Kthaahthikha

I am torn about global warming. On the one (cold, impersonal, detached and pseudo-scientific) hand, it's ultimately immaterial because we could blast the earth with nuclear bombs and, in a few million years, we'd have a flourishing ecosystem once more (albeit a radically different one). I'm also confident enough in human ingeuity that I'm sure we could pretty much survive anything we managed to come-up with, even if it meant genetically modifying ourselves and living in vast subterranean arcologies. There's also the fact that change is a natural part of the enviroment - even radical change. The Permian and KT extinctions allowed for entirely new and wonderful developments (including humanity's own) at the unfortunate expense of other creatures.

There's also the question of what we're worried about happening. Our species is pretty resilient, and we are all ultimately going to die anyway. Individually. If we all just stopped reproducing right now and the remaining humans died of old age, it would not matter one bar because we'd have all lived a long and full life. The same thing goes for all the other animals on the planet. I'm more worried about things arising from climate change, like wars and diseases and over-crowding - a drop in the quality of life more than the quantity. The extinction of species doesn't actually matter, as it seems to be more important what happens to the individual during life.

However, that's the cool-headed and detached side of me. The side with lots of emotions is worried because it doesn't want all the lovely animals driven to extinction, even if they will be replaced by new and fancier variations and possibly entirely new hierarchies of dominance ( a second age of insects, or an age of birds, or a completely novel branch of the animals kingdom like warm-blooded moluscs or something). I don't want the world to become smog-ridden and Gibsonesque because even if other organisms adapt to it and find it pleasant and normal (and I know we could do the same using science) I would find it weird and different and a complete change from what has come before.

I am also confused about attempts to halt natural environmental change. Two years ago I worked as part of an environmental initiative on the Victorian coast, working to revegeate dunes and fight the spread of weeds. However, upon inquiry I discovered that many of the weeds had been brought into the area by native birdlife, and that some of the beaches (though certainly not all) were eroding due to the natural way of the sea and not because of humanity's tinkering. So, in affect, we were attempting to freeze the environment at its current level and halt the forces of natural development and struggle, forcing the Victorian coastal ecology into a form of perpetual stasis. We also did a lot of good work combatting human harm, but humans are a part of nature, and part of nature is new animals coming in and screwing things up so that everything changes. Like humans are doing.

Of course following that path to its logical extreme would probably result in promoting an anarchist philosophy in relation to all actions, so I'm not sure, but I do think that we are a catalyst, and that it is ridiculous to try and apply the standards of good and evil to something as complex and impersonal as nature.

I should also add that my greatest concern is sustainability.

And so ends my lengthy, poorly-considered and self-contradictory ramble. If I read through that I would probably disagree with myself on several points.