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#1
26-08-2004, 07:06 PM
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"Kay" wrote in message ... In article , Tumbleweed thisaccountneverr writes "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'? But would I, if I had the opportunity, eradicate them entirely from the earth? Bad for an individual louse is not the same as bad for lice as a species Its the start. Logically, if you would eradicate them from yourself, that is equivalent to saying you believe they should be eradicated totally. How would you propose to not eradicate human lice? Would you mandate that some people should keep them for the benefit of the lice species? Or is the earth something that should be preserved even if it means curing our instincts to dominate? The earth cant be "preserved". OK - bad choice of word. What I'm trying to get at is the concept of 'treading lightly' - not having a disproportionate effect. Atm we are so numerous and so technologically capable that simply going about our business can have a hugely harmful effect on the world - we have to I think you''ll have to define 'harmful' and I suspect it will boil down to what is good for us, rather than what is good for 'the world' (whatever 'good' and 'the world' means*). For example, you might say 'if we change the ecosystem too much in direction X, that will cause us problems, so we shouldnt do it'. Or 'if we eradicate species Y, future generations wont gain enjoyment from them, or, that will cause a knock-on effect on the ecosystems which will damage us. Unless you'd say something else? consciously think about the effect we are having and take measures to reduce it if we are to balance our effect to be at a similar level to that of other species. Why should we do that? And how would you measure it? How would you define the level? Whats the number of seagull equivalents to people? Or hedgehogs? Or nematodes? 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. But I wasn't advocating that, as I hope is now clear. Nope, I'm not quite sure what you are advocating. 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. That's not a question I could answer without knowing where the malaria parasite fits in with the rest of the world. Do we know enough to know we could eradicate it without unexpected effects elsewhere? Ah, the good old 'precautionary principle'. If we operated by that,we would never do anything. Besides which, *not* doing something is also making a choice that has repercussions. Perhaps if we didnt eradicate the malaria parasite, it would in 500 years evolve into a new strain that was far more virulent and killed billions of people and perhaps also infected pandas and made them extinct? There are too many 'what ifs' to use the PP as an excuse. And malaria is the same issue as lice. Thought experiment.....**you** have the last colonies of several hundred each of human lice, fleas, ticks etc. Do you kill them? **you** are the last person with malaria. Should you take the drug that will cure you? Malaria is a bad thing for the individual human. There may be ways to control its ill effects without targeting the parasite itself (OK we haven't found any yet). But on the global scale, part of the problem is that we have struggled to the top of the heap so successfully, so that as a species we have a huge effect on the world. I see nothing wrong with having a huge effect on the world. It also depends how you measure it, as to what 'huge' is. We are now actively trying to curb global warming - if we don't bother, what might the scenario be? FWIW, even if we did bother (and I see few signs we are) it would have little effect on GW, that train left the station some considerable time ago. By little effect, I mean that, for example, if Kyoto was established *now*, it would make the difference that instead of the temp being 'X' in one hundred years time, it would be 'X' in 104 years time. Perhaps better to spend the money on whatever the effects of GW would be, or on clean water or something else? Does earth heat up to the extent of being home only to a few specialised bacteria, or do increasing floods etc take their toll on the human species and put a natural limit to the process? What increasing floods? -- Tumbleweed *wooly phrases that everyone uses and means something different by. email replies not necessary but to contact use; tumbleweednews at hotmail dot com |
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#3
27-08-2004, 09:09 AM
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"Kay" wrote in message ... In article , Tumbleweed thisaccountneverr writes "Kay" wrote in message ... In article , Tumbleweed thisaccountneverr writes "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'? But would I, if I had the opportunity, eradicate them entirely from the earth? Bad for an individual louse is not the same as bad for lice as a species Its the start. Logically, if you would eradicate them from yourself, that is equivalent to saying you believe they should be eradicated totally. No - but I do realise it's a bit selfish to ask other people to put up with them if I won't ;-) How would you propose to not eradicate human lice? We haven't done it yet, despite throwing all sorts of chemicals at them! And no, I can't work up a lot of enthusiasm for them. OK - bad choice of word. What I'm trying to get at is the concept of 'treading lightly' - not having a disproportionate effect. Atm we are so numerous and so technologically capable that simply going about our business can have a hugely harmful effect on the world - we have to I think you''ll have to define 'harmful' Not a definition, but I think I mean 'causing a large change'. And I'm not about to try to pind down 'large'. and I suspect it will boil down to what is good for us, rather than what is good for 'the world' (whatever 'good' and 'the world' means*). Undoubtedly that is