Parasites and Monarchs

Jonathan Sylvestre josylvestre at sympatico.ca
Fri Apr 8 17:07:55 EDT 2005


RG wrote:  "At this point someone always chimes in that "humans" are the problem because we are bringing about _unnatural_ changes.  This is the silliest thing anyone can say because it renders humans as not being a part of nature - puts us outside nature = natural process.  We are just as natural as any other organism and we can do things that shift the ecological balance just like anything else - from volcanoes to rain forests to meteors to milk. "

Hugh McGuinness wrote :

"The word "natural" loses its meaning if humans are included in nature, at least in the sense of nature being discussed in this thread. We distinguish between natural and synthetic (human-made) objects, problems, consequences because it is a very useful distinction for understanding the state of the environment of the planet. We now have incontrovertible proof that humans have increased the rate of extinction, put a hole in ozone, introduced novel chemicals that have wrought ecological havoc (e.g. thinning of egg shells by DDT to name one of myriad examples), depleted fish stocks and altered marine and limnological ecology, set rivers on fire, etc. If humans are a part of nature then these problems cease to exist as problems that require solution: "whatever humans do is just a part of nature and therefore okay."  This kind of thinking is naive at best or part of a right-wing agenda to continue with the economic policies that brought us these problems in the first place. "

I completly agree Hugh. Because its a subject that toutch me very much, I would like to add this comment :
The human species, like other species, is a part of the "nature" like all other living animals, plants, ... with which we share many gene. All species population are regulated by many and many systems (and we can include disaster things like volcanos, climat change, etc.). The species population increase or decrease, migrate, disapear, split, etc. BUT for the first time in the planet history, one species can "deal" with thoses systems and increase his population way over the limit capacity of the ecosystem. This is not only the destructive instinct of human (that come from his evolutive past) but the over population that will cause the destruction of the planet as a planetary ecosystem. From this point, if we talk about the destruction of the nature, we must consider human appart from other species. Stop beaing naive and accept the truth.

IM sorry for my english, I hope I wrote my idea correctly.

Jonathan Sylvestre
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