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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (52165)	8/19/1999 1:30:00 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 108807

The Earth's elasticity is an unknown. And our ability to cope with what changes we may create is unknown. The effects of the loss of species are unknown. I did not see anyone here make the point that man was unnatural. Perhaps I missed that. Could you tell use who the "some people" are? >I think a lot of the arguments that we are destroying the environment or that we need to protect every species on earth are specious and fail to understand and accept the dymanic nature of the earth and ecosystems.< As stated above, no one understands these things- so I hardly see how being very cautious, and wishing to preserve as much as possible, would be a "failure of understanding". It would seem to me to be the prudent course. Your argument, or lack thereof, appears to be the specious one. You admit we don't know what we are doing, but you still wish to proceed at the speed we are going now? Not everything nature does is benign. But much of it has been occurring since the Earth began and creatures have adapted. Fires in the grasslands, for example- some species NEED these fires in order to germinate. But man's changes on the environment take place over such short time frames species do not have the chance to adapt. And we are building things that are designed to inhibit other life forms- we don't want things living in our roads, and office buildings and homes, we only want "certain" crops to grow, we do not want insects to eat them, etc etc- so our "changes" are generally inhospitable to other life forms- whereas the Earth's changes, which may appear catastrophic, are in fact just new opportunities for new ecosystems to develop. Our strip malls are not really very great opportunities for ecosystems.