“The benefits of carbon dioxide supplementation on plant growth and production within the greenhouse environment have been well understood for many years. For the majority of greenhouse crops, net photosynthesis increases as CO2 levels increase from 340–1,000 ppm (parts per million). Most crops show that for any given level of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), increasing the CO2 level to 1,000 ppm will increase the photosynthesis by about 50% over ambient CO2 levels. For some crops the economics may not warrant supplementing to 1,000 ppm CO2 at low light levels. For others such as tulips, and Easter lilies, no response has been observed."

A bigger problem is positive feedback loops. Melting ice means more dark water to absorb sunlight, and more melting. Melting permafrost releases CO2 and Methane and causes more warming. And somewhere around ~5 degrees warming the frozen methane on the ocean floor will bubble up and cause the mother of all feedback cycles. We'd be in for about 10 degrees warming and a mass extinction that would wipe out 90% or more of all species on Earth. From what I've seen of global warming predictions we won't get there - but I'm mentioning this because at some point warming temperatures doesn't just mean major changes and flooding our cities - at some point it means a terrible calamity like the Earth has only occasionally seen.

Historically we've had much more CO2 in the atmosphere than we do now. Why didn't the methane bubble up and kill everything then?

I think it's much more plausible that we'll go the route Asimov predicted in "Caves of Steel" - genetically modified and processed yeasts, which are much more calorie dense than seaweed, and much better suited to the sort of industrial process that feeding 10+ billion people requires.

You might argue the "might makes right" perspective that anything within our capability is acceptable and appropriate but I don't agree with that sentiment. I feel that we, as sentient/semi-sapient beings, must be as custodians for this world and all the life within it.

We are actually the least among all, until we begin to serve the rest of this planet that has seen us to this point.

"It is based on a recognition of the astonishing beauty of things and their living wholeness, and on a rational acceptance of the fact that mankind is neither central nor important in the universe; our vices and blazing crimes are as insignificant as our happiness. […] Turn outward from each other, so far as need and kindness permit, to the vast life and inexhaustible beauty beyond humanity. This is not a slight matter, but an essential condition of freedom, and of moral and vital sanity.’

[1] http://dark-mountain.net/stories/books/book-1/the-falling-ye...

This is false.

I believe that this assumption was addressed accordingly by Thucydides in his account of the Peloponnesian war around 400 BC.

If you believe that might makes right the time where you will find yourself in a situation of disadvantage will come and then the precedent you have set might come back and haunt you in ways you never had thought possible.

ps. ofc here we're talking about nature and believing that we're might against nature as a species is blasphemy. The earth (the planet) will survive, our species will not :-)

Like mosquitos, ticks and other disease-carrying insects that kill 1 million humans every year.

Like non-human fauna.

Another thing to consider is that the less diversity exists the harder it is for life to continue.

Actually, it's your view that's human-centric. Species? Diversity? These are human concepts and mores.

> There is no time for evolution to work over the 200 years this last change happened.

Evolution doesn't "work". It's merely the process of natural and sexual selection. The flora and fauna are constantly being sculpted by the environment, even a rapidly changing one. And there is no evidence to suggest similarly rapid shifts haven't occurred in the past. In fact, there is evidence that they did and life went on.

Just curious about what drives that particular viewpoint. Why do you care about the survival of the species? When you die, the world ends. It doesn't really matter what happens after that, does it? You could be dead two milliseconds and then a big rock hits the Earth and everything is gone. Still it doesn't impact you, because you are dead. And I am asking for the sake of discussion, purely.

Only humans have this: http://www.vhemt.org/

And the thing is that the prosperity of the human species in the last century has been made largely at the expense of the Earth as whole.

The fact that our recent prosperity has come at the expense of the Earth is only bad in so far as that harm to the Earth is harmful to humans too. The two are linked, but not identical. The only way to eliminate human-induced harm to the Earth would be to eliminate humans, so the goal needs to be mitigation of harm and where possible moving harm to the Earth into areas that affect humans less.

You know exactly what I mean by "work". The current 6'th mass extinction (Holocene) is currently ongoing. The species responsible for this has no natural enemies against which we compete and will therefore continue unabated until all resources have been consumed and the system collapses. Just like it always has.

This isn't remotely true. There are tons of bacteria and viruses which are parasitic towards us. We compete against them.

Nevermind the fact that the greatest competition always comes from your own species. The greatest check on human expansion and prosperity is humanity. We kill, maim, and restrict each other on grand scales.

There is also no historical evidence that a single species has ever been responsible for a mass extinction, so I find it odd that you're assuming we'll be the first when there is a historical record that spans billions of years. That's just arrogance.