3 ms·

It's worth remembering that hundreds of thousands of people's work and billions of dollars have been spent trying to reduce the surface radiation levels around

It's worth remembering that hundreds of thousands of people's work and billions of dollars have been spent trying to reduce the surface radiation levels around Chernobyl. A huge amount of earth was moved to bury surface radiation. Chernobyl 01:23:40 goes into a lot of detail about the sheer scale of work that was poured into the cleanup project. It's easy to get romantic about nature, animals, biodiversity etc. but if that work had not been done the situation today would be a lot less inspiring.

M_Grey 10y ago
The only difference is the time-frame. Almost anything in history short of massive asteroid impacts has been less destructive than humanity.
- jcoffland 10y ago
  Humans have also created a lot. Domestic animal breeds for example. Nature left to it's own devices does not always do better than it does under the stewardship of humans. A garden is a simple example.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    "Better" means nothing in this context anyway. Domestic breeds do not "do better" in some global sense either... often they do much worse on their own. You need to trim a horse or sheep's hooves. You need to check them for parasites. They need vaccines and antibiotics, and a tailored diet. They're great for what we bred them for... live fat, die young... they're terrible in the wild. When you see pigs in the wild, they rapidly return to "boar" states, and lose those lovely "piggy" qualities you see on a small farm. Corn is great... for us. Without us, it all dies and can't reproduce alone. A garden isn't our creation, it's our specific modification to suit our specific needs. It serves only us, and those forms of life which can adapt to us. It's also wildly artificial, requiring chemicals, or constant attention to achieve the "garden" state. A tulip is only "better" in a garden because it's one of the organisms we permit to live in the garden. Obviously the dandelions are much "better" overall though, because given a month alone it will be their garden, and not the tulips'.
    - jcoffland 10y ago
      > "Better" means nothing in this context anyway. By that argument neither does "worse".
- fusiongyro 10y ago
  Your depression has nothing to do with my comment.

M_Grey 10y ago

The only difference is the time-frame. Almost anything in history short of massive asteroid impacts has been less destructive than humanity.

jcoffland 10y ago
Humans have also created a lot. Domestic animal breeds for example. Nature left to it's own devices does not always do better than it does under the stewardship of humans. A garden is a simple example.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  "Better" means nothing in this context anyway. Domestic breeds do not "do better" in some global sense either... often they do much worse on their own. You need to trim a horse or sheep's hooves. You need to check them for parasites. They need vaccines and antibiotics, and a tailored diet. They're great for what we bred them for... live fat, die young... they're terrible in the wild. When you see pigs in the wild, they rapidly return to "boar" states, and lose those lovely "piggy" qualities you see on a small farm. Corn is great... for us. Without us, it all dies and can't reproduce alone. A garden isn't our creation, it's our specific modification to suit our specific needs. It serves only us, and those forms of life which can adapt to us. It's also wildly artificial, requiring chemicals, or constant attention to achieve the "garden" state. A tulip is only "better" in a garden because it's one of the organisms we permit to live in the garden. Obviously the dandelions are much "better" overall though, because given a month alone it will be their garden, and not the tulips'.
  - jcoffland 10y ago
    > "Better" means nothing in this context anyway. By that argument neither does "worse".
fusiongyro 10y ago
Your depression has nothing to do with my comment.