None Like it Hot!

My father in Law told me this morning that it is supposed to be the hottest day of the year today. This got my brain thinking about global warming, a subject, quite rightly, that i have to teach to every year and age group at school.

As animals at the top of the food chain we can have quite a dramatic effect on the world around us; it is true that if we kill off a major phylum of insect then we are doomed, if we were to be wiped off the face of the planet then everything else would be quite happy and carry on evolving - no harm done.

So we are nothing and everything all at once. We could look upon our existance and evolution as completely natural, that us reaching breaking point and killing off complex life on Earth is just a natural step in earth's history. On the other hand as the only 'intelligent' inhabitants of this planet we should feel morally obligated to control our activities to limit our impact on the other poor wreched organisms which have pulled the short straw of sharing a planet with us.

What I'm getting at is if we decide to control our activities we prolong our demise and fulfil our moral obligation; that life on earth as we know it may continue a little longer. Life has changed immeasurably over the past billion years and will change again in the next billion, our demise will come sooner or later, it's natural and no-one else will care.