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Should we protect the environment?
- Thread starter Aught3
- Start date
Eskimoseph
New Member
I agree wholeheartedly. We must work to maintain a sustainable environment in which we can live and coincide with our natural surroundings without exploiting them.
Apart from the aforementioned arguments, my main reason is very simple: I marvel at the incredible beauty of the natural world, and I consider any extinction an irreplaceable loss. And an inexcusable loss, if we are to blame. Unfortunately, we humans are capable to exterminate, deliberately or not, other species. This power brings responsibility. To me, it's about ethics. We deserve the consequences of how we treat nature. I'd like to quote a few passages from A Short History of Nearly Everything:
And the dodo is no isolated case. Nobody knows how many species have gone extinct due to us. Steller's sea cows were enormous walrus-like animals, 9 meters long a weighing 10 tonnes. They were discovered in 1741. 27 years later, they were hunted to extinction. Lionel Walter Rothschild and his men managed to wipe out at least nine Hawaiian bird species in the 1890s. Or take the Tasmanian tiger. This footage of the last one is quite famous:
It died in 1936. And what did they do with it? They threw it out with the weekly trash.
For me, preservation is not primarily about our own interests. It's just about enjoying and admiring life in all its forms. Do we "need" birds of paradise for our own survival? Probably not. Would the world be a poorer place if these creatures were gone? Absolutely.
Less than seventy years after we discovered the dodo, we managed to wipe it off the planet, leaving almost no evidence that it ever existed in first place.
And the dodo is no isolated case. Nobody knows how many species have gone extinct due to us. Steller's sea cows were enormous walrus-like animals, 9 meters long a weighing 10 tonnes. They were discovered in 1741. 27 years later, they were hunted to extinction. Lionel Walter Rothschild and his men managed to wipe out at least nine Hawaiian bird species in the 1890s. Or take the Tasmanian tiger. This footage of the last one is quite famous:
It died in 1936. And what did they do with it? They threw it out with the weekly trash.
For me, preservation is not primarily about our own interests. It's just about enjoying and admiring life in all its forms. Do we "need" birds of paradise for our own survival? Probably not. Would the world be a poorer place if these creatures were gone? Absolutely.
Okay, time to make my epic environmentalism post I've been putting off.
The first point is simple survival. My main point here has two basic parts, and I'll first explain them separately.
1. Peak resources. You usually hear about peak oil, but in reality, this is true of every resource. Here's a quick graph to work off of:
The basic concept goes in that we're going to "peak" in our ability to extract oil based on discovery and technology. Then, based on the ammount used up (since it's not a renewable resource), our ability to extract it is going to fall. This also means prices go up. Eventually, it will cost more than one barrel of oil to extract one barrel of oil. However, this is true of every resource that isn't renewable. Even something as simple as iron or copper may seem infinite, but there's a limitted ammount of these elements in the earth's crust, and although they're abundant, we're still limitted. So in order to have true sustainability, we need to devolop completely renewable sources for basically everything.
2. Waste. Waste takes up space. And as we go into the future, it will continue to do so unless there's a significant change in the way we handle waste. Shipping waste into space is far too innefficient for something we're just getting rid of, and would probably have significant bad effects anyway. So we need to find ways of, not disposing of waste, but re-using waste.
So where does this leave us and what does it have to do with the environment? Well, since we all accept evolution and know that it has solved problems even the greatest of engineers couldn't have solved, I think that's a good place to start. Life uses materials that are 100% renewable for its sustenence. But in order to reuse these materials, its developed thousands of different, intricate cycles. A good example is the simple exchange of O2 and CO2 between plants and animals. Plants gather sunlight, water, and CO2 in order to create energy for itself, sugar, and O2, which it released as waste. This was taking place a very long time ago, and the massive spreading of algae (I think) due to the abundant CO2 in the atmosphere created massive ammounts of O2 in the air. Then the pre-Cambrian explosion took place and animal life exploded from the single cell level. These animals evolved to breathe in the plants O2 and burned nutrients that would ultimately come from plants to create energy, water, and CO2 that was released as waste back into the air. The plants could then use this, and a cycle was created. The sun provided energy, which the plants captured and turned into a form that can be used by other living beings, and then those other living beings provided the raw tools back to the plants so they could continue to develop energy.
Moral of the story? Cycles work and they're extremely sustainable. And in order to create tons of complex "machines" that living things essentially are, you need not just a cycle, but a full ecosystem of interrelated life forms. Essentially, that's the kind of technology we need to develop, and we need to learn from and work with the environment to do so. All energy must ultimately come from the sun in one way or another, as that's, one way or another, the ultimate source of all renewable energy. And we need to have all the systems we use to get that energy, transport it, and basically have the rest of our society all use technology that works together, using one part's waste as fuel for another part. Working this into the ecosystems already on our planet seems to me to be a fairly good idea if we can find ways to integrate ourselves into the environment. Basically, nature has found a use for everything. Nothing is really waste, no space is dead space, no weight dead weight. Everything is a potential resource for a life form that may mutate in just the right way in order to take advantage of resources. Domestication works largely this way. So do certain city animals like rats or pigeons. Basically, we need to apply this to all of our technology. Which is a pretty intense revolution, but I think would be doable. Jumping into the future with biotechnology that uses life-like systems, perhaps even cells, instead of what we use now.
