Of course the planet is changing, it has been long before we walked here. The impact of humans will be so minuscule over the course of billions of years, we may not even register as a major event.
Humans do not create energy. Productive or destructive. All of the energy seen as destructive was already here. We have only redirected it or transferred it to work. It will go back to its original form eventually.
As a tiny minute example of the damage we cause. Look at the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. It pumped high pressure crude into the gulf for months. At the time. Environmentalists proclaimed doomsday and the gulf sea life and shore would be permanently damaged.
The ocean chewed the minor nuisance up and spit it out. 14 years later you may find a blob somewhere on the bottom. Which by the way happens without man’s help. The gulf burps oil blobs. So in one billion years do you think the BP oil spill will be noticeable. Now add all of man’s impact over another 1000 years. We may have left. It may be traceable 10 billion years from now. Like other forms of life that have come and gone.
But my point is. The planet does not care. It will be just fine until the one of the known several major events occur . iE The Sun, the earths core, the poles reverse again. asteroids ETC. Real destructive power.
The earth will not be drastically changed or destroyed by mere humans.
Maybe I am wrong and the experts in Davos like John Kerry and Fink can change the climate of the earth if we give them our money and dominion over us.
So we're agreed that humans can have a lasting impact, now we're debating the political question of if it's significant enough to matter, and significant enough to merit any action.
Fair enough.
Firstly, to get your BP question out of the way. No absolutely not, I do not believe that such a local, tiny event will be detectable even 100 years from now. This is a totally micro level impact. Not great for the local wildlife, ideally not something that we want to happen, but certainly not enough to matter, not enough to be even remotely detectable long term, not a big deal on the macro.
To your other point, I'd agree that on the macro level, humanities impact is not unique, or especially significant. Compared to the advent of photosynthesis, or the colonization of the land by plant life, or any other number of examples, nothing we do has been especially impactful. Maybe it never will be.
I'd also agree that the persistent doom-mongering of certain parts of our society on this topic is unhelpful, and intellectually dishonest. There is no way that we as a species are going to make the planet totally unlivable, or wipe out huge swathes of all species, or
drastically change global temperatures.
But our impact will be there, and it will change the course of the planet to some degree. it also has the inconvenient distinction of happening to
us, now. In the grand scheme of things, the KT extinction event wasn't a big deal. The Earth keeps spinning, life goes on. In the grand scheme of things, what does it matter? It's not great if you're a Triceratops living during the period though...
I think it's fair to say that we as a species can certainly make life pretty difficult for some, perhaps many organisms. Give it 40 years and the White Rhino will stand in (mute) testament to that fact. The Dodo already does. So do a lot of other species, and the number is growing.
Does the planet give a crap about that? No, of course not. Species go extinct all the time. On a macro level, it's barely a bump above normal background levels. Maybe, just maybe, in 100 million years, the organisms of the time may note (if of course there's any that are smart enough) this period as a time of decreasing biological diversity in the fossil record. Maybe they'll do what we do, give it a name and lump it in with all the other mass extinction events. 'The Anthropomorphic Collapse', perhaps. Maybe it won't even be significant enough to merit that. But it will be there.
On a micro level, that's not great, and I personally think that just saying 'screw it' and knowingly accepting the situation then doing nothing is a touch negligent. If you're on this forum and donate your hard earned cash to conservation work, or habitat preservation, or reducing pollution in your favorite trout stream, then you probably agree with me there.
Of course, in order to be effective about addressing the issue, you need good data and intellectual honesty. Both are in short supply. The first due to lack of research, the second due to lack of morals.
Putting our heads in the sand and pretending everything is great, that it's all totally outside of our control, that we can't have an impact, doesn't seem like a good solve. By contrast, hysterical screaming about the end of all life, the end of the species, the end of everything good, is equally, if not more, moronic. Both are pushing a political agenda at the expense of honesty.
I don't have good answers here, I'm not an expert, but I am very keen that we as a society acknowledge that we can make an impact, both positive and negative, that maybe we do therefore have the responsibility to at least acknowledge that, and then have real discussions about the topic based on facts.
Personally I'm probably more bothered about habitat destruction and pollution than I am CO2 / 'global warming', if only because I'm very confident that pollution is having a negative impact whilst I'm not as certain about CO2. But I'm willing to enter into open discussion on either if there's good evidence there, and I'm not going to simply hand wave it away.
Because I quite like this planet, its biological diversity and its interesting little quirks. I'd quite like those who come after me to like it too, and smoggy, polluted concrete wastelands aren't nearly as attractive to me as an interesting bit of rain forest, even if in the grand scheme of things both are an unimportant, transient state of affairs in geological terms.
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