11 replies to this topic

[Caiman]

Does it really make sense to abhor human actions and their consequences on the planet and other species around us? Just because we are able to knowingly and consciously exhibit pressure upon the world and environment around us, does that make the change we cause any less ‘natural’ than other selection pressures which occur? We, and by extension our actions, are as much a natural product of this planet as any other species and their behaviour. There is not and never has been a ‘status quo’, or a ‘perfect condition’ that the world or indeed universe around us must be maintained in, so why do we make such a distinction between the way the world is/was and the way it is changing because of us?

I’m not implying that we shouldn’t be worried about man-made global warming, or that we should gleefully engage in wiping out other species, I just think we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves that the incredible growth and advances our species has achieved are having significant affects on the planet on which we arose- with or without us, climate change happens and species rise and fall, whether we speed up or affect that process changes nothing over time, really... there have been much more devastating extinction events in the past than we could ever cause and the planet has recovered, some species have been forced through tremendous bottlenecks and come out of them to be more successful than they were before (humanity itself is believed to have been reduced to around fifty thousand individuals at one point and look at us now!).

Protecting the environment and attempting to maintain some kind of status quo is responsible and makes sense in preserving a decent planet for our descendants... but as they say, one thing that is constant in the universe is change, and life on Earth has proven to be very adaptable to wildly changing environments. Whilst our existence relies on the life that came before us, the vast majority of species that have ever arisen on Earth are long extinct. On a universal scale, is there really much difference between a mass extinction or environmental devastation caused by us versus one caused by a huge piece of space rock slamming into the planet, aren’t they really both as natural as the other? You might say that intercontinental ballistic missiles or internal combustion engines don’t just appear in nature, that those are ‘artificial’ and ‘unnatural’... yet ultimately, we assemble those things and we are natural, our consciousness and capabilities a product of our evolution, anything we invent or create is as natural as a coral reef, a birds nest or spiders web, however more complex in construction?

[wjfox]

I kind of agree.

What we need, I think, is to establish "planetary boundaries". We could still have growth/development and change, provided it was confined within these limits. Sadly, we're already massively exceeding two of these boundaries (biodiversity loss and nitrogen cycle disruption), and are firmly on course to exceed more in the coming decades. How can the current free market capitalist system (endless growth and consumption at all costs) be reconciled with something like this?

This is the subject of Mark Lynas' excellent new book, The God Species.

[Raklian]

The only hope is that we become technologically advanced enough to bring nature back into equilibrium with mankind through the ministrations of an advanced AI coupled with advanced genetic enigneering along with other required elements to make this work. We'll need to have a new energy source that rivals the Earth's capacity to receive energy from the Sun, in order to muster the energy to implement the "rewilding".

[Alric]

I agree and I don't think there is really any purpose to saving nature just because it is nature. On the other hand I think saving nature because it is a benefit to us is a good thing. Since we still live in nature to some degree, it is a benefit for us to not go around destroying it when we got to still live in it. We don't want climate change to occur because it causes a lot of bad issues for humans, so its in our own best interest not to do it.

I am fine with selectively destroying things if we can do it safely though. The classic example would be killing disease carrying pests. If some pest is carrying diseases and they are killing people then eliminating the pest is a valid option in my mind. You need to be careful it doesn't overly disrupt the natural cycles in the area, because you don't want to kill off other species by accident, but if it is safe then we should do it.

[Time_Traveller]

We have to save parts of the Earth as soon as we can, We can't destroy it in the present and let are future ancenstors would have to deal with, We deal with it ourselves.

[SG-1]

I think the biggest problem is deforestation. I wonder if there was a way to genetically modify trees to grow in days if we could create our own forests to cut down from?
Being mindful of the environment is really important, but not to the point that we should give up daily luxuries like AC an electricity. We just need to implement all green technologies as soon as they become available and all will be well.

Procrastinating until the next generation is not an ok thing to do.

[Alric]

It would probably be more efficient to create artificial wood in the lab. We are growing all sort of biological tissue in labs to replicate all sort of animals tissue and organs and stuff. There was just an article out a while ago about people growing meat in a lab, and there is a lot of advancements for printing out entire organs for humans. Why couldn't we grow wood in a lab?

[Raklian]

We could genetic engineer the trees to grow, let's say, 20 times faster than it is naturally done. Then, we require forestry/log companies to seed these trees after they've cut down trees.

I wonder if that is being done, the genetic engineering part?

[Zeitgeist123]

why do we need to genetically engineer trees when we can create a lampost that can absorb carbon dioxide and lead 10,000 times better than real trees and more.

[Tumaini12]

Human beings are part of the biosphere, like any other predator - we have simply gone into planetwide ecological overshoot. We are out of balance with our resource base and are leaving the rest of nature with less and less room to carry on.

We know - science knows - that it is theoretically possible to maintain a high standard of living for everyone whilst leaving enough wilderness and biodiversity to keep the planet healthy. If that is within our power, then to remain on course for devastating global warming and/or mass extinction is criminal.

As David Attenborough put it in The Living Planet: "It is, surely, that we have no moral right to exterminate forever the creatures with which we share this Earth."

[tornado64]

I think also it's not unnatural, but there was never a species who had so an tremendous influence on the planet. We use already the majority of the planet for food growth. I think we should restore nature if this becomes possible later. We could green deserts again.
I think we should do this if we can, just because nature is beautiful. I wouldn't like to live on a planet who is mainly desert.
As more as we are technical advance, it's possible to reduce our influence on the planet. We could do vertical farming, grow meat in labs and the majority of humans could live in big urban areas, the urbanism already happens. But at the moment food production is the single biggest CO2 producer, the driver for deforestation, desertification. It is also responsible for overfishing. If we could change what we eat this would have a massive positive impact on earth. The solutions are already there, there just expensive/ not competitive to normal food production at the moment.
Fish could entirely come from fish farms, meat from vertical farms and in-vitro, vegetables from skyscrapers in the urban areas.

Edited by tornado64, 16 May 2012 - 11:19 AM.

[IzzyIngleby]

Arguing whether or not everything humans do is natural is moot in my opinion, a cancer is natural, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be kept in check. Perhaps what we need to consider is whether our actions are in harmony with nature-I don't mean that in a kind of hippy "only eat organic" way, but simply in a sustainable manner-both for us and the enviroment.

My hope is that solar panels will soon become efficient enough to absorb sunlight, and have enough energy to beam light in a few wavelengths onto agricultural crops, leaving enough remaining power for maintainance of the crop and harvesting. If done inside we could concentrate things to ideal conditions for plants to grow eg/ temperatures, high CO2 concentrations, water saturation etc. Coupled with genetic modification to allow for greater efficiency of growth, and possibly pesticides becomeing redundant. If kept in enclosures sealed off from the outside world, then infestation shouldn't be a problem, and in any case enclosures could simply be purged to the prevent further spread of said pest. Whilst making farming less "romantic"(not sure many would really call it that) moving it towards true industry could perhaps in the long run actually reduce ecological damage, as higher yields on less land, as well as the containment of toxic chemicals would mean less strain was put on the enviroment.

This is feasible with the technology available today, all it requires is an increase in solar panel efficiency. This would also have the advantage of actually buffering humans from the worst effects of climate change, as they would be protected from extremes of climate, hence ensuring a steady food supply.