Science?? Um, yea right.

This is in regards to this recent Boing Boing post.
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/10/13/what_would_happen_if.html

OK, I've done some work on prairie restoration. The key element is not humans leaving. It really is not. The one thing they seem to miss entirely and which is a HUGE factor in areas that have it is FIRE! Fire is what made the prairies the way they are in the first place, fire is what defined the composition of the forests and fire is what will destroy invasive flora. The simplest form of prairie restoration is to burn the lot every 2 years. Only the things that have adapted over the last 10’s of thousands of years will be able to survive such activity. The things that have evolved will thrive. Also to assume that there will be no continued evolution over the next 50-200,000 years is silly. Plants and animals go through a naturally cycle of extinctions and will continue to do so without the impact of humans. This also assumes no major geological events that could cause mass extinction would occur in the next 50,000 years. The Yellowstone Caldera could and probably will blow some time within the next 100,000 years (it seems to cycle every 600,000 or so and it’s over due). That explosion would theoretically be 1000 time more powerful than Krakatoa blasting millions of tons of dust into the air and create something very like a nuclear winter. The ecological change would be considerable to say the least. It is hard to come to grips with the idea that we are a relatively small part of change on this planet when you start to talk in 100,000-year time frames. That’s more than one ice age for instance.

This does not change our responsibility to our environment but we need to realize that what we are protecting is NOT the earth but the current ecosystem that allows humans to live here! Without it we do not have the resources to maintain our current level of technology or culture. Just something to think about.