Man's role in Earth's Evolution

[TheBigDog]

With all of the topics running on Global Warming, and the recent document from the UN showing with greater certainty the role that the industrial revolution has played in changing global climate, I thought it was appropriate to talk about the earth, life on earth, and the natural wonders of the earth on a grander scale.

 

What responsibility does man have for preventing species from becoming extinct? There have been mass extinctions through history. And between those mass extinctions millions of species have come and gone. Some have evolved into more durable or environmentally adapted creatures. Others have simply disappeared. Do we prevent the extinction of species, or do we allow the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest to play out?

 

How do we balance the survival of men, with the survival of other species? If building a dam to provide clean power and prevent flooding will kill off the last of species x, but provide power and agriculture for a million people, which is the greater value?

 

Hypothetical: If the earth were going into an ice age that would wipe out 25% of the species on earth, would you want mankind to take action to warm the earth and prevent the ice age from happening?

 

Hypothetical: If the earth were going into a warming phase that was going to radically change the weather and general environment of 50% of the earth's land mass, forcing extinctions and relocations on a global scale, would you want mankind to try and cool the earth to prevent this from happening?

 

There seems to be a bias to want the earth to be static. Yet that is simply not possible. The earth is in constant change, and environments shift around on the planet over time. This puts great stress on many species giving them essentially three options: they do not survive; they evolve so that they do survive; they move to a more suitable environment. Movement will often result in displacement of species already in that area. Conflict ensues and a new equilibrium is reached.

 

Man as an animal has needs: space, safety, food, water, reproduction. Only man has the capacity to preserve other species through conscious choice, so only man deals with the moral quandry of "himself vs others". If a bear is displaced, it still acts like a bear. A snake will use its venom among the familiar and the strange alike. But man is burdened with balancing the morality of the needs of nature (animals, plants, etc) with his own needs. How extensive should this be? How do we know what the proper balance is?

 

Bill

[Lancaster]

Sometimes it seems to me that we should take our own concerns above those of the lesser species. But at other times it seems to be the opposite. Take the Grey Wolf. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a bill is about to be passed that will open the animals up for trophy hunting. Just looking at such a beautiful animal makes me want to keep it around as long as possible.

 

In response to hypothetical situation #1: If we had the technology, why not use it? Unless that technology is not full-proof, the implications of messing with the earth's climate could be very damaging. But if we could do it, I see no reason why not to save as much as we can.

 

The answer is the same for #2, why not use our technology?

 

But then again, if mankind could save itself while maintaining the natural course of the Earth's evolution, maybe that would be best. If the ice age or warming phase was essential for the Earth's evolution, it would be a major mistake to tamper with it.

[Zythryn]

Fascinating questions and a great angle on the whole 'stewardship' question. If I could send you more rep I would:)

 

I think mankind's responsibility for other species is rooted in self interest. When we wipe out a species, or introduce one that is not native to the area, there are consequences. In some cases the consequences to us are negligable, in others they are not immediately apparent, while in others the consequences are severe.

 

I do believe we should be stewards to this earth. To use the resources responsibly and not do harm to the ecosphere which we don't fully understand.

 

If it is a choice between us and another species, I think the answer should be 'us'. However, I don't believe it occurs often that we have no equivalent choices. For example, building wind generators in some areas has resulted in thousands of dead birds. The answer is not to ban wind generators, but to take care when placing them (less damage to the wind generators as well:)).

 

Hypothetical 1: If we determine that the ice age would lead to great levels of death among humans and we can prevent the ice age, yes.

 

Hypothetical 2: Again, if determined that the warming would lead to great levels of death and suffering and we can prevent it, yes again.

 

For both cases, this is especially true (in my opinion) if we find that we are precipitating the climate change and we can stop it very simply. Stopping our own influence is far safer than trying to tamper with the ecosphere/climate. In the future, as our understanding grows, this may not be the case, but for now, this I believe any influence we try to have has too great a chance of having unintended affects.

[Zythryn]

But then again, if mankind could save itself while maintaining the natural course of the Earth's evolution, maybe that would be best.

 

Complete agreement there:)

[InfiniteNow]

What responsibility does man have for preventing species from becoming extinct?

...

 

Man as an animal has needs: space, safety, food, water, reproduction...

I see your point Bill, and agree. We should let the women do it. :esmoking:

 

However, humans should really see it as a responsibility to themselves... We are killing the base of the food chain, and soon will starve ourselves as other plants and animals continue to die off due to their inability to adapt at the pace we are changing the climate.

 

Just a thought, I may struggle to find support of the point, but my take is that these 1 degree temperature variations resulting from our society really impact the smaller species of plant and animal several orders of magnitude greater than us. These continued lower food chain deaths will eventually trickle up, and we may have to go all soylent green on this mug.

