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So here's a radical idea that's fun to think about. Usually we think of nature as "conditions before humans came along." And we figure that if humans disrupted

So here's a radical idea that's fun to think about. Usually we think of nature as "conditions before humans came along." And we figure that if humans disrupted it, then humans should try to undo the disruption. But that's just fixing one intervention by means of another intervention, and the fix likely has just as many, if a different set, of poorly-understood and unintended consequences. So lately I've started to define nature a little differently - maybe "nature" isn't what earth looked like before humans, it's what earth would look like if humans disappeared. Or to put it less fantastically, a scenario of minimal human intervention from this point forward. In that context, the blackberry, kudzu and ivy vines that we introduced, are the new landscape, the new nature, the thing that ends up taking over the sites we disturbed. Similar dynamics would presumably play out in the oceans and everywhere else. The thing this definition of nature has in common with the more usual one, is that phrase "minimal human intervention." The difference of course is that it doesn't try to undo the recent past, which in general throughout the universe but also specifically in this context, I think is pretty much impossible. So this definition, and the course of action that follows logically from it, has the bonus attribute of being a bit more consistent with current reality. Of course it'll never happen that way unless homo sapiens really does "disappear," i.e. suffers a dramatic decrease in either demand for intervention (read: population), or ability to intervene, in ecosystems. But it's interesting to think about.

daenz 7y ago
"Nature" could also include humans. I haven't seen anything to suggest that the natural outcome of billions of years of evolution isn't some highly intelligent, dominant organism that ends up shaping its environment to an extreme degree.
- stevejb 7y ago
  Thank you for posting this. This is a really good 2-sentence summary of what I have been struggling to put into words. The other approaches to nature seem so anti-human. I like the idea that somehow the quality of the world is somehow intrinsically better when humans aren't involved. Certainly there are plenty of ways that humans can make it worse, but that is not the same thing as saying that somehow humans are less a part of nature than any other organism or geological feature.
- vageli 7y ago
  > "Nature" could also include humans. I haven't seen anything to suggest that the natural outcome of billions of years of evolution isn't some highly intelligent, dominant organism that ends up shaping its environment to an extreme degree. I wonder if the narrative that humans are not of nature makes it easier for us to harm the environment, since we do not feel part of it (as evidenced by our use of the word nature as some _other_).
  - ksdale 7y ago
    I think this point has merit and it’s important for us to think of ourselves as part of the environment, but also, there are lots of other animals (like most of them?) that don’t care at all about the environment and the only reason they don’t destroy it in pursuit of their vital resources is that they can’t. There are endless stories of animals eating and breeding until their ecosystems are destroyed and they suffer massive die offs. Of course that tends to happen most often to invasive species, but nature certainly does not keep itself in balance through conscientiousness.
    - gridlockd 7y ago
      > here are endless stories of animals eating and breeding until their ecosystems are destroyed and they suffer massive die offs. I believe the hypothesis that we're not one of these animal species may well prove false. > Of course that tends to happen most often to invasive species, but nature certainly does not keep itself in balance through conscientiousness. Neither do humans. We tend to fuck things up until they become real problems, then mitigate the damage, sometimes with success. That's not really conscientious, that's "winging it". This is the true nature of the human being.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - lurquer 7y ago
    >I wonder if the narrative that humans are not of nature makes it easier for us to harm the environment, since we do not feel part of it (as evidenced by our use of the word nature as some _other_). To the contrary, there is a worldview whereby humans are not part of nature. Instead, they have dominion over it and a responsibility to care for all aspects of it as a custodian. To use a metaphor, nature without humans can never reach its full potential, just as a garden without its gardener will revert to a less ordered -- and less diverse -- state.
- rdiddly 7y ago
  That's exactly the idea - the environment does include humans. And if humans stopped intervening: that's "nature" (still adhering to the idea of nature as separate from humans, which I agree with other commenters, is problematic).

daenz 7y ago

"Nature" could also include humans. I haven't seen anything to suggest that the natural outcome of billions of years of evolution isn't some highly intelligent, dominant organism that ends up shaping its environment to an extreme degree.

stevejb 7y ago
Thank you for posting this. This is a really good 2-sentence summary of what I have been struggling to put into words. The other approaches to nature seem so anti-human. I like the idea that somehow the quality of the world is somehow intrinsically better when humans aren't involved. Certainly there are plenty of ways that humans can make it worse, but that is not the same thing as saying that somehow humans are less a part of nature than any other organism or geological feature.
vageli 7y ago
> "Nature" could also include humans. I haven't seen anything to suggest that the natural outcome of billions of years of evolution isn't some highly intelligent, dominant organism that ends up shaping its environment to an extreme degree. I wonder if the narrative that humans are not of nature makes it easier for us to harm the environment, since we do not feel part of it (as evidenced by our use of the word nature as some _other_).
- ksdale 7y ago
  I think this point has merit and it’s important for us to think of ourselves as part of the environment, but also, there are lots of other animals (like most of them?) that don’t care at all about the environment and the only reason they don’t destroy it in pursuit of their vital resources is that they can’t. There are endless stories of animals eating and breeding until their ecosystems are destroyed and they suffer massive die offs. Of course that tends to happen most often to invasive species, but nature certainly does not keep itself in balance through conscientiousness.
  - gridlockd 7y ago
    > here are endless stories of animals eating and breeding until their ecosystems are destroyed and they suffer massive die offs. I believe the hypothesis that we're not one of these animal species may well prove false. > Of course that tends to happen most often to invasive species, but nature certainly does not keep itself in balance through conscientiousness. Neither do humans. We tend to fuck things up until they become real problems, then mitigate the damage, sometimes with success. That's not really conscientious, that's "winging it". This is the true nature of the human being.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- lurquer 7y ago
  >I wonder if the narrative that humans are not of nature makes it easier for us to harm the environment, since we do not feel part of it (as evidenced by our use of the word nature as some _other_). To the contrary, there is a worldview whereby humans are not part of nature. Instead, they have dominion over it and a responsibility to care for all aspects of it as a custodian. To use a metaphor, nature without humans can never reach its full potential, just as a garden without its gardener will revert to a less ordered -- and less diverse -- state.
rdiddly 7y ago
That's exactly the idea - the environment does include humans. And if humans stopped intervening: that's "nature" (still adhering to the idea of nature as separate from humans, which I agree with other commenters, is problematic).