"Kay" wrote in message
...
snip

Should we regard the earth as our habitat, and whatever we do to make it
better for us is therefore good, even if it is bad for other species?

Sounds like a good idea to me*. I'm presuming for example, that if you had
lice you wouldn't leave them on your body, even though that is 'good for
you' and 'bad for lice'? Or that if slugs were eating your food, you
wouldn't either kill the ones eating your food or restrict their access to
your food (both the same thing in the long run). [the third possibility, to
relocate them, would damage some other species food supply of course, not to
mention the plants themselves]


Or is the earth something that should be preserved even if it means
curing our instincts to dominate?

The earth cant be "preserved". But even if it could, then that would be
gross interference in itself, if for example you 'preserved' every species
that was going extinct, even if that extinction was nothing to do with us.
That would definitely be a bad thing, from the POV of letting nature operate
unhindered by us.


And neither of those questions is relevant to global warming etc because
if we mess up the earth it will mess us up too. So whether our motives
are to look after it for its own sake or to further our success as a
species, it's still a sensible thing to do.


*Well that should obviously be taken into account when deciding what to do
with our habitat as per the first point. But eradicating, for example the
malaria parasite ,I'm betting you'd regard as a good thing even though its a
'very bad thing' for the malaria parasite. So really, all you would disagree
with, is in what degree and way you'd interfere, rather than setting
yourself up as some special case who doesn't change the planet and everyone
else who does is evil.

--
Tumbleweed

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