Save the Planet

I think George Carlin is an existential genius of comedy. While I try not to adopt his cynical, jaded perspective on the world, I often find myself agreeing with his message. This is a video of one of Carlin's unmistakable diatribes regarding climate change and "saving the planet:"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw
Of course Carlin's argument is riddled with logical fallacies. People do not actually worry every minute of the day about the earth's air quality. Pollution does cause significant suffering for animal species other than homo sapiens. Yet Carlin brings up a number of points that do legitimately force me to examine the stigma around pollution and climate change. Ultimately, what DOES it matter if the climate changes? As Carlin points out, nature has no planned course. Nature does not have disdain for plastic, or any other pollutant. What if our purpose on this planet WAS to invent plastic? For two billion years, earth had no mechanism for breaking down wood. Ultimately, however, nature found a way for wood to decompose. Who is to say that in a few million years, plastic-eating bacteria will not evolve and support more life on earth than wood does now?
         Amid his twisted logic, I completely agree that the whole "save-the-planet" movement is based not around regard for the planet itself, but for the people living on the planet at this moment. We have evolved to be a self-centered species. After all, does the natural process of evolution not denote that in order for a species to survive they must be willing and able to work in their own self-interest? Let me give an example. Suppose you consider yourself an environmentally aware individual. You are faced with two options: you continue having access to your car or you have your car taken away for so called "environmental reasons." Of course, you would choose to keep your car. While this might seem like an absurd example, it illustrates how fundamentally dependent we are on industry that cannot help but pollute the planet. Even hybrid cars rely on batteries powered by electricity, the majority of which, at its origin, is generated by coal or oil based power plants. With our increasing expectation of standard of living increases (as well as the effects of such economic forces as the Jevons paradox, which I outlined in a blog a few weeks ago), I feel completely hopeless in this campaign to lower carbon emissions. I will do it for economic reasons (i.e. lower my payments or those of PA), but I find it hard to convince myself that turning off my computer speakers when I leave my room will make any difference to the state of the environment. And as Carlin points out, who gives a shit? The planet will recover. Even if our carbon emissions raise the temperature of the atmosphere, life will adjust. It might take thousands or millions of years, during which time humanity dies out. But Carlin points out rightly that we are by no means the worst disaster earth has witnessed in 4.5 billion years. I know this post has little to do with a specific news story in the news this week, but I feel it addresses a prevailing attitude in modern society that I, like Carlin, believe is arrogant and misleading. I would greatly prefer "Preserve the Planet" or "Save the Human Way of Life."