Sir David Attenborough made a striking statement in his evidence to the Parliamentary committee. "Wasting Energy", he said, "is morally wrong".
He has a point. Even Lapland has no snow this year and it is now thought that 2006 was the warmest year on record. The evidence for a significant warming of the planet taking place is now substantial.
There is also increasing evidence that global warming is a man made phenomenon.
In nature, it is very rare to find waste- there are niches for life virtually everywhere on the planet. Therefore, the dumping of excess waste heat is bound to cause serious imbalances.
It is incumbent upon humanity to live our lives in a manner that respects the balance of nature.
He has a point. Even Lapland has no snow this year and it is now thought that 2006 was the warmest year on record. The evidence for a significant warming of the planet taking place is now substantial.
There is also increasing evidence that global warming is a man made phenomenon.
In nature, it is very rare to find waste- there are niches for life virtually everywhere on the planet. Therefore, the dumping of excess waste heat is bound to cause serious imbalances.
It is incumbent upon humanity to live our lives in a manner that respects the balance of nature.
Comments
I think its still far from clear what are the main causes. Certainly human action is a contributing factor, and we should be aiming to reduce our contribution (ideally to zero), but I am very reluctant to remove natural causes from the list so easily.
(The UN has recently reduced their estimates of the human contribution, the arctic ice shelves have been shown to have receded before: This indicates a non-human agent at work as well as humans)
Then again, I broadly agree with your general point, although what the balance of nature actually is and how to achieve it is very very debatable...
Lepidus
In any event, I have no connection with Wales, and while that might not stop Lembit it does stop me :-)
The incremental nature of evolution (as opposed to intelligent design) practically ensures inefficiency. Take DNA as an example. The majority (have seen 75% mentioned before) of your DNA does absolutely nothing. It is a carried over relic of previous incarnations of your ancestors. It is non-coding, it isn’t structural, it has no purpose other than as an academic tool (the rate of random variations within the noncoding DNA is predictable and is a useful tool for calculating when species shared common ancestors and therefore mapping evolution). Why then do are cells waste so much time and energy replicating it every time a cell divides? Because the biological processes of cell division cannot differentiate between useful and non-useful DNA is the how and not the why. The ‘why’ is that nature is not designed it evolves and that means what you get is the first system that works and not an ideal efficient system unless luck would have it that that is the first one to evolve.
Lepidus.
Why? If changing the balance of nature increases utility then surely that is better than not.