FWIW, I share most of your skepticism towards these ideas, although I think there's little harm in study and design, so that we'll have some options available should things really get out of control.

They've been pronouncing ecological doomsday for a century and a half, going back and forth by decades over whether it's a new ice age or death by overheating. And there really isn't all that much we could do to change any of it even if we wanted to, other than to mindfully limit our ecological footprints on the earth for the time we're here (and as far into the future as we can plan). Nature can always defeat our best laid plans, and almost inevitably will. For every expensive, grandiose scheme to create a "human Pinatubo" there's a real Pinatubo nature can launch any time it wants.

It's been pretty much during those many decades of doom-saying that we have so seriously polluted our air, our land, and our water. Killing ourselves slowly, rather than the 60+ years we could have killed ourselves quickly. Maybe slow is better by some measure, but that's debatable. We could have done different things along the way. Gone with Tesla's wireless grid, followed Diesel's plan to run farm and transportation machinery on peanut oil. Designed our homes and cities to take advantage of climate and earth and sun, practiced sustainable agriculture.

We the People never made those decisions, we were just expected to live (and die) by decisions other people made FOR us. We won't get to decide what gets done about rectifying those mistakes either, save to do for ourselves in the end without reliance on others to decide FOR us. Whether we die quickly or slowly, we will all die.

It's how you live that counts. IMO. The poor, unwashed masses are not a problem for the planet, never were. It's the rich who over-consume and don't like being reminded of it by their many brothers who live fine lives without. When the water rises people will head uphill. As the water shrinks back they'll move into the fertile plains.

There are excellent reasons to clean up our act, work WITH nature for our keep instead of trying (uselessly) to dominate it into doing our will. I'd be more willing to invest in technologies to counter orbital peculiarities, explore space, and protect ourselves from billiard balls than what I am forced to invest in - WMDs, space-based WMDs aimed at me instead of incoming billiard balls, engineering the weather so that we can keep on fouling our nest without a care, and other such stupid pipe dreams (colored with delusions of grandeur).

Nature can beat us at any game. Any game we can invent, any game we think we could master. It will not be dominated in the long run, though we'll be dead either way. Again, if we were to stop bickering and murdering long enough to objectify what really matters, we might live lives we wouldn't be deeply ashamed of living, no matter how we die in the end.

The link text was just a little tongue-in-cheek-humor, given angryoldfatman's post.

And I think sentient badgers are quite humorous, too. But the ecological reason not to have children is valid even if I would tend to think it's a rationalization for a simple lack of desire for children. Who complicate lives, always get the short end of convenience coupling, and are expensive as hell. Besides, the job's never done. I think it might be more honest to just say you don't like or want kids.

That's as good a reason as any. Possibly less destructive in the end than designer children that rich people order a la carte to go with the decor of their yachts. It's a sure bet such wunderkinder will never take over the world by numbers. The notorious breeding insufficiencies of the rich and spoiled are ever the rationalization for simple racism and class inequalities under the euphemism of "eugenics," new or old. Badgers won't be the only ones who aren't likely to miss them when they're gone.

FWIW, I share most of your skepticism towards these ideas, although I think there's little harm in study and design, so that we'll have some options available should things really get out of control.

Oh, I dunno. It's not like there's a shortage of humans on this planet or anything. Why would it matter that anyone decides not to contribute more? Or why they'd make that decision?

Whatever reason a woman gives to sterilize herself is her business. Many women (and men) have it done after achieving the desired family size. What makes the article appropriate for this topic is the reason the woman gives for having it done. I've never heard of the non-eco friendly reason before. The link text was just a little tongue-in-cheek-humor, given angryoldfatman's post.

Just another free radical doing her part for the planet.

Oh, I dunno. It's not like there's a shortage of humans on this planet or anything. Why would it matter that anyone decides not to contribute more? Or why they'd make that decision?

The irony: those of you two-legged monkeys who (rightfully) consider your kind to be a blight upon our planet have been relinquishing your right to procreate, and thus subjecting yourselves to Darwinian forces.

It all depends on how you look at it

Preemptive Extinction On A Personal Level

Just another free radical doing her part for the planet.

I'm almost sorry to burst your bubble, since you seem so giddy at the prospect of having vanquished me. Alas, the fantasy must come to an end.

Vanquished? Giddy? Keiths, we're having a discussion on the internet - and frankly, you're kind of inept at arguing. I'm sure you know the saying about arguing on the internet being like running in the special olympics. I'm here to have fun. If I want to win at something, I'll go play Team Fortress 2.

This is about psychology - something atheists on this forum love to talk about.

In fact, as I have shown, Hitchens has clearly stated his opposition to religious persecution.

You quoted Hitchens briefly declining to justify religious purges, while explaining how they were to be expected, all things considered. Then you quoted Hitchens defending free speech. You're playing Hitchens quotes against Hitchens quotes, and arguing one set trumps the other, and anyone who disagrees is an idiot, a liar, and a slandered. Speaking of all three, on to what you apparently think of PZ Myers.

