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We Destroy Nature; Really.
Topic Started: May 13 2012, 01:33 PM (2,155 Views)
lamna
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gave ride
Gave rise. You need to think more before you post.

We can't really move past fossil fuels yet. Atomic power supplemented by renewables could replace our needs for electricity, but we don't have the technology to create an alternative to petrol and diesel cars that give the same performance for the same price at the moment. And even if to forget the human side of it, it would take decades for the infrastructure to be built for power production.

To make my opinion clear, I want to preserve the natural world, but the natural world has to work for it. It has to be practical and whenever possible economically viable or profitable. Otherwise, I don't see it working in the long run.

I don't like people complaining about things we can't do anything about, and I don't like people acting as if we are all criminals because some lighthouse keeper had a cat, or because people didn't much like their kids starving because predators were decimating their flocks.

They are extinct, maybe we can bring some of them back one day, but they are gone and there are things we need to focus on now.
Edited by lamna, May 14 2012, 05:28 AM.
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colddigger
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We can move past fossil fuels, just not hydrocarbons, see there's this beautiful thing called biofuel and if algae can be eastablished it can make things much better and cheaper.
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dialforthedevil
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I hate enviroMENTALISTS, they are some of the greatest hypocrites on Earth. If they genuinely want to live in a cave while wiping their lazy hipster arses with stinging nettles so be it. Im quite happy living cancer-free from my tiger penis sundaes.

Anyway I find it interesting that our site seems to have such similar opinions on the environment and also very heart-warming. Most sites which talk about fauna seem to be filled with the sort of people who we all agree are idiots. Perhaps its the fact that our little field takes us into a proper 'study' of ecosystems and how biology actually works than thinking, 'Oh yay a panda!'. T. Neo seems to have nailed exactly what I believe anyway, especially all the stuff about how we deify Amazonian tribes people. I have never understood that, it seems to be some sort of Western fantasy about living a pure and natural life. (Ignoring the fact that among those people leprosy, the Black Death are still problems. I would much rather panda's go extinct than watch my kids die of leprosy. Also note that environmentalist movements only ever seem to arise in developed nations, anyone else will tell you that living with nature is pretty damn shit.

Also remember that animals in their wild state are in fact very profitable, for example I went on holiday to Sri Lanka a few years ago as I wanted to see the rainforests. Rather than cutting down the rainforests the locals have learnt that it is in fact more profitable to keep them clean so tourists will pay more money than attempting to grow whatever crops they can in the poor soil. People like nature, everyone does. Its why we have national parks etc. We aren't just going to wipe out nature, thats just some sort of strange Hippie dipshit nightmare.
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lamna
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No, there are people trying to look after their environment pretty much everywhere, it's just we can shout loudest and have the money to do something about it.

I also don't really like creating false dichotomies. We can have pandas and leprosy free children. I don't really get all the panda hate, or the love to be honest. People act like they have not been around for millions of years, and that the vast reserves set aside for them don't benefit thousands of species of plants and animals.

Though they don't seem very cute to me. No more than any other bear.
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That is our right as a species. Sometimes it results in the extinction of other species, but that will happen either way. Not all species are compatible, in order for one to survive the other must sometimes inevitably be wiped out. That's nature.


But just because it does occur, does not mean that we should advocate it, or even allow it. Going by a similar logic, it should be perfectly fine for me to kill people, to eliminate them as competition, or repeatedly attempt to reproduce with people without their consent- both are perfectly 'natural', in the sense that they're genetically self-serving behaviours. But that doesn't mean they're acceptable ones.

Conflicts and extinctions arising from the appearance of a new species is indeed a natural thing, but we're not just another new species- we're a sapient one. We're not just bacteria growing over a petri dish- we may be ignorant, but we can think calculatingly about our actions, and steer the direction that we take.

Our survival as a species does not depend on the destruction of biodiversity, and our wellbeing probably does not either. Are we really supposed to sit around and laugh at their demise while a bunch of people butcher rhinos to use their horns as a quack remedy?

Biodiversity is immensely important in terms of culture, heritage, and scientific knowledge. It is probably best to keep it around- even if the inclination to do so is "artificial".

I do agree with you on one thing though, Parasky- humans are not evil for eradicating organisms, as many people try to claim.

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And no links to Avaaz. Speculative Evolution does not associate itself with corrupt websites that sell email addresses to advertisers.


I don't see why a member posting a link on an internet forum is "association" with a website or organisation.

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Those same ancestors gave ride to those Chinese and Korean scientists working on reviving the mammoth.


It'd be a whole lot easier to revive the mammoths if they weren't all dead...

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Cloning a single mammoth won't revive the species. It will allow us to study them, and hopefully bring us sweet, sweet mammoth burgers, but it will never restore the species. You can only create the one mammoth. Over and over and over again, but the same mammoth, regardless. Plus a clone only lives a few years, tops. And one cloned from the ancient DNA of long dead megafauna will probably be cancer ridden and live only days to months.


Perhaps the cloning process as we know it today cannot revive a species, but that doesn't mean that saving preserved DNA profiles is not a good idea.

If the relation between living elephants and mammoths is similar to that of humans and other apes, it stands that most of the information needed to make a mammoth already exists and is fairly common, since most of the DNA is shared. Only the little bit that's needed to actually make a mammoth instead of an elephant is what is needed.

So it stands that with more advanced technology, and a sufficient understanding of the genomes of both elephants and mammoths, a sort of 'hybrid genome' (effectively coding for a mammoth, but with any missing, damaged or highly specific traits restored) could be created and then used to create an embryo, which could then be grown to produce a calf. That's a very advanced possibility, of course, but we shouldn't let all the mammoth DNA that is left go to waste just because it isn't possible at present.

