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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Do we deserve to survive?
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Al Eluia
Inquisitor
# 864
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
The planet will be fine with or without us.
Survive? Well, we've been very good at it so far to the detriment of the rest of nature. No doubt we'll adapt to the crazy weather patterns which we are partly responsible for.
'Deserve' is a bit of a strange way of putting it - species survive because they can, not due to any favours for good behaviour.
There's a TV series called "Life After People" which looks at what would happen to the earth, especially the structures we've built on it, if we all suddenly disappeared. This series gave me the same thought--that the earth doesn't need us. It brings to mind Psalm 8:4 - "What is man, that thou art mindful of him?"
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Posts: 1157 | From: Seattle | Registered: Jul 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by agingjb:
How do we reverse species loss? Can we reverse species loss?
We can stop the processes by which we cause species to become extinct.
Many rivers in this country were deemed dead at the height of the industrial revolution and beyond, they are now teeming with life.
Easier to fix the damage of a leaky tap than a river whose banks are overflowing.
quote:
If anything we are better placed to hang on to gene pools now.
Extinction is at an ever-increasing rate and affects organisms that we do not have direct contact with.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
I agree things aren't great.
Evidence that humans are going to significantly curtail their activity as the environmental consequences of it become ever more plain is still painfully thin.
To avoid despair on this matter it can help to observe small positives. Personally I find post-industrial regeneration of habitats to be encouraging even if it is bucking the downward trend worldwide.
Not sure if the question is whether we deserve to survive on this planet. Ought it not be 'do we deserve the dominion we have been granted?'
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Not sure if the question is whether we deserve to survive on this planet. Ought it not be 'do we deserve the dominion we have been granted?'
Same answer, No. Even if one buys the idea that God created humans as primary, we have very obviously failed in our stewardship.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Not sure if the question is whether we deserve to survive on this planet. Ought it not be 'do we deserve the dominion we have been granted?'
Same answer, No. Even if one buys the idea that God created humans as primary, we have very obviously failed in our stewardship.
I totally agree. In any sense of "stewardship" over the world or over our fellow people, we are abject failures.
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Blog
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Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Not sure if the question is whether we deserve to survive on this planet. Ought it not be 'do we deserve the dominion we have been granted?'
Same answer, No. Even if one buys the idea that God created humans as primary, we have very obviously failed in our stewardship.
Some Christians take the view that we were meant to be like park rangers: helping out other creatures, as needed, and trying not to mess things up too much.
Epic fail, for the most part. I think, though, that, much of the time, we haven't understood that, haven't had the perspective.
Has anyone else read Daniel Quinn's novel "Ishmael" and/or its sequels? Thought provoking. Reinterprets human history as "takers" vs. "leavers", and talks about how we can save the world.
Note: That page has a rather over-done publicity piece. I'd suggest starting by reading the emboldened paragraph, then clicking on the "Excerpts" link just above it. That will take you to .jpg pics of the first several pages. The book has a cult following, so you may be able to find a site that's more accessible. (E.g., text excerpts rather than pics.)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
In any sense of "stewardship" over the world or over our fellow people, we are abject failures.
That's rubbish, because stewardship isn't the same as preservation.
Take the redwood forests of North America. You might say that preventing or quickly extinguishing forest fires would be good stewardship of them, but nothing could be further from the truth - the trees need fire in order for their seeds to germinate. If you prevent the fires then the trees will eventually die of old age, and without new growth the forest will be no more. In this case, good stewardship means allowing the forest to be burned down once in a while - or even burning it down yourself if nature doesn't make it happen.
Or what about a great herd on the plains of Africa? Several of its members will get picked off by predators, but this is actually good for the herd as a whole because the ones that survive are the strongest (or smartest) and thus the herd as a whole keeps getting stronger and smarter. Good stewardship of the herd means allowing a proportion of it to be killed.
Good stewardship doesn't mean keeping things the same as they are in perpetuity, it means helping them to change and grow. Yes, there are some species that are facing extinction because of human activity - but there are other species that are flourishing in a way they could never have managed without us.
Is life on earth as a whole improving because of us? I don't know, and frankly the timescales required to make such a judgement are too vast for anyone to say for certain one way or another. But I think it's clear that your claim that "in any sense of "stewardship" over the world or over our fellow people, we are abject failures" is false.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Ethne Alba
Shipmate
# 5804
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Posted
So....if.... we accept the whole We Are Abject Failures (or was it We Have Failed? There is a slight difference..... )....
