OK, this isn't about any political agenda, any rights or wrongs, just an observation:

a couple of years ago I took a geology class in college & the professor mentioned a very disturbing thing:

it seems that we are living in a statistically unusual era of relatively stable mean temperatures. This period began about 10,000 years ago, around the dawn of civilization.

Just a coincidence, I suppose. Civilization, stable environment and all that.

Before this, the "norm" on Earth has been relatively wild fluctuation in temperatures - heat, drought, cold, wet, heat, wind, drought, wet - bam-bam-bam.

The disturbing thing is that no one really understands or can explain why the Earth decided to suddenly become pleasant about 10,000 years ago.

It just did.

So, since we don't know why this happened, but we do know that it's not the "norm", it is reasonable to assume that the Earth may at some time distant or near decide to rescind the balmy weather and throw us back into a whirlwind of climate change that would make even Al Gore tremble.

All without the intercession of man, or very much man could do about it other than hang on, procreate, and sustain the species while huddled in caves spinning yarns about the good old days (Gods old days) back when there was a thing called civilization.

stability in number of years?

I'd like to see his evidence for that

yup. but i figure it's like taking a plane flight. why worry about crashing when you are already in the air? u can't do anything about it I-Man let it ride!

Your professor was right Dar-al-Islam: Our species, homo sapien, has blossumed in this 10,000 year period. While our highs in many realms are magnificent, we also have significant blotches. And, we may die out at any moment, as have thousands of other species.

Humans really do not have much time. We can try to correct our ways and help the Earth maintain an environment supportive of our species. We can work hard to adapt our life to tenuous environments, such as the ocean or outer space. We can hunker down as small communities living in caves, mountain tops, and hidden valleys--for the next 10,000 years.

I believe from personal bottom to worldwide top, and all the governing levels in between, we need to, absolutely must, invest resources, time, and effort in every realm--or this species too shall pass.

What can you and I do? Your post to The Fray is a start. Copy it and send it to your congressmen. Send a copy to the President and leaders in the House and Senate. Take mass transit or, at least, buy a "green" car. Pick one advocacy group and spend time and money to help them succeed. In conversation with family, friends, or fellow workers, describe your feelings and actions. Do what comes naturally: get mad and make others listen!

Sitting on the ground, watching our purchased legislators deny reality does not carry the same scary import as your hypothetical plane crash. (I wouldn't worry either: There are ways to survive an in-air emergency. Get out of the plane quickly with at least a good blanket. Never say die!)

I copied a segment fromn Wikipedia on an author, a philosopher, who you would find beneficial:

Heidegger claimed that Western philosophy has, since Plato, misunderstood the nature of being, tending to treat it as a being rather than asking about being itself. Philosophers and scientists have overlooked the more basic, pre-theoretical ways of being from which their theories derive, and, in applying those theories universally, have confused our understanding of human existence. To avoid these deep-rooted misconceptions, Heidegger believed philosophical inquiry must be conducted in a new way, through a process of retracing the steps of the history of philosophy.

Heidegger argues that Plato's fallacies resulted in two evolving but contradictory schools of thought, most readily observed during the Age of Reason as the division between British empiricism and Continental idealism, but traceable to every stage of Western thought. All that we understand, from the way we speak to our notions of "common sense," is susceptible to error, because it has evolved from Plato's fundamental mistakes about the nature of being. These mistakes filter into the terms through which being is articulated in the history of philosophy—reality, logic, God, consciousness, the present, et cetera. In his later philosophy, Heidegger argues that these errors have profoundly affected the way in which human beings relate to modern technology.

Philosophers are divided in their opinion of Heidegger: some regard him as the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century, while others view his writing as bombastic nonsense.[1] Nonetheless, his work has exercised a deep influence on philosophy, theology and the humanities, being key to the development of existentialism, hermeneutics, deconstruction, postmodernism, and Continental philosophy in general. Heidegger's thought directly informs the works of major philosophers such as Karl Jaspers, Leo Strauss, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jean-Paul Sartre, Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida.

Heidegger infamously supported National Socialism. This has provoked fierce debate among and between supporters and detractors: some see it as a personal folly largely irrelevant to his philosophy, while others think it reveals flaws inherent in his thought.