Human beings and animals alike are part of nature. We all evolved from the same primordial soup. We both effect the enviornment. Yes we are more intelligent, giving us a greater capacity to do more harm, and more good to the earth than our animal friends. However we are from nature as well. We are not somehow "worse" than animals, which I belive is a common beleif. The truth is, a dog who pisses in a stream polluting it, or digging up the ground ruining worms, moles, gophers etc. homes does not care at all. Animals will completely manipulate the enviornment for their own greedy desires. Destroying whatever life or scenery they want, so long as it benefits their lives. Humans do the same, except we are smarter and are able to do it at a much grander scale. If I lion had this ability it would do the same. It is not some holyer than thou creature. Us humans have more advanced emotions and some of us feel guilt for destroying th earth. And we take steps to try and help the enviornment. Something that no other organism in the history of our universe (to our knowledge) has done. So celebrate not hate on humanity. We are the greatest beings to ever exist. (again to our knowledge, but what else can you go by?)
Agreed--resource consumption is as natural for our species as any. We have the capacity to imperil ourselves due to overconsumption, but also to recognize the peril of overconsumption and remedy the situation. Humans certainly aren't the "greatest beings ever to exist" by any objective standard. We are almost certainly the most intelligent on this planet (or perhaps any), but intelligence and greatness are not necessarily equivalent. Many, many species have outlived us and will outlive us without the benefit of our intelligence, and I would think this would have to make them at least as "great" as we are.
two things: A) There is a slight difference between digging a hole and pumping billions of pounds of C02 into the atmosphere annualy. Y'see, a field will basically mend itself after some rain, while there is a finite capacity to how much c02 the earth can handel. B) whether or not it's 'natural' for us to be destructive is completely irrelevant. it's just not in our best interests. (P.S. you might want to change your dog example to some other creatures, seeing as mankind created dogs)
the "damage" that many creatures do provides a niche for another. take the elephant for instance. as it walks the ground is deeply depressed forming shallow holes. this area is also compacted which slows down water infiltration and what you're left with is a small watering hole after the next rain. providing water for many creatures. as i learn more about the balance of life on our planet i'm aware of how very fine it is. right now our planet is experiencing an extinction rate greater than any other time in Earth's history. it's driven by greed for resources and it seems to me that humankind have not yet collectively developed the ability to foresee the future when clearly it stares them in the face. at that time i thought that we could destroy the earth but life is more resilient and we will only end up destroying the current permutation. another matrix of life will arise and after millions of years it will find its balance. however, as with all things human, it will not be as beautiful as what we are witness to now. the human species will be less living without the creatures we evolved among.
Cancer is natural too. And AIDS. That doesn't mean they're good for us. And anyway, we're not actually capable of destroying the planet, we're only capable destroying most of what currently lives on it, including ourselves. Even if there's a nuclear apocalypse, eventually things will settle down and new creatures will fill in the gaps. The Earth as a mass of rock in space probably won't be completely destroyed for another ten billion years or so... but then again, who knows, there could at this very moment be a giant asteroid headed this way faster than anyone could possibly imagine or detect, and no one will ever know that it's coming.
Civilization should never have been created. We should have remained living in small communities and became self-sufficient, and lived and died natural lives. Working 9-5 in a highly stressful environment. Tons of stimulus evading your brain in cities. Working hard just to buy useless crap. Tons of peer pressure (if you don't make enough money, you're seen as a simpleton, and no one respects simpletons). What's so great about civilization Also, who's to say that we're the most intelligent? We measure intelligence by our own intelligence, and I think that is ridiculous. If anything, we're the most retarded of the animal kingdom. If we want to be considered to be part of nature, then we should be living more natural lives. Many experiences within the human experience was turned into something taboo. We say that we are animals, but we never live like animals; We always try to say that we are the best, and try to seem as though we are seperated and special in some way. We are no better, and no worse than any other creature that exists on this planet. What's so great about people? We have a lot of potential, but none of this potential is really being realized in any significant way.
We may actually be capable of destroying the Earth if we really put our minds to it, and worked together. http://www.livescience.com/technology/destroy_earth_mp-1.html They are just theories but interesting read.
I'm sure the millions of homeless created by global warming won't mind then, because it's natural. Show a little self-interest.
Cancer and AIDS, along with other diseases, are good. They help keep the population in check. Its a sad, inconvenient truth (damn Gore for claiming that tern) but as modern medicine progresses, overpopulation will get more and more out of hand. And in the long run, diseases encourage evolutionary stronger internal systems. Why is everyone convinced that nature can bounce back no matter what? We've had very few mass extinctions, not nearly enough to guarantee survival. And when you consider how out of all the planets we've found only Earth has developed complex life (or possibly any life at all), you realize that we operate under a very small range of conditions. Fucking up the planet enough that only microorganisms can survive is well within our ability if we continue on our current path. We probably won't, but it is possible. This is true. But it is our heightened "intelligence" and emotions that makes us have to account to higher moral code. We, as a whole do not. Its kind of like when a mentally ill person commits a violent crime versus a sane person. The ill person is often times incapable of understanding the consequences of their actions, and as such can't fairly be treated as they did. On the same topic, our damage -is- worse than that of an animal. Animals developed specific changes, slowly, which allowed other species to develop along side them to handle this. Beavers cause drastic changes to a local environment, but life can still thrive.
