The Global Environment: Let Me Go On Record

Some things are important enough to restate the obvious. I write this for the benefit of some distant future reader combing thru ancient posts, trying tounderstand why we ruined the planet.

For the record, I understand and firmly believe the following environmental facts:

1. We are increasing CO2 concentrations to levels never before seen in at least 400,000 years.
2. This plus other human factors are contributing to major environmental damage in the form of global warming and other forms of global climate change.
3. Sea levels will almost certainly rise to their maximum levels within the next century or 2 (100 feet above current level) with catastrophic consequences (imagine all of Florida, trash and all, being washed out to sea).
4. Through climate change and through habitat destruction, we are visiting upon the earth one of the greatest extinctions ever. The pace of this mass extinction surely matches those from prior meteor impacts on a geologic scale. We will soon live in a planet without cheetas, pandas, large primates, many species of whale, most smaller primates, etc., etc.
5. There is a vast overpopulation of humans contributing to this. I recognize it is fashionable to say that world populations will level off around 11 billion +/- several billion. However: (a) there is no proof of this, (b) even if populations flatten, the environmental impact per person continues to rise, (c) 40,000 children starve to death every day, (d) habitat destruction and other consequences of human activity have wiped out most wild habitats, with the remainder to be consumed within the next few decades.
   

So obviously I am only touching on a fraction of the damages. As for policy, and the United States & Bush adminstration's role in exacerbating most of these problems, the NRDC's "Bush Record" speaks volumes.

As for solutions, let me go on record as endorsing massive diversion of resources to protect environments, incentivising rainforest countries to preserve what remains, massive effort to invent new energy technologies, etc. For my small part I contribute the the World Wildlife Fund and others.