That's an interesting question which I recently discussed during a
presentation of mine at a church.
Of course we are part of the natural system. But we have the ability to
think about what we are doing, know our impact in the future, and thus
make decisions about the well-being of our children over longer times than
a breeding season. Maybe, actually, some long-lived animals are capable of
long-term planning as well, like elephants, whales, and chimpanzees? I
don't know if that has been looked at.
The point is, we know what we are doing to ourselves. Consider our CO2
emissions natural, it doesn't matter. If you sit at the foot of a vulcano
and know it will erupt tomorrow, you won't stay sitting there, will you?
If we know that our CO2 emissions will create devastating problems in many
parts of the world, and we have the ability to avoid them, don't we have
the responsibility to act? Or maybe we are indeed just a species like an
earthworm that just thinks of survival and reproduction?
I think one huge problem is that all these discussion are way too abstract.
Connecting ones heart to the facts is essential to allow oneself to truly
understand the issue. Who of us does not love our study system? When I am
out on my prairies I just could embrace the entire world for happiness
that they exist. If we do not love what we work with and put our energy
in, then we will not give our best to help preserve it. Love for nature is
part of all natural sciences.
But unfortunately, I do think we are lacking love for our fellow
creatures, especially humans; we are focused on our own small world.
I attended parts of the UN conference in Poland. There are 41 small island
states (AOSIS) that talked about soon hanging their flags on half mast as
they soon might not exist any more. This is about SURVIVAL of entire
nations (not to speak of all the native species). A highly esteemed
climate scientist, Stefan Rahmstorf, calculates a sea-level rise of at
least 1 m by 2100. (You need to know that the IPCC models on sea level
have not incorporated the melting of Greenland or Antarctica.). This would
essentially wipe out several small island states. Imagine, the states
would just be flooded, and people would say, so what? you can move
somewhere else...
We need to look across our own little realm of life and understand what is
happening in other parts of the world, and understand that climate change
already impacts millions of people.
In terms of the comment that CO2 increases plant growth: I understand that
is the case, all else being equal. However, combined with drought and
heat, the increased CO2 level will not do the positive effects it has in
experimental conditions. However, plant breeders are trying to develop
more drought and heat resistant varieties so that hopefully the danger of
food crises might not be as bad as it could be.
> I'm a grad student who reads the list-serve to look for job opportunities,
> but these threads on agroecosystems and climate change bring up a question
> I
> have never really gotten a satisfactory answer to, namely: Are humans to
> be
> considered a part of the natural world? On the one hand, humans are
> clearly
> a species of mammal living on the planet. Science in general follows the
> Copernican Principle: don't assume there is anything particularly unique
> about your place in the world. I doubt many of you would consider us to
> have been specifically placed on the planet and set apart from other forms
> of life. And yet, when it comes to the things humans do, a clear
> distinction is made between human causes and natural ones, human modified
> ecosystems and wild ones. And it is definitely useful to make distictions
> between human effects and natural ones when studying many ecosystems-I've
> certainly done it in my own research.
>
> So why is this true? How can natural humans cause unnatural effects (or
> is
> one assumption false, despite both seeming reasonable)? Can only humans
> harm
> the environment? What's the difference between an invasive species being
> introduced to an island by humans, or the same one arriving on the foot of
> a
> bird? What does harming the environment mean, anyway? Somewhat like the
> two perspectives above, I have seen it defined as: (A) changing the
> environment from it's original natural or pre-human state (which natural
> state? how do you define your baseline?), and (B) Making the environment
> less capable of supporting human life (supporting human life now or
> indefinietely? at what standard of living?). Those two goals aren't
> always
> compatable. So, comments? Thoughts? How do you resolve this?
>
> Adam
>