the definition some people would use. For example, you might say 'if we change the ecosystem too much in direction X, that will cause us problems, so we shouldnt do it'. Or 'if we eradicate species Y, future generations wont gain enjoyment from them, or, that will cause a knock-on effect on the ecosystems which will damage us. Unless you'd say something else? Yes, in my contemplative moments, I would look on it as not causing too much change to the world, and that is incompatible with the success of the human species. I don't feel particularly wedded to the need for the human race to continue successfully. Which is not to say that I can view human suffering with equanimity. consciously think about the effect we are having and take measures to reduce it if we are to balance our effect to be at a similar level to that of other species. Why should we do that? For the good of the world? Because we consider ourselves to better than animals? But why is 'the world' more worthy of care than the human species? I don't know. Perhaps the 'devil takes the hindmost' approach is the only sensible one. And how would you measure it? How would you define the level? Whats the number of seagull equivalents to people? Or hedgehogs? Or nematodes? You'd look at the changes in species abundances and at the changes in physical conditions. Nope, I'm not quite sure what you are advocating. Ah well, that's life. And malaria is the same issue as lice. Thought experiment.....**you** have the last colonies of several hundred each of human lice, fleas, ticks etc. Do you kill them? **you** are the last person with malaria. Should you take the drug that will cure you? Quite possibly not. But what I should do and what I do do are frequently two entirely different things. Does earth heat up to the extent of being home only to a few specialised bacteria, or do increasing floods etc take their toll on the human species and put a natural limit to the process? What increasing floods? The various things I've read which suggest rise in sea levels, and also increasing extremes of weather - though I am quite likely out of date on this. But I did say 'etc' - or are you saying GW isn't going to be a problem to humans in any way? So far there is no evidence for a generic rise in sea level or more floods than the norm. I can easily imagine that you might believe this is not the case however, given the hysterical news headlines that associate GW with every single report of weather outside the 'norm'. A couple of examples; ....Boscastle, it only took a day before I heard someone on the news mention it in connection with GW...had they not heard of Lynton and Lynmouth in the 50's? And how did they think all those valleys got there in the first place? ....recent floods in Bangladesh, GW blamed, yet they were only of the scale that happens every 10-20 years. -- Tumbleweed email replies not necessary but to contact use; tumbleweednews at hotmail dot com |
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#4
27-08-2004, 12:11 PM
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#5
27-08-2004, 06:15 PM
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"Kay" wrote in message ... In article , Tumbleweed thisaccountneverr writes So far there is no evidence for a generic rise in sea level or more floods than the norm. I can easily imagine that you might believe this is not the case however, given the hysterical news headlines that associate GW with every single report of weather outside the 'norm'. A couple of examples; ...Boscastle, it only took a day before I heard someone on the news mention it in connection with GW...had they not heard of Lynton and Lynmouth in the 50's? And how did they think all those valleys got there in the first place? ...recent floods in Bangladesh, GW blamed, yet they were only of the scale that happens every 10-20 years. So - are there any effects of GW? Are there likely to be? Are you saying that it is happening but not a problem, or that it isn't happening? I'm saying that there is no significant evidence at the present time for global rises in sea level, or increased flooding (or droughts come to that). Howver, if every time there is a storm, a drought, a flood, or a plague of locusts, the media invoke the GW mantra, then pretty soon people will start to believe it.* My original question was is it self limiting, in that it will decrease the number of humans who are the driving force, or, once started, is it unstoppable? The exact mechanism by which the number of humans is reduced is not important to that question. But if you are saying that there won't be any ill effects on humans, then that makes the question a nonsense. There will undoubtedly be 'bad' and good from the planet warming up. For example, fewer people will die of cold (ISTR that more people die of hypothermia worldwide than heat stroke). It is also unlikely that GW will in any way *significantly* affect the human population, and in any event it will naturally run its course and be gone within 100-200 years because people wont be using oil or coal any more then (or probably in about 50 years time but it will take its time to work through the system). And GW certainly wont affect humanity as badly as many other things we currently suffer from globally, such as poor water supplies, AIDS, malaria, deaths from poor cooking practices, and so forth. -- Tumbleweed *the interesting question about GW is "so what do you propose to do about it then" because there is almost certainly no actual practical way of stopping it now, assuming it does exist(1). The cure would have far worse consequences than the disease, to coin a phrase. (1) bearing in mind that the climate models used to model GW cant actually tell us what the climate should be now, let alone in 100 years time. email replies not necessary but to contact use; tumbleweednews at hotmail dot com |
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