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Are we protecting the reef because of its effects on the wider planet, or because we like it and think it’s pretty and believe it would be tragic to lose it? F

by sneak 3y ago

Are we protecting the reef because of its effects on the wider planet, or because we like it and think it’s pretty and believe it would be tragic to lose it? For example, it seems pretty clear that we would have major problems everywhere on Earth if we clearcut the entire Amazon rainforest. That seems to me to justify saving it. In short: does the Great Barrier Reef’s existence have similar far-flung implications, or is this effort based on status quo bias?

brucethemoose2 3y ago
I don't know, but disrupting an ecosystem has knock-on effects. It could change something else much more directly important to humanity. That is a big premise of climate change mitigation. We don't necessarily know all the knock on effects of CO2 and other pollution, but we don't need to. Any climate/ecosystem alteration is generally disruptive to civilization, which is why things have to be so critical to even discuss geoengineering.
standardUser 3y ago
Coral reefs have potentially the greatest biodiversity of any ecosystem on the planet.
CatWChainsaw 3y ago
So if a thing doesn't have an immediate functional utility, it doesn't deserve to exist? Please don't question how we got here - your mindset is the answer.
- sneak 3y ago
  It seems to me that the Great Barrier Reef is going to go away. That has nothing to do with my mindset, or any actions I have or have not taken. We didn’t start the fire, etc. That said, under discussion is whether or not resources should be spent to save it (and what format the allocation of those resources might be). It is thus more than reasonable to ask “what happens if we don’t?”. Doing nothing is frequently (IMO in the vast majority of times) the best problem-solving strategy. Whenever faced with a problem, my first thought is always “if we do nothing and wait, will this problem go away in an acceptable fashion?” For example: There are many thousands of stray cats out in the world who will die of lack of food and shelter very soon. Does your “mindset” have you out feeding and sheltering them? Do they not matter because they don’t have immediate functional utility? This sort of black and white thinking you seem to be applying doesn’t lend itself well to doing cost/benefit analysis over a set of possible future actions.
  - CatWChainsaw 3y ago
    Well, it's your mindset, so you answer that question, don't pin it on me. If the GBR truly had no impact on the wider ecosystem, would you choose to let it die. What level of impact would it take to care, its minimum usefulness to you. The status quo environment is the only one we know civilization to flourish in, as it was a remarkably stable period, so it's self-evident to me that we should be keeping as much the same as it was around the time the Industrial Revolution took off if we want to preserve as much of the climate as possible. Would you raze the Louvre and replace it with a server farm if someone said that space would be more useful that way.

by sneak 3y ago

brucethemoose2 3y ago

I don't know, but disrupting an ecosystem has knock-on effects. It could change something else much more directly important to humanity. That is a big premise of climate change mitigation. We don't necessarily know all the knock on effects of CO2 and other pollution, but we don't need to. Any climate/ecosystem alteration is generally disruptive to civilization, which is why things have to be so critical to even discuss geoengineering.

standardUser 3y ago

Coral reefs have potentially the greatest biodiversity of any ecosystem on the planet.

CatWChainsaw 3y ago

So if a thing doesn't have an immediate functional utility, it doesn't deserve to exist? Please don't question how we got here - your mindset is the answer.

sneak 3y ago
It seems to me that the Great Barrier Reef is going to go away. That has nothing to do with my mindset, or any actions I have or have not taken. We didn’t start the fire, etc. That said, under discussion is whether or not resources should be spent to save it (and what format the allocation of those resources might be). It is thus more than reasonable to ask “what happens if we don’t?”. Doing nothing is frequently (IMO in the vast majority of times) the best problem-solving strategy. Whenever faced with a problem, my first thought is always “if we do nothing and wait, will this problem go away in an acceptable fashion?” For example: There are many thousands of stray cats out in the world who will die of lack of food and shelter very soon. Does your “mindset” have you out feeding and sheltering them? Do they not matter because they don’t have immediate functional utility? This sort of black and white thinking you seem to be applying doesn’t lend itself well to doing cost/benefit analysis over a set of possible future actions.
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  Well, it's your mindset, so you answer that question, don't pin it on me. If the GBR truly had no impact on the wider ecosystem, would you choose to let it die. What level of impact would it take to care, its minimum usefulness to you. The status quo environment is the only one we know civilization to flourish in, as it was a remarkably stable period, so it's self-evident to me that we should be keeping as much the same as it was around the time the Industrial Revolution took off if we want to preserve as much of the climate as possible. Would you raze the Louvre and replace it with a server farm if someone said that space would be more useful that way.