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A world without humans would be necessary to fulfill their goals of the environment being unmolested by humans. We cannot live in perfect harmony. That's not

by mapt 11y ago

A world without humans would be necessary to fulfill their goals of the environment being unmolested by humans. We cannot live in perfect harmony. That's not a thing. At best, we can establish areas that look roughly like they used to look before humans, but this is no less deliberate design than the styrofoam rocks at the zoo, it's just on a different scale. Many such areas are, in fact, better seen as zoos, because of their small size or limited variety. Most of the productive arable land is predictably already being used for something by somebody. Personally, I'm a humanist. The worst things environmental devastation can do to us are disrupt some of our services, like agricultural collapses; After that environmentalism is mostly a romantic or novelty-based aesthetic, albeit an attractive one. Pit it against human lives and human profit, and groups of humans will nearly always make the same decision. EDIT: Worth tacking on, for some perspective: https://xkcd.com/1338/ https://xkcd.com/1338/

hemptemp 11y ago
As much as i abhor commenting online do bear with me. You say that "We cannot live in perfect harmony". That's not a thing", however what is this in comparison to. Surely this would be comparative to the rest of the eco-system. Animals make changes, they create habitats and dam rivers, however as it is more rudimentary (sticks and holes in earth) we dont consider it a change to the enviroment. Creating our homes in a more ecological and recycleable way would be in perfect harmony. The arguement is whether we should go further and drastically change the enviroment, do we have the right as the dominant species on the planet to abuse its resources for ourselves (as seen in the attached xkcd whose figures roughly show the populations of mammals who we have artifically inflated to such proportions for our dietray wants). So if we changed our architechture and agriculture then yes we could live in perfect sync and harmony, it's just that we wont.
- jahewson 11y ago
  There is no such thing as "harmony" in nature. Species come and go, some destroy their own habit, others drive their competitors to extinction. We do need to be careful about how we use natural resources and that we don't change our environment in a way that is detrimental to us. But understand that change is the status quo for nature, that's especially easy to miss when it happens on timescales longer than a human life, but happen it does.

by mapt 11y ago

hemptemp 11y ago

As much as i abhor commenting online do bear with me. You say that "We cannot live in perfect harmony". That's not a thing", however what is this in comparison to. Surely this would be comparative to the rest of the eco-system. Animals make changes, they create habitats and dam rivers, however as it is more rudimentary (sticks and holes in earth) we dont consider it a change to the enviroment. Creating our homes in a more ecological and recycleable way would be in perfect harmony. The arguement is whether we should go further and drastically change the enviroment, do we have the right as the dominant species on the planet to abuse its resources for ourselves (as seen in the attached xkcd whose figures roughly show the populations of mammals who we have artifically inflated to such proportions for our dietray wants). So if we changed our architechture and agriculture then yes we could live in perfect sync and harmony, it's just that we wont.

jahewson 11y ago
There is no such thing as "harmony" in nature. Species come and go, some destroy their own habit, others drive their competitors to extinction. We do need to be careful about how we use natural resources and that we don't change our environment in a way that is detrimental to us. But understand that change is the status quo for nature, that's especially easy to miss when it happens on timescales longer than a human life, but happen it does.