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The issue is that even a huge ecosystem like the Amazon, which we tend to consider "natural", has in fact been heavily shaped by humans.
by ar-jan 8y ago
The issue is that even a huge ecosystem like the Amazon, which we tend to consider "natural", has in fact been heavily shaped by humans.
- jrochkind1 8y agoExactly. OR other animals! But "the Amazon" is a good example, because people in European cultures also have a bad habit of considering "primitive" people to be _themselves_ "natural", with implications including: wherever and whatever way they live now (or when Europeans first contacted them) is where and how they have "always" lived, with no history of cultural change or migration; they have had no effect on the ecosystems they live in, which have also always been exactly as they are now. Usually none of that is true. Even ecosystems _without humans_ (and before human carbon-producing industry) _changed over time_. Ones with humans have, as a trend, changed even more, true, but for _as long as there have been humans_, way before modern carbon-producing tech. But again, this is not meant to be a feel-good "so what we are now doing is fine." Nope, we're totally fucking things up, at an accelerated rate and order of magnitude greater scale. But not necessarily a categorical/qualitative difference.
- dwaltrip 8y agoI see your point... However, fortunately, we are still able to tell the difference between a city block and the Amazon rainforest. The distinction between the two is still meaningful.