- #1
fluidistic
Gold Member
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As an aspirant scientist, physicist to be more precise, I believe it would be "normal" to be an ecologist. In fact I've always taken care of the Earth in my life since I've been taught to be respectful toward it. This means don't throw objects in nature, don't kill amphibians, don't burn plastic, etc. My parents never used a car either, nor will I.
The great man E.O. Wilson is a fervor ecologist. He has an enormous understanding of nature, species and how their number is reducing nowadays. He also knows that life had several huge crisis called extinction events. This is basically why I don't understand why we should worry about global warming and a new extinction event.
In my understanding, even if we wanted we could not kill all forms of life on Earth. There are bacteria living without oxygen, up to 100 meters underground if I remember well. Some are extremely resistant to nuclear radiation.
Looking at wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event, let me quote a sentence:
So I wonder, why exactly greenpeace and many ecologists would like to "freeze" the climate as it was some decades ago or a century ago when our role in climate change was minor? The climate on Earth has never been static, why would we want to make it that way? To me it looks like utterly antrophocentric and we only think on enlarging the lifespan of humans.
Or why would we want to stop a new extinction event? I mean, this is not something new and we know that life won't cease to exist, so where's the problem? We could disappear, I agree. Is this the problem?
I know these are stupid questions, but the more I think about it, the less special I think we are. The more miniscule I believe we are. We aren't doing anything new to life in general and to the Earth.
I feel like I'm a special case, that I'm being nuts here.
What are your thoughts on the matter?
The great man E.O. Wilson is a fervor ecologist. He has an enormous understanding of nature, species and how their number is reducing nowadays. He also knows that life had several huge crisis called extinction events. This is basically why I don't understand why we should worry about global warming and a new extinction event.
In my understanding, even if we wanted we could not kill all forms of life on Earth. There are bacteria living without oxygen, up to 100 meters underground if I remember well. Some are extremely resistant to nuclear radiation.
Looking at wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event, let me quote a sentence:
and yet life went on and took back its level it had before that major crisis, even though it took a while.Permian–Triassic extinction event (End Permian): 251 Ma at the Permian-Triassic transition. Earth's largest extinction killed 57% of all families, 83% of all genera and 90% to 96% of all species.[6] (53% of marine families, 84% of marine genera, about 96% of all marine species and an estimated 70% of land species, including insects[9] The evidence of plants is less clear, but new taxa became dominant after the extinction.[10] The "Great Dying" had enormous evolutionary significance: on land, it ended the primacy of mammal-like reptiles. The recovery of vertebrates took 30 million years,[11] but the vacant niches created the opportunity for archosaurs to become ascendant. In the seas, the percentage of animals that were sessile dropped from 67% to 50%. The whole late Permian was a difficult time for at least marine life, even before the "Great Dying".
So I wonder, why exactly greenpeace and many ecologists would like to "freeze" the climate as it was some decades ago or a century ago when our role in climate change was minor? The climate on Earth has never been static, why would we want to make it that way? To me it looks like utterly antrophocentric and we only think on enlarging the lifespan of humans.
Or why would we want to stop a new extinction event? I mean, this is not something new and we know that life won't cease to exist, so where's the problem? We could disappear, I agree. Is this the problem?
I know these are stupid questions, but the more I think about it, the less special I think we are. The more miniscule I believe we are. We aren't doing anything new to life in general and to the Earth.
I feel like I'm a special case, that I'm being nuts here.
What are your thoughts on the matter?