Don Romano (alt)
The Planetary Defense Conference gathers to discuss how one would go about deflecting the orbit of an incoming asteroid.
Meanwhile, the train wreck of global warming and mass extinction unfolds in slow motion before our eyes, too slowly to really jolt us into action.
We didn't evolve to deal with such slow threats.
What's going to happen is that those of us who can afford the luxury will gradually adapt to an increasingly barren Earth, and we'll consider that the new normal.
Don Romano (alt)
We'll see tropical species and diseases invade regions further and further north, but instead of stopping this development, we'll simply throw more and more technology at the problem to make it go away. It'll be business as usual, and no, our descendants won't be upset, because they'll only know this new existence, and the old one will be something they'll only learn about in the history lessons at school.
Don Romano (alt)
Global warming and mass extinction are fairly depressing to think about. I think I buy that they're happening, because we've known about this stuff long before it was politicised. I saw an old newspaper article about the greenhouse effect that, with that characteristic optimism of the 1960s, said that it would open new shipping routes in the Arctic. There was also that whole thing where we banned CFC gases once we realised it was tearing a hole in the ozone layer.
Don Romano (alt)
So we know that our activities have an effect on the environment. I've also seen what oil spills can do to the Norwegian coast line. Nature isn't fighting back. Rather, it's collapsing under the pressure of 7.6 billion people and counting, a bizarrely large population figure more apt for a tiny insect than a large mammal.
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