 

We should be stewards, for sure. However, we're now taking more of a parasitic approach, and that's only going to work for so long...

[TheBigDog]

Just a thought, I may struggle to find support of the point, but my take is that these 1 degree temperature variations resulting from our society really impact the smaller species of plant and animal several orders of magnitude greater than us. These continued lower food chain deaths will eventually trickle up, and we may have to go all soylent green on this mug.

Just for the sake of the Hypothetical, lets set this a thousand years in the future. Mankind has become carbon neutral to the atmosphere. The population is stable and there is ample open space for species of all types. Now, how do you answer the scenarios?

 

Bill

[Zythryn]

Just a thought, I may struggle to find support of the point, but my take is that these 1 degree temperature variations resulting from our society really impact the smaller species of plant and animal several orders of magnitude greater than us. These continued lower food chain deaths will eventually trickle up, and we may have to go all soylent green on this mug.

 

I don't think you will struggle to find support for this at all. There are lots of examples of life lower down on the food chain suffering more than we are due to the warming that has occurred so far. The abundance of plankton near, under the arctic ice sheets are decreasing, many species of frogs (especially in South America) have gone extinct. Some of these changes may not affect us, some may as the consequences work their way up the food chain.

 

Being on top of the food chain, I do believe we take priority over species lower down on the food chain. However I aslo believe that we need to be careful of the consequences.

 

Suppose someone were given a magic wand and they could eliminate any group of annoying creatures they saw fit to eliminate. They used their 'wish' to wish away all bacteria.:esmoking: I think everyone can see how mankind would quickly perish.

[Cedars]

What responsibility does man have for preventing species from becoming extinct? Do we prevent the extinction of species, or do we allow the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest to play out?

 

How do we balance the survival of men, with the survival of other species? If building a dam to provide clean power and prevent flooding will kill off the last of species x, but provide power and agriculture for a million people, which is the greater value?

Interesting topic. Simply put we dont understand the interconnections of all thats involved to take a risk of allowing x species to become extinct (when it is preventable) because we dont have a full grasp of what we will be denying ourselves in the process. I think it was E.O. Wilson who was talking about the diversity of micro-organisms on Phil Donahues talk show (see how old I am?) and he was encouraging young scientists to explore getting into the area of biology dealing with these organisms. I cannot remember the numbers he used to show how many are being discovered each year by the relatively few persons taking up that research. He also pointed out numerous medicines that have been developed (or were being studied for various properties that could be medicinal) as one example of many he put forth during this show. What I do remember from that episode was leaving under the impression that not enough time and dollars are being spent exploring/discovering/researching these very small but huge numbers of lifeforms.

 

Add in what I know of via biology and its diversity and specialization, each time we built a dam in the past, we did run a risk of wiping out a type some types of organism that relied soley on that enviroment that we had just flooded, whether it was a very specialised plant, fungus, animal, etc that may have held a natural chemical that could have been used to create new medicine/technologies to aid mankind.

 

As far as the Darwinian principal we kind of negated that the first time we sythesized a medicine and made it available to everyone regardless of the principal of survial of the fittest.

 

Hypothetical: If the earth were going into an ice age that would wipe out 25% of the species on earth, would you want mankind to take action to warm the earth and prevent the ice age from happening?

 

Hypothetical: If the earth were going into a warming phase that was going to radically change the weather and general environment of 50% of the earth's land mass, forcing extinctions and relocations on a global scale, would you want mankind to try and cool the earth to prevent this from happening?

This one is tougher, yet easier to answer. The events that cause Ice Ages/ Warming are not fully understood but seem to fall on earth orbit/tilt patterns, plate tetonics and their associated oceanic current flow displacements (as I understand it). If that is true my answer would have to be No. What would be needed then would involve disrupting planetary patterns, earth / moon relationships and I would have to keep the "for every positive action there is a equal negative reaction" line of thought and fall back on the darwinin "adapt to the environment" method of survival.

 

There seems to be a bias to want the earth to be static. Yet that is simply not possible. The earth is in constant change, and environments shift around on the planet over time.

If this board had a Quote of the Month/Reality Check statement, I would have to nominate this snippet.

 

If a bear is displaced, it still acts like a bear. A snake will use its venom among the familiar and the strange alike. But man is burdened with balancing the morality of the needs of nature (animals, plants, etc) with his own needs. How extensive should this be? How do we know what the proper balance is?

 

The thing we forget (and what I mentioned in the begining of my answers) is while we see the bear/snake/birds/etc are displaced, we dont always know what else we have displaced/destroyed in the process, sometimes without even knowing of their existance.

 

The go forth and conquer mentality vs you cant fool mother nature... Epical sized battle for sure and one that has been unfolding since we climbed down from the trees. :computerkeys: