The deeply weird AmericanConscience.org begins with this Fred Hoyle quote:
It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing high intelligence this is not correct. We have, or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance, and one chance only. (Of Men and Galaxies 1964)
I'm not so worried about energy. Even if we exhaust all useful fossil resources on this planet, and even if fossil fuels are an absolute necessity for developing an industrial civilization like ours, at maximum a few hundred million years of sunlight shining on the plants and oceans should suffice to regenerate them. So yeah, some patience is required, but that gives evolution time to develop new interesting creatures to burn the fuels. And there's plenty of time: our sun should last for a few billion more years. And I'm not even certain that fossil fuels are strictly required. Could you run a society similar to ours strictly on wood and vegetable oil? It might be smaller, skinnier, and (to our taste) poorer, but I don't see why it's impossible.
I'm even less convinced by the exhaustion of metal ores, though I have to admit I know less about this area. Metals have concentrated in particular rocks via long geological processes. Our species has simply altered and accelerated those element movements, they have not (with the exception of fission fuels, oops there goes another energy source) permanently destroyed those atoms. In fact, the fossil remains of the rusting hulks of the bridges and buildings that our species may leave behind could be a very useful source of highly refined iron, much better than the stuff we had to work with. Nor will the ancient geological processes which led to the ores we had stop once we're gone, though like the buildup of fossil fuels, it could take while.
No, the planet will be okay, and advanced civilization on this planet seems as likely to recur as it was to occur in the first place. The only reason to care is a selfish, shorterm desire to protect this civilization, our species, our families. In the long run, the rest of the universe can take care of itself.
At Pharyngula, one of the more bombastic of the moonbat blogs I frequent[1], hysterical atheist[2] blogger PZ Meyers spent some effort ripping into some other guy, apparently of the evangelical American Christian persuasion, named Joe Carter. Standard stuff, really. If I were to tell you that the only socially accepted demographic bias in liberal circles is against adherents of any popular American religion, you wouldn't find much here to contradict me, but again that's nothing unusual.
What's interesting is that both Joe and PZ, along with lots of others, wade in through the comments, and despite the quantities of muck flying in all directions some interesting shiny rocks emerge. Only a lunatic would read the whole thing, but to give a flavor of the discussion, I've included part of one comment from near the end, selected solely because I get quoted, and (in honor of Monday) rendered in Pharyngula's convenient "Talk like a pirate" mode:
Raven \u2014 09/16 at 04:39 AM This little dog-leg in logic really confused me fer a moment:CGlace: If an argument is formally invalid then th' conclusion can ne'er be true, to be sure.
TFox: This would seem t' imply that all I need t' do t' disprove somethin' is come up with a formally invalid argument fer it. Is this what ye meant t' say, or have I misunderstood?
CGlace: Nay, I am sayin' that th' conclusion can ne'er follow from an invallid argument. I am not sayin' that given another set o' propositions th' conclusion still isn't true.
TFox's point seems obviously true and well-taken, and it seems that CGlace is just makin' up a universe in which conclusions can simultaneously be true and untrue.
Then I figured out how CGlace's universe works--it is totally disconnected from th' physical world, and a bucket o' chum. Maybe it is th' realm o' Platonic idealism discussed on other threads; I am not enough o' a specialist in philosophy t' say, we'll keel-haul ye! But if ye assume that conclusions are nothin' but symbols, it doesn't matter what truth value ye attach t' them: X can be true one minute, and false th' next, pace CGlace, and it doesn't matter--conclusions are nothin' more than arbitrary values ye attach t' variables.
If, on th' other hand, ye assume that conclusions are connected t' real-world objects in some way, then th' physical constraints o' th' real world prohibit somethin' bein' simultaneously "true" and "false" (at least at any level o' granularity greater than th' quantum one).
Makes me feel like I'm back in college.
[1] Yes, I'm aware that even more bombastic stuff is out there. No need to send me links to DailyKuss or whatever it's called.
[2] Don't try to tell me you don't know the type.