Four-and-a-half billion years of existence of asteroids hitting the planet, volcano eruptions that caused prolonged winters and anywhere from five to twenty "mass extinctions" that scientists are trying to piece together.  After all that because humans, in their short 500,000 year "dominance" of the planet, exhale and occasionally eat a Wooly Mammoth or saunter into an Outback Steakhouse for a substandard prime rib will cause this delicate flower of a planet to explode like the Death Star.  C'mon!  By the way,  Bill Nye is an actor, not a scientist.  He was an engineer at Boeing before going into stand-up comedy.  

Yeah... I don't care to comment on the science part, because that's already being debated and I think anyone with their head on straight realizes science can help us survive as a species (or destroy us).  But MUSICALLY, these things always depress the shit out of me. They're not particularly pretty to my ears. They're some random background elevator music with autotuned speech, and it just sounds messy and cheap to my ears... So I'm always surprised when I hear people gushing about these being "beautiful".  Maybe the sentiment is beautiful, but the music is just plain mediocre. Autotuning is evil, and without the autotuned speech, all you have is middle-of-the-road tunes that wouldn't sound out of place in George Romero's shopping mall on Dawn of the Dead. They have no "meat"-- They're just meandering, soulless piano. I'd expect this in some boring dude's PowerPoint presentation about the marketing applications of breakfast cereal boxes. But then, you people buy Lady Gaga and Lil Wayne CDs, and think Green Day is punk, so I am just plain outnumbered and surrounded by music haters, I think. I bet you all like Creed, too.

The meat industry is something I think a lot about. Just before summer, I became a vegetarian. There were many reasons for my decision, and, considering you are probably aware of them, I wont get into specifics. My only regret is that I didn't switch sooner. I feel healthier. Less guilty. I, too, don't talk about it a lot, though do have my nifty Mercy for Animals "Ask me Why I'm Vegetarian" shirt. Eventually, I think I will become vegan. In fact, for the month of October, I'll be eating vegan. I want to see how easy it is on campus. I like that quote. Time and again, I'll hear people argue that what we do doesn't matter because people wont stop, or "I'd become a vegetarian if there was any hope to stop eating meat." But I can't live like that. There were so, so many things that people look down upon that were once just 'a thing everyone did.' I don't consider myself above the average human, but take pride in knowing I've stood up for what I believe. Thanks for your encouraging words. I'm glad I'm not alone. It's a bit strange, really, to find like-minded people on, of all places, a site called Topless Robot!

Thanks for mentioning the meat industry. I don't usually talk about being vegan (I despise evangelizing of any kind), but if someone asks me about it then I'll discuss it with them. And in the past year I've had two friends stop eating meat. Now, I'm not so egotistical as to think they changed because of me, but I do know (because they told me) that my example helped persuade them. And sure, two people out of the dozens I know and the billions on Earth may not mean much, but it's a small step in the right direction. So, thanks for caring, and please, do not give up. Like Angel says in Epiphany: "If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do."

Kill you? But I don't even know you. No, I was just trying to be silly in my previous post, pardon me if you thought I was being a troll. 

Yup. Money is very destructive. People try to help the environment, but all these higher-ups and business lobbyists end up destroying many of the efforts. It's all about the other green for them. The resistance to change is ends up slowing technological advances. If they were pouring money into green initiatives instead of lobbying, perhaps we'd be better off. But that's how it always is. There's a disconnect between us and the environment. Ohio legislators have been debating for seven years over puppy mill regulations, and now some politicians are trying to weaken it so 'people can afford dogs.' If we can't even protect our companions, how can we protect the rest of the world? At least there are people like us. We just have to keep moving forward.

Bill Nye, the Dickhead Guy

As a climate scientist, this is by far my favorite Symphony of Science!!!!

As a climate scientist, this is by far my favorite Symphony of Science

You missed David Attenborough's voiceover.  Modern day hero.

 First words out of my mouth everyday.

East Anglia was doing what again with their data?

You know, if your goal is the extinction of mankind, I can think of one thing you can do that is guaranteed to put the world closer to that goal.

same here dude, but it does put hope in that there are people like us that out there who try to do shit  Its not just politics, also about money and just people reluctant to change the habits, even minor because it works for them before. Even slight changes could point us in the right deraction but the other problem is when we ignore biodiversity and the ecosystem for climate change. like Biofuel, it does more damage to the ecosystem at huge levels because we apply economic thinking to a environmental view. Its how much is it worth to them, so if a important but fragile system is put into money worth they gain less compare to destructive bio fuels, guess where the money is going to go

Since when are singing robots so damn popular?

I'm with you in that I want to make a difference regardless of what I do. That being said, I used to recycle and try to counteract the irresponsible people out there wrecking the environment until I realized it was a totally losing battle. So now I've flip-flopped and gone to the other side in an attempt to hasten our environment's increasing toxicity towards our species, hoping we will be gone from the planet in a few hundred years. Only then will I feel I have made a difference. But even so, there's only so much litter I can throw out my car window, forest fires I can start, chemicals I can dump in rivers, etc. It seems like either way, I won't make a difference in my lifetime. And to me, that's the saddest thing I can think of.   [sigh]

Yeah... fucking universe!!! Fuck you, Universe!!!

The universe did far worse things to our planet than humanity had ever done. It has bombarded Earth with asteroid. Possibly once with a planetoid (one of the theories about how the Moon was created). It continuously bombards Earth with meteors. It has aimed a devastating gamma burster directly at Earth. BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! The Earth itself has a tendency to screw itself up with super volcanoes. 1 super volcano eruption = centuries of pollution. In conclusion, GFY.

I'm an environmental science/biology double major, and I must say...Environmental majors are the most depressing, especially if you, like me, love nature and animals. Economics has nothing on us. Every class basically comes down to "We are destroying the planet but people won't do anything about it." The Great Lakes and oceans are polluted, species extinction rates are off the charts, we over-fish and are destroying marine ecosystems. Over 70 million sharks are taken each year by humans, mostly for their fins. Trophy hunters are attempting to reinstate lead bullets in the US. We know how to change things, but it all comes down to politics. In order to help the earth, we need to change so much of our lives, more than just riding our bikes and using compost piles. To put it into perspective, the meat industry, on top of being abusive to animals and workers, produces more greenhouse gases than all automobiles, ships, and planes combined. No one wants to look at what we take for granted. Sorry for that little tangent, but it's definitely something I feel strongly about. Horrible that there's so little I can do.

 sigh. Part of me wants to do my part reverse what people have done to the planet..then the other part just wants to ignore it so mankind perishes and earth can fix itself and continue on its journey.

Absolutely brilliant. If I weren't such a terrible ADD inflicted child I would have worked on being a scientist or astronomer. I still think the Carl Sagan videos were better, but this is yet another amazing symphony.