So not only were you too lazy to come up with quotes from Hitchens himself, you presented P.Z. Myers' description of the speech as if it were the final word.

No, keiths, I explicitly said…

Or is PZ Myers completely off his damned rocker, totally maligning this fine upstanding man. Is Myers' argument so weak that it cannot stand unless he props it up by pretending that his opponents support murder?

Hey, I left it open - I asked you if PZ's right. After all, PZ Myers heard Hitchens speak firsthand. He was right in the audience, and I posted his reactions. You've been so busy screaming insults at me for daring to call one of the Great Atheist Representatives ethically confused (to put it mildly), that you didn't do your homework. If you did, you would have noticed PZ ripping into the man with accusations and language that go far beyond what I said. Because..

If you're going to accuse someone of advocating genocide

..I never accused Hitchens of advocating genocide. I was asking you if PZ's accusations stood. And if they don't.. well, if merely suggesting Hitchens condoned Lenin's actions earns me every label you've thrown, what does it mean when PZ accuses him of everything I've quoted?

Of course, that wouldn't matter if you were just presenting your point of view. But that's not what this is about, is it? This is about you trying to be a good little True Believer, running public defense for a popular atheist figure. You can't condemn Hitchens, because he represents something important. But so does PZ Myers. And the two of them having a serious disagreement on a subject like this turns your world upside down.

Now, you can prove me wrong. PZ laid into Hitchens with disgust, and threw some heavy accusations on his lap. You can always tear into PZ - say he totally misunderstood what Hitchens was saying, that his characterizations (which include a bullet in the head for every theist) were way off, uncalled for, maybe even repulsive. But you know I'd be cheering you on, and it's not like you clear Hitch in the process. You can keep doing what you're doing, and keep trying to twist my words while ignoring everything else - but everyone can see you're going out of your way to not touch on PZ's accusations. Which makes you look (what a surprise) biased beyond belief, Hitch still looks dirty, and you look too ashamed of what PZ said to engage it.

There's a lesson in here for you, keiths. Something about not relying on insults and spin when you argue with people. Or maybe even being open minded. I'm gonna go TF2 in a bit, but perhaps you've learned a lesson.

No. Probably not.

The irony: those of you two-legged monkeys who (rightfully) consider your kind to be a blight upon our planet have been relinquishing your right to procreate, and thus subjecting yourselves to Darwinian forces.

Should this little Gaia-worship mind-virus keep spreading, the only remaining upright apes are going to be the not-so-"bright" ones (i.e., the fecund ones), who won't be smart enough to head off the Ascent of the Badgers.

So please, do continue. The Day of the Badger is coming! Look upon us and tremble!

In addition to various global sociopolitical solutions (including serious reduction of human population so the rest of us don't have to limit our consumption), there's oceanographer John Martin's "Geritol Solution." This one proposed dumping tons of iron into the Atlantic Ocean to promote plankton growth so they'd absorb CO₂ and sequester it in ocean sediments when they die.

Then there's geologist Wallace Broecker's idea of dumping massive amounts of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere, creating the human equivalent of Pinatubo. Astronomer Roger P. Angel would orbit small lenses to bend sunlight away from the planet. Trillions of them. Another Nobel laureate, Paul Crutzen, supports the stratospheric sulphur solution. NAS's president Ralph Cicerone advocates taking all such approaches seriously, and Michael Apple, president of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents is excited about "…research funding with enough zeroes on it so we can make a dent."

Proposals have included spraying saltwater mists into low ocean clouds to increase reflectivity, covering deserts in reflective films (why not solar panels instead?), and covering oceans with white plastic islands. Edward Teller (of nuclear weapons fame) was fond of a fleet of aircraft flying 365 days a year dumping toxic metals into the air. He wrote about this in The Wall Street Journal in the late '90s.

Allen Robock, a professor in the department of environmental sciences at Rutgers got together with teams from CU-Boulder and UCLA to look at how a small-scale nuclear war would cause a "Nuclear Winter" that could diminish global warming. They examined the climatic effects of smoke produced in a regional nuclear conflict (each side using 30 Hiroshima size bombs on the other side's populated urban areas), and say it would cool much of the planetary breadbasket regions by several degrees. Of course, if 100 cities were nuked, they say we'd be in trouble from too much cooling. The study was published on Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions online journal, and predicts fatalities in the tens of millions, far fewer than the projected 2-4 billion who would die of effects from Teller's metallic spraying over 6 decades. Assuming that such attempts don't make things exponentially worse, which they could.

I don't buy any of it, but it is out there.

I notice you chose to descend into ad hom instead of simply reading the links

I did read the links. None of the articles, or the people they were talking about, advocate burning forests or nuking cities to control global warming. You just made that up.

It's pretty funny to be accused of "descending into ad hominem" by someone who just got through calling me a Nazi. Earlier you accused me of not giving much to charity on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. If I criticize your thinking it's based on the evidence right here on this blog.

Someone else might eventually care enough to revoke your privileges.

"Someone" would be doing me a favor.