The second big reason to protect the environment is called deep ecology. Basically, it's a challenge to the classical view that's based in religion that puts humans above and separate from nature. It questions anthro-centricism, or a human-centered ethical system. Recent challenges to "speciesism" provide further support for this. Deep ecology says that we ought to re-fuse our society with nature with nature. Some philosophers who came up with this theorized about utopian paradises without technology, where we all ran round with fig leaves, sung with the birds, and such. Of course, this is as rediculous to me as it likely is to most of you. But the ideas I was talking about before: revolutionizing techonology so it works with and compliments ecosystems, essentially becoming a human-controlled section of the ecosystem, could be the way to go about this.
Anway, this ideas may seem rather crazy. And the conclusions are, really. But there are a few warrants for this that I think are important. First, you have the basic objection to speciesism: that the distinction between humans and other animals is arbitrary in an ethical sense. Although we may not be equal with other animals, all of them suffer and all of them should be given consideration in any ethical calculation. There's simply no logical way to say that the suffering of animals and their continued survival is less important than our own. Now I'm not saying dogs should get the right to vote; no one argues that. It's simply equal consideration, and that requires that we don't see ourselves as the only morally important species in the world.
The second is that all life is connected in ways we don't even know about. I don't mean some kind of hokey spiritual way, but instead in the scientific sense. When we mess with an ecosystem, trying to make things better, we usually are landed with huge consequences that we had no idea would take place. Usually these are bad. Basically, trying to deny our connection with nature is ignorant. We rely on the plants and animals around us for a huge number of things that we don't realize. For example, the seas around China are significantly cleaner than around the US because they haven't farmed out their clam beds. This despite the fact that they practically pour raw sewage into the oceans. The clams act as natural filters that are more effective than artificial filters a thousand times over, because waste has ended up in the oceans from animals both in and out of the seas since the first large animals existed (clam beds are another example of "waste" being a resource for something else in an ecosystem).
So ya... First, for survival, and second because it's simply ethical.
The first point is simple survival. My main point here has two basic parts, and I'll first explain them separately.
1. Peak resources. You usually hear about peak oil, but in reality, this is true of every resource. Here's a quick graph to work off of:
The basic concept goes in that we're going to "peak" in our ability to extract oil based on discovery and technology. Then, based on the ammount used up (since it's not a renewable resource), our ability to extract it is going to fall. This also means prices go up. Eventually, it will cost more than one barrel of oil to extract one barrel of oil. However, this is true of every resource that isn't renewable. Even something as simple as iron or copper may seem infinite, but there's a limitted ammount of these elements in the earth's crust, and although they're abundant, we're still limitted. So in order to have true sustainability, we need to devolop completely renewable sources for basically everything.
2. Waste. Waste takes up space. And as we go into the future, it will continue to do so unless there's a significant change in the way we handle waste. Shipping waste into space is far too innefficient for something we're just getting rid of, and would probably have significant bad effects anyway. So we need to find ways of, not disposing of waste, but re-using waste.
So where does this leave us and what does it have to do with the environment? Well, since we all accept evolution and know that it has solved problems even the greatest of engineers couldn't have solved, I think that's a good place to start. Life uses materials that are 100% renewable for its sustenence. But in order to reuse these materials, its developed thousands of different, intricate cycles. A good example is the simple exchange of O2 and CO2 between plants and animals. Plants gather sunlight, water, and CO2 in order to create energy for itself, sugar, and O2, which it released as waste. This was taking place a very long time ago, and the massive spreading of algae (I think) due to the abundant CO2 in the atmosphere created massive ammounts of O2 in the air. Then the pre-Cambrian explosion took place and animal life exploded from the single cell level. These animals evolved to breathe in the plants O2 and burned nutrients that would ultimately come from plants to create energy, water, and CO2 that was released as waste back into the air. The plants could then use this, and a cycle was created. The sun provided energy, which the plants captured and turned into a form that can be used by other living beings, and then those other living beings provided the raw tools back to the plants so they could continue to develop energy.
Moral of the story? Cycles work and they're extremely sustainable. And in order to create tons of complex "machines" that living things essentially are, you need not just a cycle, but a full ecosystem of interrelated life forms. Essentially, that's the kind of technology we need to develop, and we need to learn from and work with the environment to do so. All energy must ultimately come from the sun in one way or another, as that's, one way or another, the ultimate source of all renewable energy. And we need to have all the systems we use to get that energy, transport it, and basically have the rest of our society all use technology that works together, using one part's waste as fuel for another part. Working this into the ecosystems already on our planet seems to me to be a fairly good idea if we can find ways to integrate ourselves into the environment. Basically, nature has found a use for everything. Nothing is really waste, no space is dead space, no weight dead weight. Everything is a potential resource for a life form that may mutate in just the right way in order to take advantage of resources. Domestication works largely this way. So do certain city animals like rats or pigeons. Basically, we need to apply this to all of our technology. Which is a pretty intense revolution, but I think would be doable. Jumping into the future with biotechnology that uses life-like systems, perhaps even cells, instead of what we use now.
