The planet is fine. What would make you believe that, based on 5 billion years of geological history?
I don't think everyone understands this, and I also think it is a key to reaching more people with the message - of why we need to make changes to the status quo.
I'm increasingly worried that large segments of the population will not be reached by that message or any message that isn't about direct harm to themselves or their loved ones.
If aliens were flying past our planet and saw all of our concrete and deforestation from space, they'd assume we're an unstoppable virus that will destroy the ecosystem if a cure is not found. That perspective hit me in a way, at a scale, that I have never thought about before. We see many of our actions as "development" which tends to have a positive meaning, but from space that same "development" looks like a disease that is overrunning the planet.
A little further out there, but if other intelligent life exists and they saw us as a virus, they might try to cure the planet by eradicating us.
I'm not saying we shouldn't develop anything, or that aliens can't develop one spaceship sustainably. The point is that we've done a lot of harm and very few people are trying to turn it around. I'm part of the problem too. I need to be better, and we can amplify each other's efforts if we all work together and build the tools and resources that make it easier for everyone to do better.
> This is an incredibly toxic point of view.
I disagree. The most toxic view point is literally the one that ignores how unsustainable we have become and how toxic that is for the planet, and our future on it.
Which would be awful, as we can all agree.
We have reason to judge the health of human civilization above other factors, but what grounds do they have with an outside perspective? What's right and wrong for this planet, or for us, from their alien perspective? Why would they sympathize with, say, the dolphins instead of us (they might - for random reasons?)
It wouldn't necessarily be random, it could just be math. If any being looked at any ecosystem objectively, and they see 1 species making that ecosystem worse for 8.7 million other species, then it might seem obvious to side with the 8.7 million other species.
Is it ethical to eradicate 1 species to save 8.7 million others? Well, now we've got a classic trolley problem on our hands. They could keep on flying and do nothing, or they could intervene. Not everyone will agree on the ethical choice.
It's true, that they might be into "gardening" and want to shape the planet they pass by to their aesthetics and values, but it's hard to guess what they are, and it's not objective.
I appreciate the discussion of this.
Money is a proxy for a lot of things, like ability to afford the things needed to survive on a daily basis.
I don't think we can wave away huge global inequity by saying that we shouldn't even compare countries.
In some broad, abstract way of looking at things people can say, “well it’s all just star dust and will burn out in a billion years.” But we’re not just destroying our own habitat — we’re destroying countless other species. An entire web of life.
If Earth winds up a giant ocean of jellyfish, then, well - great for the jellyfish. Still a tragedy as far as I’m concerned.
I find it astonishing that so many people can be cavalier about the deaths of millions of people when it comes to environmental destruction in a way that would be totally socially unacceptable if you were talking about targeted killings or genocide.
You're not getting it. With global environmental catastrophe the concern is not about the deaths of millions of people. It is about the deaths of all people everywhere. A symptom of the problem of environmental catastrophe is those that are cavalier about the deaths of entire species of wildlife. The planet will be fine, the plant and wildlife will recover... though it may not be the same plant or wildlife. But once humans are gone, there is very little change we are coming back. So, to be clear, though humans have and are making he planet uninhabitable for myriad of species, reducing the available variety of species, which we, in fact, depend on... it is a web... but we are also making the planet uninhabitable for people.
Serious and monumental efforts in conservation of plant and wildlife and habitat is a damn good place to start. The more natural habitat there is, the more plant and wildlife there is, the better it will be for us. First thing is first... the oil industry and the chemical industry needs to go away within the next 10 years. Government, which people control, needs to make all that crap unprofitable. All pollution must cease, and we need to figure out how to clean up what has been done. Let's not bitch about energy, nor evangelize nuclear power. Let's just bite the bullet for a few generations and force everything and everyone to generate their own energy, and require that it be clean.
No, I think I am. Your comment actually misses my entire point and instead just explains climate change?
My point is that a common sentiment I see articulated in response to someone saying that the biosphere soon might not be able to support humanity is "Good, humanity is a cancer on this planet and we've shown we don't deserve it."
I think that statements like that should get a comparable amount of social ire to someone blithely stating that the Holocaust was good population control. It is unacceptable to view the death of millions or billions (after a long period of extremely impoverished living) as a good thing to me.
It is neither "cavalier" nor incompassionate to refer to the age of the planet and the history of life (e.g. humans). It's a scientific fact that we haven't existed for very long in geological time and that we could become extinct by our own doing... or by a suitably large cosmic impactor (among other causes, cosmic or terrestrial).
Real cavalier talk might be about the tobacco industry, the war industry, or the tens of thousands of people who die in motor-vehicle accidents every year in the US alone.
> Our society is so odd.
Indeed. Squeamish about the truth, comfortable in delusion.
> Indeed. Squeamish about the truth, comfortable in delusion.
I'm taking issue with the extinction of humanity being framed as a good thing or a solution to the problem.
> we could become extinct by our own doing
Yes, and that would be horrible! That would be more horrible than any action taken by the tobacco industry, the war industry, or the inevitable drunk driving.
It is not a "solution" for humanity to exterminate itself through its own idiocy. But you can see that it is a hard problem that might well "solve itself", as the thread-OP said. As a humanist, I prefer to make an effort.
Although extinction through our own idiocy would be horrible, it would be of a piece with the other plagues that I mentioned. Albeit on a different scale.
Extinction because of a major catastrophic event not of our causing would be tragic because there isn't much intelligent life in the neighbourhood, much less under our "own roof".
I'm not commenting on the veracity of claims about the extinction of humanity, although I do think that present trends do not always explain or predict future ones.
and really, even in cases that don't involve a superpower like china, I think if there was a random genocide in some random developing country, the world wouldn't do anything about it at this moment in time, the west is just too busy with its own internal problems at the moment.
Carbon dioxide is fertilizing the earth, providing a higher leaf area index than any time in recent history: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fer...
Global area burned in wildfires is actually down 25% over the last 20 years despite the arson in the Western United States: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145421/building-a-l...
Crop yields are up over 100% from 50 years ago and we produce about 10x more wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, and sugar beets per acre than we did in pre-industrial times: https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields
Stop reading sensational journalism and start digging into the actual data, and you'll find there's plenty to be optimistic about.
That's a really interesting timeframe to pick since acres burned has about doubled in the last 30 years. (in the US) https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/IF10244.pdf