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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026

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CO2 is the gas of life

It appears that some life-forms on the motte are still bitter about the Great Oxidation Event, when the gas of life was largely replaced by unnatural toxins such as oxygen. Glad to see that someone is pushing back against the Eukaryote chauvinism so common here!

FWIW, I agree that life on Earth will be fine whatever the CO2 levels are. As the saying goes, there are no bad environmental conditions, only ill-adapted species. With regard to whiny polar bears and corals, it is really their own fault for having picked ecological niches which are going away. Still, in a few hundred million years we will probably have at least as much biodiversity as we have today. It is not Earth's first extinction event, and it will not be Earth's last either.

Even humans as a species will be fine -- as reflected in our Least Concern vulnerability rating. Sure, individual human populations might die, but realistically humans die all the time. If we started caring on that level then we would have to wet our pants every time a world war happens. Preposterous. We might as well start caring about individual humans while we are at it.