Anthropocene

Could be. Man wipes out a lot of species, even genera.

We're not very good caretakers of the planet.
 
I'd like to quote Navin R. Johnson: "Nothing? Are you kidding? Page 73 - Johnson, Navin R.! I'm somebody now!
 
Yep, unless we see some serious change fairly soon we are pretty much ensuring our collapse. We are probably gonna take a lot of other species with us.

Personally I don't see humanity coming together for our collective good. We might as well have fun and go out in style.

The good news is the Earth will be just fine a few hundred years after we are gone.
 
Yeah, the earth will recover after our demise.

And if things get really, really bad, then in a billion years or so most (all?) of the earth will have been recycled anyways.
 
Let's just assume, for the sake of the argument, that man is poisoning the Earth to the point that it is killing off various species and also that, in time, this poisoning will threaten to eliminate the material basis for human civilization as well.

In such a case, what empirical evidence leads you to the conclusion that all this is a bad thing?

Perhaps someone might say: well, it is deserved, since man is greedy, and as for the animals and lesser species, they deserve it as well, since they haven't adapted to the changing environmental conditions, and so Darwin mandates their extinction as well.

By what science can you say that they are wrong?
 
Let's just assume, for the sake of the argument, that man is poisoning the Earth to the point that it is killing off various species ....

Anybody who has looked at this knows that it need not be, and often is not, "poison" which kills off species. Man has killed many large animals to extinction. It also isn't just "various species", but many species.

As far as it being a bad thing, it depends. Sometimes it may be bad, sometimes not. If some extinct animal would have helped us in some manner (new antibiotics, some beneficial genetic makeup) we will probably never know the full value of that lost animal.

But since your question is about why "all this is a bad thing", noting your use of the word "all", one need only look at the severely depleted fishing stocks (not quite extinct, but getting close). The "empirical" evidence why this is bad is quite clear: a reduction in food sources for humans.

Perhaps someone might say: well, it is deserved, since man is greedy, and as for the animals and lesser species, they deserve it as well, since they haven't adapted to the changing environmental conditions, and so Darwin mandates their extinction as well.

I really don't think that is what Darwin mandates.

I don't think the poster is aware of the extent to which man causes extinctions.
 
what empirical evidence leads you to the conclusion that all this is a bad thing?

Think about that question given the following statement.
(from Bryson's "A Short History ...."

"According to the University of Chicago palaentologist David Raup, the background rate of extinction on Earth throughout biological history has been one species lost every four years on average. According to Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin in The Sixth Extinction, human-caused extinction now may be running at as much as 120,000 times that level. (...)

This certainly isn't a good thing.
 
this planet has been through a lot worse.

Yes, and most livings things didn't make it.

Are you talking about Noah's flood?
 
For the purposes of this thread, I am not concerned with validity of the claim that anthropogenic climate change will have disastrous implications.

My point goes beyond just the global climate change effects wrought by man.

A mass extinction is certainly bad for man, perhaps not bad for the planet. And when defining "wrong" here we usually do so on how it affects humans.
 
To place Coelacanth's comments more firmly in the domain of the present topic, let me ask if he believes the religious are better stewards of the natural world than the non-religious?

p.s., you referred to me by name 9 times in a single post? Jeez, I am humbled....

texasflag.gif
 
And it is only by transcendent justice that the actions of Hitler, or Stalin, or any other oppressive regime can be said to be wrong.

Not at all. What does "transcendent justice" even mean? But no matter, TJ is not required to call those actions wrong. Simple justice, ala Hillel, will do quite nicely.
 
But we are left to wonder whether this implies that they have silently, even unconsciously consented to the sort of faithful vision of transcendent truth that is indeed necessary to live in such a way.


Talk about begging the question.
 
To place Coelacanth's comments more firmly in the domain of the present topic, let me ask if he believes the religious are better stewards of the natural world than the non-religious?


Depends on the time, depends on the religion, depends on the person. There are those who wish to protect nature and there are those who think the earth was given to us by their god to basically exploit, and that this god will provide no matter what. Sort of the "sparrow hypothesis". We seem to be seeing more of that view today.
 
To the people begging for everybody else's money. The pitch is always "man is changing ecosystems" yadda, yadda, yadda. So give us your funding.

They never say those same ecosystems would change anyway. It would hurt the used-car sales pitch. It's a damned shame how sleazy scientists have become in the quest for grant money.
 
Serious geologists do not deal in time periods measured by a mere tens of thousands of years.
 
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