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If authorities say that some cave ecosystem is really fragile and could be damaged by litter, well this is a reasonable hypothesis. I'll buy it. The article se

If authorities say that some cave ecosystem is really fragile and could be damaged by litter, well this is a reasonable hypothesis. I'll buy it. The article sets the outcome with a terrifying "corn flour could have triggered chaos", but without providing links to research that will support this hypothesis. Meanwhile, I'm being required to provide links to a negative outcome research, or to flash a ridiculous license to think. Well, If you want the proof, is in the fact that this ecosystems still exist. Existed for millions of years. Despite the number of bones found on caves all around the planet, Or the fact that people makes cheese on caves since thousands of years, Or that the surface waters carrying bacteria, algae and viruses pass through caves... ... Despite this, nobody has seen a cave disappear after being filled with mold. Somehow, the surplus of mold disappears from this ecosystems. How? The empirical experience show us that ecosystems poor in nutrients are boosted locally when they receive an external supply of carcasses or organic garbage. As long as is a reasonable amount, the ecosystem can deal with it. This garbage just provided dinner for the cave crickets that are preyed by spiders later. The most probable outcome will be: "more endangered crickets and more unique spiders". The science of Ecology has studied the concept of stress on ecosystems thoroughly: Some stress increases biodiversity; too much is bad. You could say: "but people could be trowing too much garbage here!". Yep. But "could be happening" is not the same thing as "is happening". Show the numbers. In any case the real problem is not this. The real problem is that the same authorities talking about chaos in ecosystem, are allowing 500k f*ing people a year walking in that ecosystem. Didn't they said before that it is so, so fragile?. Maybe they are being hypocrites about this? The solution here seems very simple. If the cave ecosystem is in danger, stop tourism until it recovers. You can't have your cake and eat it.

llamaimperative 2y ago
The fact that 500k people per year do go through the cave system and it hasn't collapsed yet is empirical disproof of your claim "You can't have your cake and eat it." Nobody is saying this cave will cease to exist if there's some Cheetohs or even a dear carcass in it. They're saying that every disturbance runs the risk of destroying what is interesting to us about the caves. There are literally countless caves that are far, far less interesting than Carlsbad. The hope is that this continues to be a unique and interesting one. Your other comment that a dear carcass wouldn't cause harm "irreparably" reveals your underlying confusion. There's no concept of repair or harm or irreparability as far as nature goes. We know that Carlsbad is interesting to us in the state it's currently in. Contamination could make it even more interesting/valuable to us, or it could destroy its unique value to us. The cave's caretakers obviously believe the latter is the more likely outcome, and in either case we almost certainly will not be able to "repair" it back to its current state.

llamaimperative 2y ago

The fact that 500k people per year do go through the cave system and it hasn't collapsed yet is empirical disproof of your claim "You can't have your cake and eat it." Nobody is saying this cave will cease to exist if there's some Cheetohs or even a dear carcass in it. They're saying that every disturbance runs the risk of destroying what is interesting to us about the caves. There are literally countless caves that are far, far less interesting than Carlsbad. The hope is that this continues to be a unique and interesting one. Your other comment that a dear carcass wouldn't cause harm "irreparably" reveals your underlying confusion. There's no concept of repair or harm or irreparability as far as nature goes. We know that Carlsbad is interesting to us in the state it's currently in. Contamination could make it even more interesting/valuable to us, or it could destroy its unique value to us. The cave's caretakers obviously believe the latter is the more likely outcome, and in either case we almost certainly will not be able to "repair" it back to its current state.