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- From: tpalm@nada.kth.se (Thomas Palm)
- Newsgroups: sci.environment
- Subject: Re: The Human Niche
- Message-ID: <1992Sep9.083951.10806@kth.se>
- Date: 9 Sep 92 08:39:51 GMT
- References: <1466601757@igc.apc.org> <1992Sep9.041733.12779@nuchat.sccsi.com>
- Sender: usenet@kth.se (Usenet)
- Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
- Lines: 45
- Nntp-Posting-Host: alv.nada.kth.se
-
-
- In article <1992Sep9.041733.12779@nuchat.sccsi.com>, kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) writes:
-
- |>
- |> Even if your argument *is* that humans will suffer nastier consequences
- |> by exploiting nature than by working with nature, it will still be an
- |> essentially religious argument *unless* you can provide convincing
- |> evidence that working with nature *does* yield a greater benefit to
- |> cost ratio than exploiting nature does. And here I think you are at
- |> a severe disadvantage, for (as I say above) humans have HUNDREDS OF
- |> THOUSANDS OF YEARS of experience that says that exploiting nature works
- |> much better (we discovered this when we started using tools).
-
- Note that during most of that time we have had a rather small impact on the
- environment. Thus we have been able to take what we want without worrying
- about the consequences as nature has been able to replace most resources.
- Today, with a much larger population and technical level, we are in a position
- to easily destroy our environment and thus ourselves. We therefore has to
- learn to care about consequences for nature whether we consider it to have a
- value in itself or not.
-
- Considering that we today have rather limited knowledge about what parts of the
- ecosystem that can be destroyed without risk to humans it is also hard to
- protect the environment as the people wanting to destroy it usually can show
- immediate economic profits. If one later finds out that the vanished ecosystem
- was essential, it will usually be hard or impossible to replace.
-
- In order to create a balance between short term profit and long time risks a
- ecological "religion" placing an inherent value on nature may actually be of
- great survival value. A rational cost-benefit analysis including the cost of
- unknown risks would of course be better, but our society seems to be incapable
- of that at this point.
-
- To avoid some flames (and probably get some other) I must add that I believe
- that the ethical argument of supporting nature for its own sake is valid. As
- our wealth have increased the trend has been to include larger groups in those
- with an inherent value, i.e. racism and sexism isn't very popular these days while
- slavery is completely out. This is merely a continuation of that trend.
-
- --
- "Goood planets are hard to find." Thomas Palm
- Department of Microwave Engineering
- Royal Institute of Technology
- S-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
- tpalm@mvt.kth.se
-