The second big reason to protect the environment is called deep ecology. Basically, it's a challenge to the classical view that's based in religion that puts humans above and separate from nature. It questions anthro-centricism, or a human-centered ethical system. Recent challenges to "speciesism" provide further support for this. Deep ecology says that we ought to re-fuse our society with nature with nature. Some philosophers who came up with this theorized about utopian paradises without technology, where we all ran round with fig leaves, sung with the birds, and such. Of course, this is as rediculous to me as it likely is to most of you. But the ideas I was talking about before: revolutionizing techonology so it works with and compliments ecosystems, essentially becoming a human-controlled section of the ecosystem, could be the way to go about this.
Anway, this ideas may seem rather crazy. And the conclusions are, really. But there are a few warrants for this that I think are important. First, you have the basic objection to speciesism: that the distinction between humans and other animals is arbitrary in an ethical sense. Although we may not be equal with other animals, all of them suffer and all of them should be given consideration in any ethical calculation. There's simply no logical way to say that the suffering of animals and their continued survival is less important than our own. Now I'm not saying dogs should get the right to vote; no one argues that. It's simply equal consideration, and that requires that we don't see ourselves as the only morally important species in the world.
The second is that all life is connected in ways we don't even know about. I don't mean some kind of hokey spiritual way, but instead in the scientific sense. When we mess with an ecosystem, trying to make things better, we usually are landed with huge consequences that we had no idea would take place. Usually these are bad. Basically, trying to deny our connection with nature is ignorant. We rely on the plants and animals around us for a huge number of things that we don't realize. For example, the seas around China are significantly cleaner than around the US because they haven't farmed out their clam beds. This despite the fact that they practically pour raw sewage into the oceans. The clams act as natural filters that are more effective than artificial filters a thousand times over, because waste has ended up in the oceans from animals both in and out of the seas since the first large animals existed (clam beds are another example of "waste" being a resource for something else in an ecosystem).
So ya... First, for survival, and second because it's simply ethical.
felixthecoach
New Member
I just watched a video on ecosystem economics. The guy pointed out that small ecosystems tend to be more valuable than large technological advances designed to do the same thing. His prime example was from the New York city water supply. Apparently, they had the option to spend 8 Billion dollars on a filtration system or 800 Million dollars on repairing the local ecosystem. They chose to repair the local ecosystem which led to cleaner water for New York. That was something like a few decades ago and it still works. Cost like 10x less than a human technological innovation.
Anyway, just thought i'd point that out. Seems everyone already agrees with that.
Anyway, just thought i'd point that out. Seems everyone already agrees with that.
Dragan Glas
Well-Known Member
Greetings,
Actually, by preserving the environment out of current necessity, we preserve it for the future.
Deforestation is a major contributor to global warming - the deforestation in Indonesia and Brazil for fuel-crops is a classic example of shooting oneself in the foot: more carbon was thrown up into the atmosphere than is likely to be saved by the production/use of bio-fuels from said crops.
Equally, damage to - never mind destruction of - the environment could result in a keystone species being wiped-out, without our realizing it. This would result in a cascade effect in all directions of the ecological network, with who-knows-what consequences for biodiversity - and mankind.
Speaking of "global warming/climate change"...
I think it's wrong for us to try to "prevent" the above from happening - what we should do is try to minimize our contribution to it, and work together to ride-out the Earth's re-adjustment(s) - whatever they prove to be.
The real danger is that Mankind will involve itself in "staring matches" over diminishing resources instead of positioning the raft of civilization as best it can to survive the white-water rapids.
If we don't, we'll face some form of the Malthusian nightmare.
Kindest regards,
James
Actually, by preserving the environment out of current necessity, we preserve it for the future.
Deforestation is a major contributor to global warming - the deforestation in Indonesia and Brazil for fuel-crops is a classic example of shooting oneself in the foot: more carbon was thrown up into the atmosphere than is likely to be saved by the production/use of bio-fuels from said crops.
Equally, damage to - never mind destruction of - the environment could result in a keystone species being wiped-out, without our realizing it. This would result in a cascade effect in all directions of the ecological network, with who-knows-what consequences for biodiversity - and mankind.
Speaking of "global warming/climate change"...
I think it's wrong for us to try to "prevent" the above from happening - what we should do is try to minimize our contribution to it, and work together to ride-out the Earth's re-adjustment(s) - whatever they prove to be.
The real danger is that Mankind will involve itself in "staring matches" over diminishing resources instead of positioning the raft of civilization as best it can to survive the white-water rapids.
If we don't, we'll face some form of the Malthusian nightmare.
Kindest regards,
James