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Ok, I think we are talking about two different things: One thing is biodiversity and the ecological resilience of biodiverse systems, of which there are many (

Ok, I think we are talking about two different things: One thing is biodiversity and the ecological resilience of biodiverse systems, of which there are many (still) where different species live in a healthy, productive and dynamic balance. These habitats are under attack for sure, spurred by industrial production modes of various kinds. Quite another thing is the notion (represented by GP if I'm correct) that the whole earth somehow is a balanced system, were it not for greedy humans. This is a mystical belief that I don't see any proof of. It is far-fetched not to think that comet impacts, massive volcano eruptions and/or solar radiation variance accidentally could make most if not all ecological systems devoid of life, quite without human intervention.

stestagg 8y ago
tl;dr, It was a light-hearted ironic idea, not some statement on the impending downfall of human civilization "that the whole earth somehow is a balanced system, were it not for greedy humans" This was in no way implied by what I said! I think the word balance is justified here, the word I got wrong was ecology (I meant climate, but it was late, and I didn’t expect such a defensive response to my joke,…). Either way, both the climate and ecology of earth work by balancing conflicting interests and drivers. food chains, carbon cycles, etc.. all are based on interlocking processes that combine to create a system that is stable at a macro level (Of course localized factors can make things seem much less stable). But on the whole, these systems are balanced. Things periodically come along and upset that balance, and it takes a while for the system to adjust and re-balance, typically with a result that is different from before. My point was that it would be ironic if ANY civilisation got to the level where it could alter these systems meaningfully, but by doing so, and not understanding what/how they were doing things, created a situation where not only were they wiped-out, but also all trace of their technology was wiped-out too. I accept that this exact scenario is extremely unlikely, as our current models predict that in these situations, at least some of the population would survive due to those localized factors, but the civilisation could easily be destroyed by sudden and climactic shifts. It's unclear (to the best of my knowledge) if we would expect the historical record of such a thing to be carried by these people, but a lot of the detail of our knowledge of roman and pre-roman times(1,000s years, not millions) has been derived from archeological records, so it's not unreasonable to assume that if Ice were to scour all hard evidence of such things from the surface of the earth, then the knowledge of such may die out or become so garbled that it ceases to be believed. Of course there /are/ parallels with the situation modern humans find ourselves in. I think there's little doubt that what we do has an effect on the balance of the world's climate and ecological systems (you eat a chicken, that has affected the food chain by an infinitesimal amount), but how much impact we will have, and our ability to comfortable adapt to any resulting changes would require a much longer response, and isn’t relevant to my original post at all :)

stestagg 8y ago

tl;dr, It was a light-hearted ironic idea, not some statement on the impending downfall of human civilization "that the whole earth somehow is a balanced system, were it not for greedy humans" This was in no way implied by what I said! I think the word balance is justified here, the word I got wrong was ecology (I meant climate, but it was late, and I didn’t expect such a defensive response to my joke,…). Either way, both the climate and ecology of earth work by balancing conflicting interests and drivers. food chains, carbon cycles, etc.. all are based on interlocking processes that combine to create a system that is stable at a macro level (Of course localized factors can make things seem much less stable). But on the whole, these systems are balanced. Things periodically come along and upset that balance, and it takes a while for the system to adjust and re-balance, typically with a result that is different from before. My point was that it would be ironic if ANY civilisation got to the level where it could alter these systems meaningfully, but by doing so, and not understanding what/how they were doing things, created a situation where not only were they wiped-out, but also all trace of their technology was wiped-out too. I accept that this exact scenario is extremely unlikely, as our current models predict that in these situations, at least some of the population would survive due to those localized factors, but the civilisation could easily be destroyed by sudden and climactic shifts. It's unclear (to the best of my knowledge) if we would expect the historical record of such a thing to be carried by these people, but a lot of the detail of our knowledge of roman and pre-roman times(1,000s years, not millions) has been derived from archeological records, so it's not unreasonable to assume that if Ice were to scour all hard evidence of such things from the surface of the earth, then the knowledge of such may die out or become so garbled that it ceases to be believed. Of course there /are/ parallels with the situation modern humans find ourselves in. I think there's little doubt that what we do has an effect on the balance of the world's climate and ecological systems (you eat a chicken, that has affected the food chain by an infinitesimal amount), but how much impact we will have, and our ability to comfortable adapt to any resulting changes would require a much longer response, and isn’t relevant to my original post at all :)