....if we accept that as a starting point...what is the next step?
Is it to wait until governments change and do we activate for that change until it happens?
Do we say that governments will never change?
In which case, realistically how do we live while that particular boat sails towards the whirlpool?
Is it valid to take responsibility for our own corner of the earth and make whatever necessary changes we can...whilst also activating for change?
ISTM that unless we sort this, as individuals it might be very easy to get either violently angry.....or....deeply depressed....
Is there a middle way?
And i reckon i don't deserve anything.....so anything that i do get is a bonus....(my 2p worth)
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[ 22. February 2017, 11:44: Message edited by: Ethne Alba ]
Posts: 3126 | Registered: Apr 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
In any sense of "stewardship" over the world or over our fellow people, we are abject failures.
That's rubbish, because stewardship isn't the same as preservation.
Jesus wept! The bit of your post that follows this is breathtaking in its stupidity. That individuals die to preserve a species is not anywhere close to causing species to go extinct.
quote:
Is life on earth as a whole improving because of us? I don't know, and frankly the timescales required to make such a judgement are too vast for anyone to say for certain one way or another.
Timescale is the whole point. We are extinguishing species at a rate unseen outside of massive catastrophe. We can document species we've destroyed and the resultant damage to their ecosystem. The more we learn the more this is evident.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I suppose that dominion is different from stewardship, since it seems to involve a hierarchical scale of nature, with humans at the top. This is a kind of exceptionalism, or if you like, narcissism, but I don't think religions are responsible for this, although they have transmitted it ideologically.
Even being 'stewards' strikes me as odd, since it still suggests that we are in charge. This is a kind of fantasy that is very difficult to let go of.
Even the OP question strikes me as exceptionalist, why us in particular? I suppose this is a Christian thing, that humans are especially beloved? Dunno.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Jesus wept! The bit of your post that follows this is breathtaking in its stupidity. That individuals die to preserve a species is not anywhere close to causing species to go extinct.
Species are to life on earth as individuals are to a species.
quote:
Timescale is the whole point. We are extinguishing species at a rate unseen outside of massive catastrophe. We can document species we've destroyed and the resultant damage to their ecosystem. The more we learn the more this is evident.
We'll have to go some to rival the cyanobacteria in terms of percentage of other species destroyed. And you're ignoring the species that we've helped to thrive.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Jesus wept! The bit of your post that follows this is breathtaking in its stupidity. That individuals die to preserve a species is not anywhere close to causing species to go extinct.
Species are to life on earth as individuals are to a species.
Not even close. Dude, crack open a biology text.
quote:
We'll have to go some to rival the cyanobacteria in terms of percentage of other species destroyed.
![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif) Show me some evidence that they did so with conscious purpose then you might have a point.
quote:
And you're ignoring the species that we've helped to thrive.
Many of those have been helped to the detriment of quite a few others.
[ 22. February 2017, 15:49: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I suppose that dominion is different from stewardship, since it seems to involve a hierarchical scale of nature, with humans at the top. This is a kind of exceptionalism, or if you like, narcissism, but I don't think religions are responsible for this, although they have transmitted it ideologically.
Even being 'stewards' strikes me as odd, since it still suggests that we are in charge. This is a kind of fantasy that is very difficult to let go of.
Even the OP question strikes me as exceptionalist, why us in particular? I suppose this is a Christian thing, that humans are especially beloved? Dunno.
We are exceptional. We affect our environment in a way no other creature in earth can. Even if we only care about our own species, this necessitates a better policy towards our resources and the other life forms which inhabit our bit of celestial rock.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Bacteria are the exceptionalest, they produced oxygen.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Bacteria are the exceptionalest, they produced oxygen.
sigh
As I said to MtM: Prove to me they do so with conscious purpose then we have a comparison.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Prove to me that we're committing ecocide with conscious purpose and we don't.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
There are more (good) bacteria in our bodies than our own cells.
We need the others too - making soil, breaking down detritis etc etc.
I don't think we consciously or deliberately destroy the environment. Some may, but most of us do it just by living an 'ordinary' life.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Prove to me that we're committing ecocide with conscious purpose and we don't.
Exactly.
I mean who is to say everything our homo sap brothers and sisters have done since a mutation occurred allowing our craniums to expand has been done with conscious purpose?