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prefer those people because they actually seem to care about conservation, nearly everyone besides them doesn't give a shit about it.


But seascorp, you're adhering exactly to the "either-or" philosophy that I'm whinging about. Everyone is either a raging enviro-nut or a penis-hunting ignoramus, and it simply doesn't work that way.

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I would rather side with a wolfaboo or voluntary human extinction people than some idiotic Chinese businessman who believes tiger penis will cure cancer.


Would you really side with someone who displays an illogical hatred of a particular species and wishes for their extinction*, and supports the demise of their own species at that? It's kind of like saying "side with Hitler or Stalin". Personally, I would side with neither.

*A fair amount of conflict-of-interest can occur, since we're talking about humans here, but imagine the outcry if some group was formed called the "voluntary tiger extinction movement", or the "voluntary amazon destruction movement".

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It's retarded that we still have greenhouse gas emissions despite the fact that as a species we are more than intelligent to move past technology that produces them


But that's not giving a lot of thought to why technology that causes greenhouse gas emissions is still around. We don't just "magic things into existence with our superior intelligence", there are practical concerns as well. There may be ways to produce and store power more sustainably, but they might not be mature enough to see wide use yet- or, with a lack of infrastructure to produce or utilise them, they may face issues being adopted, especially if there's not much incentive to change the status quo- and incentive by some to keep it that way.
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
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Carlos
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In my honest opinion, we should focus on perfecting our society and ridding it of imperfections. Then we can spend time relating to the natural world.
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colddigger
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Depends on how strict you're talking, I agree that we need to clean things up a bit in our society, but I also think that there are enough people that some of them can turn their gaze upon the natural world.

Not like we're ants or anything.

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Here's one big problem with miocenemadness' scenario that no one seems to have so far noted: IF we humans actually did head on the path towards a "sterile earth" our own species would die out.
The fact that we are a part of nature should be made very obvious by the fact that everything we eat comes from other living organisms. Thus every non-human life form died out, which is what mio's scenario seems to be about, we'd all starve.
I suppose mio could have the humans survive by having them colonising other worlds, but for this we first need the humans to develop interstellar travel AND built a sufficient amount of spacecraft before the world reaches the point where we can no longer live on it. And of course, we still are left with the problem already pointed out repeatedly in this thread of how this "sterile earth" scenario would even come about. Mio was very vague about this, implying only that we will somehow just kill more and more life forms without ever doing anything to prevent doomsday.

Overall, the whole "sterile earth" scenario makes no sense whatsoever.
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dialforthedevil
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As I said, its some weird fantasy James Cameron got into his head. (And he used to be such an awesome director)
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dialforthedevil
May 15 2012, 01:05 AM
As I said, its some weird fantasy James Cameron got into his head. (And he used to be such an awesome director)
Nah, he's still pretty good, regardless of the insane ideas he's gotten into his head (there are several to be found).


I really don't like the 'sterile earth' scenarios that radical environmentalists are spewing. No matter how much in the way of resources we use, life on earth will still survive. We may lose quite a bit of biodiversity, but that will eventually remedy itself. No matter how much our cities expand out of control, life will still survive. Saying otherwise is not only deceptive, it's also akin to shouting 'FIRE" in a theatre or school and causing a panic; in other words, it's extremely alarmist. Global warming, I think, can be placed in a similar category. It's definitely been happening, but we know so little about it, that we can't say with any certainty whether or not this should be happening. We've only been recording whether patterns since the 1860's or 1870's, IIRC. We should definitely cut our greenhouse emissions for other reasons, but saying that's the only way to save the planet; really just the polar bears and the ice caps, is just stupid*. I once heard (second hand) someone say that every time you start your car, a polar bear dies :/ (what's with that?). If that's the case, we should just leave our cars idling all day. But I digress. Point is, there's so much alarmist philosophy wrapped into environmentalism, it's hard to take those people seriously.


*edit
Edited by Dragon, May 15 2012, 10:06 PM.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life," John 3:16

A neat pixel animation of a future cowboy


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Hey, their right to get freaky ends when it goes up my nose.


I think this describes what dinosaurs are like now

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T.Neo
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Just because a 'sterile Earth' scenario is pretty much nonsense doesn't mean that Earth's ecosystems cannot be damaged. Yes, biodiversity lost will 'fix itself' with time- but a lot of time, thousands or even millions of years.

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but saying that's the only way to save the planet; really just the polar bears and the ice caps.


Well, that's not entirely true- climate change can affect many ecosystems and societies around the world. But because the polar regions will warm up more (relatively to the temperature there now), they will be most highly affected. In a deglaciated world, most species and biomes could adapt and survive (to the conditions, how and how fast they change is another matter). But the polar biomes as we know them right now would pretty much be obliterated.

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every time you start your car, a polar bear dies


That's awful. I want to smash my head into a hard surface now... :(
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colddigger
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I doubt there are enough polar bears for that.
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T.Neo
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There are an estimated 600 million passenger cars on Earth. Assuming a quarter are activated each day and each is activated only once (not representative of reality due to the fact that cars are usually activated more than once in a day)- 150 million- that averages out to roughly 1740 cars starting each second. The population of polar bears is estimated to be 20 000 to 25 000. Going by these numbers, polar bears would go extinct in less than a quarter of a minute.

If someone truely did say such an idiotic thing, I want to educate them...
Edited by T.Neo, May 15 2012, 09:03 PM.
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May 15 2012, 04:34 PM
it's also akin to shouting 'FIRE" in a theatre or school and causing a panic
Related analogy.

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Parasky, did you get your information about Avaaz being corrupt from here? http://verbo.se/dont-sign-avaazorg-petitions . It sounds to me like someone's hacking their site, not that they're distributing email addresses.

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Edited by Parasky, May 16 2012, 04:30 AM.
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