Da tese sobre a incapacidade do homem alterar o clima...

Dois apontamentos (ainda a-propósito da nota anterior):

1. O que se passou, e está a passar, no Mar Aral (ver as fotografias acima) é um bom contra-exemplo da validade da tese referida em epígrafe:
   
   

   The Aral Sea Disappears: NASA Photos EcoGeek - Clean Technology
   
   

   "In a series of dramatic photos, NASA has been able to capture the disappearance of the Aral Sea from space. In the 1960's Russia diverted water from several major rivers to irrigation projects for growing cotton and other crops. The result has been the complete destruction of one what was once the fourth largest inland sea in the world. NASA's ability to document this entirely unprecedented event is not only fascinating, but it's a lesson to how quickly entire ecosystems (and the societies that rely on them) can collapse. The Aral sea was once surrounded by villages that relied on the Aral seas fisheries. Those towns are now all but deserted, and fishing boats sit on dry land. Next time some nutjob tells you that humanity is too insignificant to really destroy the environment in significant ways, just send them to this page."



2. A outra, é particularmente curiosa: encontrei-a, ao ler (o muito interessante) "The Romantic Economist", de Richard Bronk, Cambridge - (o contexto que determinou a citação não interessa aqui). Refere-se a um comentário, feito em 1791, por um filósofo alemão, Herder, que passo a transcrever:
   
   
   
   

   "Since climate is a compound of forces and influences to which both plants and
   animals contribute, serving all that is alive within a relationship of mutual
   interaction, it stands to reason that man, too, has a share, nay a dominant
   role, in altering it through his creativity ... Once Europe was a dark forest
   and the same was true of other, now cultived, regions. The forests have been
   cleared and, as a result, the climate and the inhabitants underwent a change"
   

   Bronk cita, logo a seguir, o que diz ainda Herder:

   "By suddenly cutting down entire forests and cultivating the soil, the whole
   balance of nature - which ought to be considered with the utmost care - is
   disturbed ... The rapid destruction of the woods and cultivation of land in
   America not only lessened the number of edible birds which were originally found
   invast quantities in the forests and lakes and rivers, and the suupply of fish;
   it not only diminished the lakes, streams and springs, but it also seemed to
   affect the health and longevity of the inhabitants"

   Isto era dito no início da Revolução Industrial, há dois séculos atrás, na ausência do conhecimento das suas consequências futuras, do uso extensivo e intensivo dos carburantes fósseis, e de tudo o mais. Este alemão, num sentido fundamental, é mais contemporâneo nosso (daqueles que que não aceitam a tese em epígrafe) do que o é o Blasfémias e os seus amigos (ver nota anterior).