Dangerously close to 'the end always justifies the means' type of mentality, Adam.

I agree, polluting the earth is bad. I, for myself, am actually a very conscientious person when it comes to the environment. I am a no-trace camper, I clean up trash out at the shooting range, for hell's sake i take the barbs off my fishing hooks, just so it doesn't damage the fish when I 'catch and release'.

It does annoy me that people throw their beer cans into the rivers and create and stuff landfills by the millions of metric tons per day. But I think there are enough laws and regulations out there, each man compelling his fellows to act as he does, to value what he values, to think like he thinks, to abhore what he dislikes.

Oh yea. and I also DENY that we pollute the shit out of the planet. I think there is still plenty of shit in the planet, there are natural cycles that are ever in motion, ever correcting our impact. Every lighthing strike creates many tens of thousands of cubic meters of ozone. The earth is rife with bacteria that are busily breaking down the diapers you throw away. The sun beats down on all our plastics, the very air is taking apart the door panels of our cars, one molecule at a time.

We might be outpacing the machines of entropy and natural balance for the time being, but eventually, inevitably, those wheels have never stopped, and will never stop, but we Humans, will someday.

Remember, all that stuff coming out of your SUV came from the earth. It existed here before you, it will exist here after you, it has a natural place in the world and no matter what chemical form it is converted to, there are inverse natural processes that will restore it to stability, just like everything else.

Entropy.

I read the article you posted, and it is interesting. Here is a quote from it.

"You can see with this dataset that what is happening in the Antarctic is not what would be expected from a straightforward global warming scenario, but a much more complicated set of events," Parkinson said.

Following some of the space.com links next to the article provide glimpses of that complexity. To bad politics gets into it, we could all be waiting for the last word when--ta dah!--its spoken!! I have a better idea. I have no bragging rights because I haven't done these things myself, but I'm beginning to see what I/we should be doing. Planting gardens together with our neighbors, learning what grows well locally, learning about our water sources, creating water catchment systems, learning about soil improvement and doing little applications on whatever size piece of ground we have access to, apologizing to the entire countries and cultures whose land, food, and livelihoods we have co-opted and diverted to our own use, and giving it back depleted as it is. Then we have an opportunity to help them recreate something locally sustainable that will feed them again and give them clean water.

The first step is the hardest. What will I do to start? I'm renting a room in a house. I put a few strawberries and tomatoes in the ground outside my door. I pay attention and spread the word, but so far I'm mostly all talk.