From: dmonger@yabbs
To: balistic@yabbs
Subject: re: don't cry for the ecosystem
Date: Wed Aug 17 17:31:34 1994

In message re: don't cry for the ecosystem, balistic said:
>    I understand your point and I agree that we are advancing too fast for 
> some species to keep up, but the fact remains that we are the dominant 
> species and we cant help impacting the environment in some way or another. 

i agree with this fact.  I've never said we should keep from impacting the 
environment.  

>  Mother nature likes to destroy just as much as we do.  

Except that mother nature is much more random than we are, and is perfectly 
willing to take humans down a peg as well.

> stop impacting the ecosystems without halting technologival advancement.

i don't remmeber when i said we should become cave-dwelling apes again, except
to counter what was (IMO) an equally extreme example.

i realize that we will have an effect on the ecosystem in everything we do.  
What you have to realize is that we can potentially have a less detrimental
effect, if we're willing to give up a little of our own comfort and convenieice

for example, if people were willing to walk more or ride bikes, or use other
less poluting forms of transportation than the current a-car-in-every-pot 
situation that we have, ozone and carbon monoxide levels in the city wouldn't
be as bad.

As i've said, the argument that we're just another species tooling our way 
through life isn't one i really buy.  I agree we're pretty much just apes with
bigger brains, and we still have some reminants of our former evolutionary 
selves, but we also have a few "gifts".  When we destroy a wetland so we can
put in a mini-mall, its not a random, mother-naturesque act.  

my point is still that we have a greater responsibility for our actions 
and their detrimental (or positive) effects on the ecosystem, because we have
a much free-er hand in our own actions.  

If the uber-cow decides to destroy all of one type of grass, its cause it had 
little choice in the matter, it was eat or survive.  If we destroy all of one 
type of grass, its usually cause we wanted a dairy-queen.

-peter
who's really in the mood for some uberhamburgers right about now