Why not overlook the past distortions religion may have caused and consider what drives most of us now, this minute. Betterment , pleasure seeking, fear that the things we cherish will be taken away. Are we in control of these driving forces? Maybe we are, yet also at the same time we are compelled and encouraged by the various institutions and establishments which govern us to tow the line.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Prove to me that we're committing ecocide with conscious purpose and we don't.
Exactly.
I mean who is to say everything our homo sap brothers and sisters have done since a mutation occurred allowing our craniums to expand has been done with conscious purpose?
Yeah, who said that? Wait, nobody did. But we have known for quite a while that removing a keystone species can have a devestating effect on an ecosystem, we know acidification is affecting levels of plankton, the base building block of nearly the entire ocean ecosystem. We learn more all the time but do less than we can. Cheeto and his stooges will set back what we have done at nearly the worst posssible time.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
It is worth remembering that there is an ice shelf half the size of Wales that will probably break off very soon (this year or next). And then lots of the remaining shelf will also go.
That is a single event that would take centuries to repair. Is it caused by human activity? Well, all of the science says that we are causing warming, and that we are warming this year quicker than ever. So probably.
And a lot of environmental scientists say this year - these few years - are a critical tipping point. So we are probably fucked.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Jesus wept! The bit of your post that follows this is breathtaking in its stupidity. That individuals die to preserve a species is not anywhere close to causing species to go extinct.
Species are to life on earth as individuals are to a species.
Not even close. Dude, crack open a biology text.
I'll grant you that that was more of a philosophical claim than a scientific assertion,
quote:
quote:
We'll have to go some to rival the cyanobacteria in terms of percentage of other species destroyed.
Show me some evidence that they did so with conscious purpose then you might have a point.
As others have already pointed out, humanity isn't destroying other species with conscious purpose either. As a side effect of other stuff we do to improve our lives, sure - but in that case we're back to the cyanobacteria again.
quote:
quote:
And you're ignoring the species that we've helped to thrive.
Many of those have been helped to the detriment of quite a few others.
That's just the way the evolutionary cookie crumbles.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
It is worth remembering that there is an ice shelf half the size of Wales that will probably break off very soon (this year or next). And then lots of the remaining shelf will also go.
Yep.
quote:
That is a single event that would take centuries to repair.
The implication here is that the current quantity of ice at the poles is something that must be maintained. But why? There have been periods in the past when there was no ice at the poles whatsoever, there have been periods in the past when the entire planet was covered in ice, and obviously there have been periods with all amounts of ice in between. What makes the current amount so special?
quote:
Is it caused by human activity? Well, all of the science says that we are causing warming, and that we are warming this year quicker than ever. So probably.
I agree. The evidence is overwhelming that these climate changes are being caused by human activity.
quote:
And a lot of environmental scientists say this year - these few years - are a critical tipping point. So we are probably fucked.
Again, I agree - we are probably fucked. But life on earth will go on.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
....we have known for quite a while that removing a keystone species can have a devestating effect on an ecosystem, we know acidification is affecting levels of plankton, the base building block of nearly the entire ocean ecosystem. We learn more all the time but do less than we can.
Yes we do indeed know these things. A while back we learnt about biological pest control, cats keeping rodent numbers down for example. Then there is the conscious action of introducing a species purposely to provide food.
OK, we do consciously *tweak* our environment so, in theory, with some extreme tweaking we could halt or postpone our apparent one way journey into the Pit.
Alas, like the smoker with the box of fags fossil fuel burning may have dire warnings printed all over it, we are though fully hooked, wholly dependent, and seemingly quite incapable of giving up the path of energy fuelled activity.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
Life will go on. Maybe not human life. That is why the collapse of the ice shelf is important - to us.
Not necessarily for the earth. Not necessarily for some creatures. But for us, this is crucial. And if we are the only intelligent life here, that is critical (philosophically, not evolutionarily).
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I'll grant you that that was more of a philosophical claim than a scientific assertion,
Even philosophy has greater rigour than that.
quote:
As others have already pointed out, humanity isn't destroying other species with conscious purpose either.
Yes we have, for hundreds of years. Not always with knowledge of the consequences, but certainly on purpose.
We are still doing it. And with no excuse of ignorance.
quote:
As a side effect of other stuff we do to improve our lives, sure -
Also for convenience, vanity or out of annoyance.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
What makes the current amount so special?
