Posted: Feb 08, 2016 8:16 pm
Scot Dutchy wrote:Clive Durdle wrote:Neither will I, (actually I am hearing that sort of comment quite often) but it puzzles me. Do we not all have responsibilities towards our brothers, and that includes the future and ecosystems?
Do we. Why?
Nobody has done in the past, why change. I could not care a fuck about mankind. If will kill ourselves off well and good. Are we so special? What an illusion.
An interesting viewpoint and I kind of understand it I think. I wonder if I can explain why I disagree though
Climate change will kill off many many species of animal, plant, etc. Even if you don't care about humanity, which is capable of surviving climate change anyway though perhaps without civilisation, are you saying you have no care for any of nature? Personally I don't have children, and potentially may never have any. But I care strongly about the effects that climate change will have on nature over such a short timescale because our often declining ecosystems are really beautiful and we shouldn't be fucking the world up.
Now I suppose that may not be a very scientific argument, but unless you have some kind of value system science can never really advise on what is best to do.
On the subject of human extinction, what would you feel about climate change if it destroyed much of nature but didn't cause humans to go extinct. There would still be people around and they could still continue making bad choices about the environment, so climate change isn't necessarily something that would kill humanity then allow the world to florish again. What if there are no benefits after all that death?
I hope I don't sound too argumentative, I'm genuinely curious. The view that humanity is mostly bad for the planet is, I think, not all that uncommon. But if you do think that, you probably think that causing massive environmental damage is one of the reasons (talking about people in general here). To me it doesn't seem to make that much sense to be indifferent to the damage in the hope that humanity will destroy itself and leave the planet alone, as that is far from a foregone conclusion!
That indifference just seems very fatalistic. This is where I think I see where you're coming from as I know I have a tendancy to think like that sometimes, but I'd rather be positive and hope humanity can solve its problems rather than wait for painful suffering to end it all at some undefined moment in the future
Apologies for the long reply to what may have just been a throwaway comment anyway
