A small essay I wrote a few years ago:

Not a denier, but I think there's a few things to understand. One, look at the history of this world, it's atmosphere has changed composition many many times through its long history, before we were even a dream in our ancestral DNA.

Two, the amount of change occurring seems to me to vastly over stated. There's change. Sure we caused it, we're a part of this planet, our activities affect the planet. Have to a utter moron to deny that.

Three, on a whole, the big picture, civilization on the whole, is not changing, and its not going to change. We're going to keep building factories and cutting down forests. No matter how loudly you people scream, business will go on.

And most important of all! We are humans, the most adaptable creature this planet has produced so far. We will adapt to the changes around us. Also, there's this talk of 'positive feedback', a cycle has been started that feeds back on itself and grows, we have NO CLUE how to stop it, even if we stopped all emissions this very instant, the feedback loop has already begun. We will simply have to adapt now. Good thing we're the most adaptable species on the earth.

The only debatable point in this whole argument is.. how fast? Stuff is changing, the only part we can even hope to affect is how fast it's changing. Will cutting emissions slow the change? Hell if I know, I don't think anyone can answer that with any certainty. We barely understand the planetary mechanics going on around us. We like to think we do, FFS, we can't even predict the weather a week out. You expect us to predict how emissions are affecting the climate? Wishful thinking, really REALLY wishful arrogant thinking.

Of course, it's utter folly to think we can force a unchanging climate that is perfect for us, all the time, for thousands of years to come. Existence itself is defined by change. The title of a favorite song of mine sticks in my head: The only constant in the universe is change.

From articles I've read, a feedback loop in the atlantic ocean is already triggered. Genie is out of the bottle. Adapt or die.

As an avid user of encryption without a point (I run a lot of encryption on the net noise just cuz I can), I love it when government get all in a panty-twist about it. Raise the awareness, make more people understand it's usefulness. Get the hell out of my communications.

...they just passed the cost of retaining all that metadata to the telcos. I pity the telcos.

...On polls in the wrong place on this site. WTF Slashdot? I'mma stop reading this site if you keep making stupid unwanted changes.

Agree with this. This is a stupid change. Put it back on the side. Who asked for this?

PGP was created and promoted 20 frickin' years ago and mainstream websites are just now noticing? LMFAO.

On the subject of jobs being automated, I recommend this video. Amazing stuff. Mechanical minds are pretty serious stuff.

...and Google taketh away. Been here, done this, several times. Not surprising.

If they operate on the same frequencies as WiFi, seems like it might be a little difficult to discern between a drone's comm WiFi and background WiFi in whatever area they operate. Hell, you could mimic a SSID in the area to further hide behind.

For now. But that won't last, automation is going to take over this stuff, and very soon. Especially when people see it's safer to have computers operating these things than humans. Unions have pull now, but they will lose eventually, they always lose to automation. Always will.

Union is lucky honestly, trains are prime targets for automation. Would seem like it'd have been a lot smarter to just do away with drivers and tele-operate/automate all train engines. The days of having a human on board are very very numbered. I think the cameras is a waste of time and money. Just automate/centralize it already.

Also calling them engineers is stupid. Train operators long ago diverged from what engineers are. They're operators.

Are you suggesting nature gives a f about us? We will go extinct, and probably by our own doing. Everything that has a beginning has an end.

Personally, I think the whole debate against human activity being 'unnatural' is stupid. We are a product of this planet, what we do is natural, we aren't some extra-terrestrial interfering with our planet, we're natives living here, influencing our world. For better, or for worse. And a lot of in between.

I don't think you'd be here typing that if the dinosaurs didn't go extinct. Extinction is not bad, nor is it good, it simply is. It is evolution.

David Cameron needs to watch this video.