Your general posting doesn't indicate much concern beyond what you see in the mirror so, for you, nothing.
For those of us who do care about the next generation and beyond, humans are causing problems for others that we do not have to cause.
We can take measures that will reduce our impact but we don't want to do so.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
Humanity will not be destroyed by the disappearance of one, or even both of the Ice caps. Hindered of course, but not destroyed.
I think that some of what we feel about the dramatic alteration of the geography of the Earth isn't fear that our species will be wiped out, it could be grief over time honoured things around changing in an apparently irreversible way.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Humanity will not be destroyed by the disappearance of one, or even both of the Ice caps. Hindered of course, but not destroyed.
I think that some of what we feel about the dramatic alteration of the geography of the Earth isn't fear that our species will be wiped out, it could be grief over time honoured things around changing in an apparently irreversible way.
Is this what happens when people use religious texts as science?
Weather patterns will change even more than currently; destroying crops, flooding cities and eliminating low-lying island nations. Famines will occur, generating even more strife than we currently have.
This isn't about inconvenience, but devastation.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Er, rolyn isn't arguing from any perversion of scripture: 'Earth abides', it don't matter how much oil and coal we burn, Jesus'll fix it on His return to split the the Mount of Olives.
Any more than you are arguing from science.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Er, rolyn isn't arguing from any perversion of scripture: 'Earth abides', it don't matter how much oil and coal we burn, Jesus'll fix it on His return to split the the Mount of Olives.
He isn't arguing from knowledge, either.
Didn't think he was actually arguing from religion, the comment was more sarcasm than anything.
quote:
Any more than you are arguing from science.
Actually, I am. Stating it in a general way, but climate scientists are very much in agreement that we are creating significant change that will be very detrimental to our current population levels and way of living.
[ 23. February 2017, 20:36: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
When? How much? Sounds like Wormwood.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The implication here is that the current quantity of ice at the poles is something that must be maintained. But why? There have been periods in the past when there was no ice at the poles whatsoever, there have been periods in the past when the entire planet was covered in ice, and obviously there have been periods with all amounts of ice in between. What makes the current amount so special?
Narwhals have no where to hide when there is open water and insufficient ice, because ice-shy orcas (killer whales) can pursue them. Inuit may also more easily take narwhals. So no ice, narwhals will go. So will belugas, bowheads, fins, pilots, several porpoise and dolphin species. That's just the whales.
Permafrost melting means the ground is unstable and travel not possible for humans and other animals. The indirect effect of warmer temps enabling mosquitos to have a longer season (there are species which successfully live at about water freezing temp. We can expect collapse of populations of caribou due to that. We can expect geese (snow and canada geese) to increase and destroy the land with heavy destructive grazing and poop as they already have in the Hudson Bay lowlands. Polar bears are the poster children for climate change in arctic. They will certainly move north and be extirpated from their southern range, e.g., near Churchill, Manitoba.
We're going to see the northern boreal forests (spruce mainly, but also some pines) continue to be killed by spruce bark beetles which turn the tree needles red. And massive fires of burning trees.
It will take 300 years or less for rivers in Canada to become intermittent, as the glaciers are gone. A bit of water in the spring, nothing elsewise. I'd expect the whole of the USA and much of Canada between the Great Lakes/Mississippi and Rocky Mountains to become one huge desert, right up at least the edge of the Canadian Shield which runs roughly from 60°N in the west to 49°N at Lake Superior.
We can expect the same scenario in Europe and Asia. Africa and Australia, I've no time line idea, but hotter and drier. I guess the surviving humans can eat rats and beetles. The scenario makes the 600 million dead in WW3 in Star Trek: First Contact seem like a pretty happy outcome.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Er, rolyn isn't arguing from any perversion of scripture: 'Earth abides', it don't matter how much oil and coal we burn, Jesus'll fix it on His return to split the the Mount of Olives.
He isn't arguing from knowledge, either.
Didn't think he was actually arguing from religion, the comment was more sarcasm than anything.
I wasn't using Scripture or sarcasm on this occasion, admitting to sometimes falling into the latter.
It was a dispassionate observation based on the evidence we the public are given and the evidence of our own experience of changes in weather patterns, increase in skin cancer incidents, species die off and so on.
It is just stating the obvious to say that continuing with A B C, (no matter how much it perplexes us/me), will result in E F G.
It is the absolute Law of life on Earth, God's Law if People want to believe that, --Adapt or die.
