There's a thing that archaeologists do. Sometimes they come across a site that may be valuable but that they can't be sure they will be able to recover things w

There's a thing that archaeologists do. Sometimes they come across a site that may be valuable but that they can't be sure they will be able to recover things without damaging them. Maybe there are pockets of empty space in the ground whose shape is very important, and they don't have the right kind of imaging technology. What they'll do is just stop and note it for the future, so that in a few decades new tools may become available that will allow us to get the information. To do otherwise would be to risk losing that information permanently. Nature is not dissimilar. Sure, it's conceivable that one day we might be so technologically advanced that we can easily modify the environment on a whim, recreating extinct species or being able to perfectly model the ecosystem and tweak it. And maybe we will opt to not have an environment and live off of solar energy or something. But we're centuries from that, and we don't know for sure that we'll ever be able to do those things. So, what's the responsible thing to do? Like the archaeologists, we must keep the environment around until we're sure we'll be okay without it.