"the earth doesn't care if you drive a hybrid car"

... is the title (or at least a title) of this Robert Laughlin piece in the American Spectator.  Alternately entitled "What the Earth Knows," the essay argues that within the barely imaginable spans of "geologic time," the impact of human beings' carbon emissions is less than negligible.  It's a provocative thesis and leads to this great paragraph:

On the scales of time relevant to itself, the earth doesn’t care about any of these governments or their legislation. It doesn’t care whether you turn off your air conditioner, refrigerator, and television set. It doesn’t notice when you turn down your thermostat and drive a hybrid car. These actions simply spread the pain over a few centuries, the bat of an eyelash as far as the earth is concerned, and leave the end result exactly the same: all the fossil fuel that used to be in the ground is now in the air, and none is left to burn. The earth plans to dissolve the bulk of this carbon dioxide into its oceans in about a millennium, leaving the concentration in the atmosphere slightly higher than today’s. Over tens of millennia after that, or perhaps hundreds, it will then slowly transfer the excess carbon dioxide into its rocks, eventually returning levels in the sea and air to what they were before humans arrived on the scene. The process will take an eternity from the human perspective, but it will be only a brief instant of geologic time.

Laughlin recently discussed carbon and peak oil on an interesting podcast with Russ Roberts, a George Mason economist.  There, Laughlin speculates that while we may run out of oil within 60 or so years, human beings will likely begin to use liquefied coal and biofuels to create liquid fuels.  Most provocatively, Laughlin seems to suggest that human beings will never stop using carbon energy because nothing can replace it and people will never give up cars, airplanes, and the like.  The podcast's worth a listen (especially if you've got a long drive back from O'Hare!)