It's the end of the world

...as we know it. And I feel fine.

That's from a song by R.E.M., one of a couple of groups that I know off the top of my head were formed in Athens, Georgia, home of the University of Georgia, one of several universities that in some fashion or other -- with slightly different wording -- lays claim to being the oldest university in the U.S.

Chartered in 1785, it is the first state-chartered public university in the United States. 

My primary connection to UGA is they granted me and my sister both a National Merit Scholarship. My sister accepted hers and completed a degree there. I declined mine, though I've been to Athens at least three times.

I used to quote that song on TAGMAX and Cyburbia and Hacker News when discussing climate change with people wringing their hands about how global warming is the end of the world.

In spite of being asked by Valorie King, founder of The TAG Project, to please kindly be lead moderator for all her email lists after six weeks of being a moderator on just TAGMAX, I was never really respected or taken seriously there. 

In spite of Dan Tasman, owner of Cyburbia, responding to my request that he read my college paper and give me feedback on my imaginary proposal by saying he wasn't sure when he could set up a Citizen Planners subforum for me to moderate, I was also never respected or taken seriously there.

In spite of being what appears to be the only woman to have ever made the leaderboard of Hacker News -- and I've done it twice under two different handles -- I was never respected or taken seriously there.

I'm a few classes short of a Bachelor's of Science in Environmental Resource Management. I wanted to be an urban planner and make a career of addressing how humans can live with climate change and mitigate climate change, but everyone acts like I'm just a former homemaker and homeless person and CLEARLY delusional and smoking crack and in denial about the seriousness of the situation and I couldn't possibly have an informed opinion about what's going on.

Sweetie, 

1. Climate change has been going on since the dawn of time.

2. Yes, I'm well aware YOU are talking about UNNATURAL, human caused climate change, not NORMAL climate change.

Sorry you're stupid. Humans are animals native to Earth and we are part of the ecosystem here and all animals impact the functioning of the ecosystem, not just us SPECIAL animals with opposable thumbs who imagine no other animals use tools, just us.

Alligators make gator holes to climb into so they still have water when their swamp gets too dry. This makes them a keystone species:

A keystone species is a species that has a disproportionately large effect on its natural environment relative to its abundance.

If you removed all ants from planet Earth, life as we know it would cease to exist. They are everywhere and they are critical to life as we know it.

I know, I know, stop hyperventilating. YOU, poor baby, still need VALIDATION that YOU have a POINT and want to talk about the piece of this WE have control over.

In other words, YOU want someone else to stop flying or driving while you veto investment in a local bus system or pedestrian friendly design, though you will give "thoughts and prayers" to this urgent crisis by watching Not Just Bikes on YouTube and telling yourself it would be wonderful to live in Amsterdam BUT it's unrealistic to live without a car in the US.

While pissing on me online, a chick who has lived without a car in the pedestrian-hostile US for something like two decades.

Reality: The Earth is not DYING due to the selfish stupidity of well heeled humans. What you are worried about is humans cutting their own throats.

After we make the planet uninhabitable for humans, Mother Nature will shuffle the deck and deal a new hand of solitaire and continue her card game without us.