I suppose there will be some comments on this post. Some of those will center on mankind's obligations, based upon his/her consciousness of being. Inasmuch as I treat our existence as a fluke of evolution, rather than divine interventionism, I find any pontifications about the wrongness vs. rightness of "wrecking the earth" moot. I have written some things about this---but no one is listening----much, or yet. Pontifications can go either way, it seems.
Here is my own synopsis of the wrecking of the earth, in 500 words or less:
1. We will wreck the earth (for a time, anyway), because we can. Consciousness is our advantage, and our probable doom.
2. Carrying forward #1 a bit, our human consciousness, with all its advantages, carries particular disadvantages, among those denial, rationalization (are they the same, essentially?), arrogance and vanity. We seem to believe we can DO anything; FIX anything---some seers in faith have called these things vain imaginings. I agree, although not for the same reason(s).
3. The things that live on earth are but a fraction of those that have ever lived here. Mankind's centuries(?) are numbered, for the above-enumerated reasons and more. This is why science is searching for a way out; a place to go; and some way to get there. Scientists are realists and smarter than most of us---if anything can preserve the human species, science will do so.I'm not counting on it, though. I won't be here. And you won't either.
Dinosaurs had no say in their demise. We have all kinds of say, but it won't matter a flip. Chris Hitchens has died. I am sorry for that. Everything changes. Except human vanity-and rationalization...

PHILOSOPHERS IN A DEMOCRACY
乐观主义者肯在现在(和未来)的考验和磨难中看到了哲学家在解决问题中发挥积极作用的机会，因为我们独特的思维能力、理性和对其他观点的开放。约翰随口说了几句话，批评民主国家解决自身问题的能力。每次客座哲学家被问到这个问题时，她都回避这个问题。
民主，甚至我们美国的准民主或极端民主，永远不会寻求哲学家的帮助;民主的原则是智慧存在于多数人的意见中，允许少数人享有多数人指定的某些有限的保护。民主的批评者认为，民主的本质是一种诡计，目的是蒙骗大多数人的眼睛，操纵他们，让统治集团摆脱其议程。
哲学家们感兴趣的是不同于他们自己的观点，作为一种测试和提高自己的方式，并更接近他们难以捉摸的目标，如真理、正义和道德等。民主国家的成员不会容忍这样的人担任领导或顾问职务。
Sorry to tell you folks, Communism is the only state system where a philosopher might be consulted on state issues and policies, because only in that system is expertise solicited and it can become policy. Communism is about the state planning the path of progress, for the benefit of the society as a whole. To this end, the planning needs to be rational and thought out. These are the domains of the philosopher.

破坏地球有错吗?这应该被视为一个道德问题吗?我不这么想。并不是说气候变化不是一个重要的问题。几年前在哥本哈根举行的气候峰会上说，如果地球温度升高，我相信是1.5摄氏度，非洲将有5亿人流离失所。那是“十亿”开头的“b”。现在，谁需要5亿人肉炸弹?所以很难想出一个比气候变化更重要的问题。难道它不应该成为一种道德戒律吗?如果这还不够重要，那还有什么重要呢? Maybe it's not in the Ten Commandments, but that's because global warming was not an issue in those pre-scientific days.
Moral precepts tend not to allow for exceptions. Maybe that's because they are distillations from many years of trial and error. "Thou shalt not steal", for instance, does not allow for any exceptions. But if you needed a loaf of bread to feed your family, you would probably be willing to make an exception, just for once. Now, climate change is not a simple issue. But making this into a moral issue would be a simplification, almost a compromise. To take one facet of this issue, saving energy, it's often said that we should all save energy - wasting energy puts more CO2 in the atmosphere, and that contributes to global warming. But I have my doubts about this; it sounds like oil company propaganda to me. The more time we spend saving energy rather than transitioning to better forms of it, the more the oil supply will keep dwindling, the more the price will go up, and the more profits the oil companies will make. If we relied only on clean, renewable sources, then Europe and China and everyone else could waste just as much energy as we do, and everybody would be happy. The only limiting factor would be how much you felt like paying for it. Now, opinions can differ on things like this; the point is that the issue is too complicated to raise it to the moral level.
I suspect that making something a moral precept tends to be a way of saying you just won't listen to any counter-arguments. But practical problems like this are full of twists, turns and surprises. Science and technology bring up so many new facts, questions and possibilities that trying to reduce a problem like this to a taboo just wouldn't work.

Dear John and Ken,
You know you guys annoy me. You say you "question everything" but you don't. You guys always take capitalism for granted. Even though you might describe yourselves as leaning left, you take capitalism for granted as a good thing. I could go back to several shows I have listened to, including this one, and this would be the case. Find some radicals and Marxists to interview.