The atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased 0.01-2% in 100 years. The hysterical claims of the green lobby are unable to mobilise physical science to use this fact to explain the Global warming that exists. — charleton
I take all these to be true. But if I’m missing something here, what would that be? — javra
A sense of proportion!! — charleton
It's not our business to resolve such conflicts at all, if we even need to conceive it as a conflict. Insects have a right to live, (but not in my hair) and bats also have a right to live, and bats eat insects, so they both need insects to thrive. — unenlightened
These days there is only a trace amount of Co2, and the carrying capacity of 0.041% is not significantly greater than 0.035% as it was 100 years ago. — charleton
The atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased 0.01-2% in 100 years. — charleton
These days there is only a trace amount of Co2, and the carrying capacity of 0.041% is not significantly greater than 0.035% as it was 100 years ago. — charleton
Insects cannot have a right to live (or at least not one that is acknowledged species-wide, otherwise bats would not be allowed to kill them for food. That's what I meant by the analogy of gutting a rabbit which is not met by your reference to mangoes. Nature is not about rights, it's a competition for resources. There are two main paths to survive the competition, be strongest or co-operate. The problems we face in terms of environmental degradation are entirely the result of us presuming there is only the former, in order to undo the damage we must develop the latter. What I find unpleasant about the deep ecology movement is it focusses only on the former. It implies we've won the competition, we've beaten nature and now we have to teach people to love it so that they look after it in a condescending paternal way. But we cannot win this battle we've set ourselves up for, we must either learn to co-operate or die, it doesn't matter if everyone on earth does so through gritted teeth hating every minute of it, it is simply a necessity of the natural world. — Pseudonym
The Platform Principles of the Deep Ecology Movement
1. The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman Life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: intrinsic value, inherent value). These values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.
2. Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realizations of these values and are also values in themselves.
3. Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital human needs.
4. The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.
5. Present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening.
6. Policies must therefore be changed. These policies affect basic economic, technological, and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from the present.
7. The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality (dwelling in situations of inherent value) rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between big and great.
8. Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation to directly or indirectly try to implement the necessary changes.
Your numbers are off. When the Keeling Curve begins, in 1957, the atmospheric CO2 concentration was about 315ppm and now it is 410ppm. That's a 30% increase in just 61 years. It's likely larger now than it has been over the last several million years, and it's still rising about 1% more every two years. — Pierre-Normand
For example, if 10% of people voted last year and 20% of people voted this year, that's described as an increase of 100%, not 10%. — Michael
where in the principles of Deep Ecology do you find the unpleasant focus you complain of? — unenlightened
The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman Life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: intrinsic value, inherent value). These values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.
That there is a 'value' to non-human life beyond its utility to us I find deeply problematic. — Pseudonym
Utility is at the heart of all natural ecosystems, it is how they evolved and the reason for their existence, it is not something to be given second place to some esoteric, deeply human cultural attitude. — Pseudonym
It is technically impossible for two competing life forms to both 'flourish'. Natural selection ensures that varieties which do not flourish of their own accord die out. — Pseudonym
It is an appeal to emotion which is unlikely to work. Where action is needed right now, we cannot afford to persue such routes. The natural environment is worth trillions if properly costed, without its proper functioning we will be wiped out as a species. These are languages which the current social zeitgeist already understands, by talk of human superiority undermines the message. — Pseudonym
So to say that bats need insects, and their survival (can I use flourishing?) is dependent on the survival of insects, and therefore is endangered by the excessive use of insecticides is not to indulge in anthropocentric, esoteric human cultural attitudes. It is the way it is. — unenlightened
Well if this is true, then bats are not competing with insects, and in general, predators are not competing with prey. — unenlightened
If the zeitgeist understands and 'properly costs' the environment, then how is it that insect populations are in steep decline, bird populations are in steep decline, the oceans are full of plastic, fish stocks are in steep decline, and so on and on and on. — unenlightened
Yes, but what of the insects? Do they need bats? Maybe you could argue that they need bats to control their numbers so that they don't succumb to disease, but then do the diseases need bats? Either the insects or the diseases are going to be better off (flourish) without the bats. Nature abhors a vacuum. What about the bacteria currently evolving to live off our pollutants, do they not deserve to flourish? — Pseudonym
We falsely presume nature's utility is as an inexhaustible supply of raw materials and forget that it is neither inexhaustible nor limited to supplying us with raw materials. — Pseudonym
I'm not sure what your point is. — unenlightened
An ecosystem consisting of bacteria and pollutants is an impoverished ecosystem — unenlightened
a flourishing ecosystem is complex, diverse, resilient adaptable. — unenlightened
Again, I find little to dis agree with, except that "...nor limited to supplying us with raw materials." seems to contradict "It's not that we treat nature as 'just' what is useful to us, it's that we don't treat it enough that way." — unenlightened
Can you all please go and discuss global warming somewhere else. My topic is Ecophilosophy, and you are getting in the way. — unenlightened
The point is not everything can flourish. — Pseudonym
Your still only looking at ecosystems as static things and they're not, components naturally come and go in response to environmental changes, we can't become obliged to step in and prevent this. — Pseudonym
Desert ecosystems are impoverished compared to tropical rainforest, native woodland is impoverished compared to meadows; are we obliged then to turn one into the other? — Pseudonym
I simply mean that raw materials are not the only assets nature can supply us. There's tranquility, beauty, a sense of place, the satisfaction of million year old instinct. But it must be as we expect it to be to supply these things. A polluted lake full of oil-consuming bacteria won't do the job, no matter how much the bacteria are 'flourishing'. — Pseudonym
Modern measurements whilst they represent modern concentrations are not directly comparable with historical data. — charleton
They are accurate enough. I am going to abide by unenlightened's request, though. So, if you want to know why CO2 is important, you can post this again in this thread. I'll then reply over-there. — Pierre-Normand
So, if you want to know why CO2 is important — Pierre-Normand
1. Natural resources (bear with me for a while here, this sketch is quite old, and it takes for granted some terminology that fell out of favor since) are very often mismanaged. — Mariner
...the externalised costs of our mismanagement... — unenlightened
(By the way, leaving places and resources alone is still management -- at least, and this is quite difficult, management of the human beings who disagree with this goal). — Mariner
By acknowledging that we are a part of something so much vaster and more inscrutable than ourselves – by affirming that our own life is entirely continuous with the life of the rivers and the forests, that our intelligence is entangled with the wild intelligence of wolves and of wetlands, that our breathing bodies are simply our part of the exuberant flesh of the Earth — deep ecology, or rather, Depth Ecology opens a new (and perhaps also very old) sense of the sacred. It brings the sacred down to Earth, exposing the clearcuts and the dams and the spreading extinctions as a horrific sacrilege, making us pause in the face of biotechnology and other intensely manipulative initiatives that stem from a flat view of the world. Depth Ecology opens a profoundly immanent experience of the Holy precisely as the many-voiced land that carnally enfolds us – a mystery at once palpable, sensuous, and greatly in need of our attentive participation.
I refuse to shrug. — unenlightened
As for the religious aspect, note that management can be replaced with "stewardship", an old Christian notion, with no loss. — Mariner
It is not so sublime to see people dying of easily preventable diseases because they don't have access to clean (or, cleaner) energies; or to see that they lack good quality drinking water at critical periods of the year, for themselves, their livestock, and their farms. Yet these would be predictable results of any absolute "ban on dams". — Mariner
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