Those who are skeptical about carbon dioxide greenhouse warming might profitably note the massive greenhouse effect on Venus. No one proposes that Venus's greenhouse effect derives from imprudent Venusians who burned too much coal, drove fuel-inefficient autos, and cut down their forests. My point is different. The climatological history of our planetary neighbor, an otherwise Earthlike planet on which the surface became hot enough to melt tin or lead, is worth considering - especially by those who say that the increasing greenhouse effect on Earth will be self-correcting, that we don't really have to worry about it, or (you can see this in the publications of some groups that call themselves conservative) that the greenhouse effect is a "hoax."
Carl SaganRelated topics
call carbon considering cut different dioxide earth enough greenhouse hot history hoax increasing lead might neighbor note planetary point see surface warming worry worthRelated quotes
She was worried about childbirth too cause she's little, you know. She's all scared. She's like, "When I have this kid, I want to be knocked out and unconscious." And I'm like "That's how ya were when you got pregnant!" That's full circle, right there! I did feel bad. That's tough. I'm tellin' ya. I felt horrible for her. Just pushing, and sweating, and screaming at the top of her lungs, and pushing and sweating, biting down on a stick... Ugh! Now she knows how I feel after a couple of Hot Pockets. You ever eat them Hot Pockets? Good Lord! I was backed up like a urinal on Saint Patrick's Day after eating them damn things. It was embarrassing. She's in the bed, giving b-[Grunting] I'm on the toilet next to her, [grunting] You know? I'm like "I need another Epidural in here if you got one!"
Larry the Cable Guy
The final result will be that the American people will ultimately prefer communities. They will cop out or opt out of the system. Today everything is a bureaucratic structure, and brainwashed people who are not personalities are trained to fit into this bureaucratic structure and say it is a great life--although I would assume that many on their death beds must feel otherwise. The process of copping out will take a long time, but notice: we are already copping out of military service on a wholesale basis; we are already copping out of voting on a large scale basis. ...People are also copping out by refusing to pay any attention to newspapers or to what's going on in the world, and by increasing emphasis on the growth of localism, what is happening in their own neighborhoods.
Carroll Quigley
There's no forgiveness built into the system. I told Barbara so, dozens of times. She was always marching off to save the whales, save the trees, save some goddamn thing. It was endearing. But in the back of my head I always heard Dad's voice: ‘This is only a holding action. Nothing is ever really saved.' Barbara thought the greenhouse effect was like a virus, something you could stop if you came up with the right vaccine. I told her it was a cancer-the cancer of humanity on the vital organs of the earth. You can't stop that by marching.”
"Isn't that a little like giving up?”
"I think it's called acceptance.”
Archer stood and walked to the door, where his silhouette obscured the motion of the trees.
"Very bleak attitude, Tom.
Robert Charles Wilson
.. I went to live in my studio on the first of May [? ]... I have not had a hot dinner more than perhaps six or seven times since. I have lived then and I do so here, not having money for dinner, because the work costs me too much and I have trusted too much on my being strong enough to hold out. Now I have made it worse by smoking a great deal, which I do the more because then one does not feel an empty stomach so much... My opinion is that one must not think that the people whose health is damaged, quite or partly, are no good for painting... It fell so unexpectedly on me, I had been feeling weak and feverish, but I went on notwithstanding, but I began to feel worried when more and more teeth broke off, and I began to look more and more ill.
Vincent van Gogh
Take more room, examine my 'Gate' from a little farther off, and you will see once more the effect of the whole - the effect of unity which charms you when it is deprived of its ornamentation. You must understand that my sculpture is so calculated as to melt into the principal masses. For that matter, it completes them by modeling them into the light. The essential designs are there: it is possible that in the course of the final work I may find it necessary to diminish such or such a projection, to fill out such or such a pool of shadow; nevertheless, leave this difficulty to my fifty years of artisanship and experience, and you may be sure that quite by myself I shall find the best way of finishing my work.
Auguste Rodin