[ 23. February 2017, 22:12: Message edited by: rolyn ]
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
When? How much? Sounds like Wormwood.
When? Now. The full 70m that all the ice melting will cause may take quite awhile. But the effects are happening now. Not sure why that matters. Do you have information on the people of the future that they do not deserve our best effort?
Here is a vid explaining some of it.
Sorry, hosts, it is nearly 6 minute long, but it does contain pictures! to assist a few of the less, erm, well.... to assist.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
I meant my comment was sarcasm.
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
--Adapt or die.
Kinda the point. The biggest difference between the normal use of this term, environmentally, is that we can adapt proactively.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
As others have already pointed out, humanity isn't destroying other species with conscious purpose either.
Yes we have, for hundreds of years. Not always with knowledge of the consequences, but certainly on purpose.
If we're not deliberately trying to destroy them, then we're not doing it with conscious purpose. A side effect of an action is not the reason why that action is carried out, even if it's known that it will happen.
Climate change and species extinction are side effects of actions we're taking for other reasons. To say that we are causing climate change and species extinction "with conscious purpose" would mean we are doing those actions with the express intention of causing those effects, and that just isn't true.
It would be more accurate to say that we know what the side effects of our actions are, but we judge their impact to be less pressing than the impact of not doing the actions at all. Is that judgement correct? Time will tell.
quote:
For those of us who do care about the next generation and beyond, humans are causing problems for others that we do not have to cause.
We can take measures that will reduce our impact but we don't want to do so.
You say that as if taking the measures necessary to halt climate change wouldn't cause problems for current and future generations. Different problems, to be sure, but real and significant ones nonetheless.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
The passenger pigeon was made extinct on purpose. As was the marsupial wolf and other predators. When creature like the great auk we're found to be going extinct because of over predation by humans, did it start a conservation effort? No, it started a move to kill more for collectors to have a taxadermy specimen. There wouldn't be wolves in America if it were as tame a landscape as Britain. After the refining of petroleum, hunting whales was unnecessary by all but subsitance humters, but it still continued.
A massive help to the reduction in greenhouse gasses would be buying less shit that we do not need. Hardly significant damage to your lifestyle.
Another is greater use of greener power, easier to breathe the air as well.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The passenger pigeon was made extinct on purpose.
So humans deliberately and knowingly set out to make the species extinct, as opposed to accidentally causing its extinction due to reckless overhunting?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
When? How much? Sounds like Wormwood.
When? Now. The full 70m that all the ice melting will cause may take quite awhile. But the effects are happening now. Not sure why that matters. Do you have information on the people of the future that they do not deserve our best effort?
Here is a vid explaining some of it.
Sorry, hosts, it is nearly 6 minute long, but it does contain pictures! to assist a few of the less, erm, well.... to assist.
At the present rate 70m will take 10,000 years.
Until the clathrate boils.
I agree eternal life is now.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
At the present rate 70m will take 10,000 years.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) Sea level rise and warming are having a serious effect now and it is only cm.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The passenger pigeon was made extinct on purpose.
So humans deliberately and knowingly set out to make the species extinct, as opposed to accidentally causing its extinction due to reckless overhunting?
One, partially, of example and you dismiss the argument?
Whatever is convenient, I suppose.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The passenger pigeon was made extinct on purpose.
So humans deliberately and knowingly set out to make the species extinct, as opposed to accidentally causing its extinction due to reckless overhunting?
One, partially, of example and you dismiss the argument?
Whatever is convenient, I suppose.
I'm trying to point out that "on purpose" doesn't mean what you appear to think it means.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
--Adapt or die.
Kinda the point. The biggest difference between the normal use of this term, environmentally, is that we can adapt proactively.
And we are. Wind turbines, Solar power, electric cars etc.
Some like to say it is all too little too late. Then there is the sum zero response of -- Why should we care when China and various 2nd World Countries are pumping out CO2 and ripping down rain forests at one a hell of a rate.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
"Adapt or die"
Evolution is adaptation to local conditions. Nothing more. Most of it is slow accummulation of characteristics which are either better or worse for adapting. There is another process which catastrophic change, which genetic variation doesn't help with because the environmental conditions are so different and rapidly changed, there are no favoured individuals in a species. All die. This is what we're creating.
Humans are different, we massively adapt conditions to us. We won't die out until we can't adapt the local environmental conditions to us.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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