge this is even a possibility, much less currently in progress. Even my closest friends and family give that "are you smoking crack?" look when you try to describe how bad things are and are going to get even worse very soon.

I now just kind of keep tabs on the doomer extreme, and do closely keep up with the current climate science reports. I have found that in addition the E&E group here that the RobertScribbler blog https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/ is an excellent resource for the current climate news.

Unfortunately, just about every climate study finds things are "worse than we though" in previous reports, and a step closer to the NTHE extreme. Buckle up it is going to be a bumpy ride.