> Wilson, Harvard’s Pellegrino University Professor emeritus, says that setting aside half of the Earth’s land and half of its oceans would be enough to save 85 percent of species, which are becoming extinct at a rate between 100 and 1,000 times the rate before humans.
This is ridiculous. Species extinction is nothing new, that literally is the process of evolution and the universe as we know it. The amazing thing is one species has so far overcome that and managed to bring evolution to an ever increasing degree under its own control. If we don't want a species to go extinct our primary concern should be how it effects human well-being. Some species going extinct is very likely a net positive for human flourishing on this planet, others very likely a huge loss. But regardless I think it should be weighed in that context. Obviously, this still means you should look after the world - its the only one we've got - and we want to maximize human flourishing in it so we need to care for it.
But these people are so far removed from nature's reality its crazy - especially considering they are biologists. This idea that nature is something beautiful and lovely apart from these evil humans who live in it is, frankly, absurd. Nature is harsh, brutal and violent. If you don't believe this try living without heating, electricity, running water, and access to a grocery store for a prolonged period of time. I've done it and its brutal and that is with a massive amount of technology and tools to overcome the harsh environment that surrounds us.
One of the advantages of our mastery of the environment is that we can choose to do things for frivelous reasons. We don't have to protect nature but we want to because it is beautiful and amazing. Just like we don't have to send humans to space, but we really want to.
These are primarily moral questions. The environment and our interactions with it are just too complex to manage in such a mechanistic way.
If we aren't making the world better for people, what are we doing it for? How can the objective 'make the world better for people' be immoral? Its a zero sum game, every dollar and man-hour spent preserving the Laotian spotted dung beetle could have been spent helping improve the lives of people.
I'm not trying to argue their isn't value in the nature, aesthetically, recreationally, scientifically, etc. but these are points that need to be weighted against the human cost of preservation not 'let them eat cake' platitudes.
> If we aren't making the world better for people, what are we doing it for?
The reason they are so motivated is for fear of biodiversity loss. The concern is that once something is lost it cannot be recovered. The second and third order consequences are that habitats are complex things that depend upon a certain level of diversity to continue to perpetuate. Diverse habitats are necessary for resource extraction, some weather phenomena, medical discoveries, and continue biological research.
On one hand all these arguments are entirely valid propositions. Like climate science the science is very real with great research and there are orders of magnitude of complexity that people have yet to fully appreciate. After that there are progressively extreme slippery slope arguments to prevent change out of fear of the unknown whether not those fears are validated.
I am not stating any opinion for or against but merely answering your question of why.
Most people are not scientists and lack any amount of objectivity, and so the neutrality of basic science concepts are hard to grasp for many people. Science generally comes in only two flavors: research and experimentation. Policy recommendations are politics. Science and politics are distinctively separate qualities. For the non-scientist this is an impossibly hard thing to accept. Whether or not a given set of science is important for (insert any value qualifier here) does not make it any more or less scientific.
All sides invariably believe that what they are proposing is in the best interest of humanity.
The environment is tricky because there are so many things that you would ideally not want to put into conflict with one another. Just look at the debate over herbicide use in farming. You have to balance the livelihood of farmers, the health of insects, food supply, human health etc. I don't think there is a single simple answer to that question. That is why it becomes a political and moral question. That is the process that we use for answering difficult contraversial questions. And the solutions inevitably have benefit and costs to different people.
> You have to balance the livelihood of farmers, the health of insects, food supply, human health etc.
This is the role that money serves in society. If the greater we can't or won't pay a Brazilian to not cut down a bit of rainforest - it literally wasn't worth saving. (because the collective we would rather have the hardwood/farmland).
> We don't have to protect nature but we want to because it is beautiful and amazing.
Yes, but at what costs? Taking away half the available land and water resources on the planet - which is what they are advocating for - will inevitably have costs associated with the benefits you mention. If those costs are negligible I'm fine with it, if on the other hand we significantly make the lives worse for all human beings for "frievlous reasons" I think we would be right to criticize these views.
What a grotesque, disgusting comment. You sound like someone who has never appreciated wildlife. You say you’ve lived in nature; how many species of wild birds or plants can you identify? I’ve never encountered a comment on this site that I would want downvoted more than this one.
In addition to horrific disregard for the value of natural ecosystems and natural beauty, this comment contains significant misunderstandings:
> Species extinction is nothing new, that literally is the process of evolution
No. If you want a one sentence definition of evolution then it is change in gene frequencies within a population over time due to natural selection. You'd also want to point to the processes of mutation, recombination, chromosome-level rearrangements, and speciation. You are confusing standard mechanisms of evolution with species selection, which is occasionally put forward as an auxiliary mechanism of evolution but which orthodoxy largely rejects and which no-one believes is a dominant mechanism of evolution. If you want to learn more about this then read Dawkins' early books from the Selfish Gene onwards.
> If we don't want a species to go extinct our primary concern should be how it effects human well-being.
This sentence, and its paragraph, are incoherent. It appears that what you're trying to say is: "We should decide whether species go extinct according to whether they benefit humans". Hopefully such a repulsive argument needs no counter here.
> This idea that nature is something beautiful and lovely apart from these evil humans who live in it is, frankly, absurd. Nature is harsh, brutal and violent.
Yes, the natural world is harsh, brutal and violent. Perhaps you could explain how you get from that observation to the conclusion that it lacks beauty and is not worth preserving for its own sake.
This is ridiculous. Species extinction is nothing new, that literally is the process of evolution and the universe as we know it. The amazing thing is one species has so far overcome that and managed to bring evolution to an ever increasing degree under its own control. If we don't want a species to go extinct our primary concern should be how it effects human well-being. Some species going extinct is very likely a net positive for human flourishing on this planet, others very likely a huge loss. But regardless I think it should be weighed in that context. Obviously, this still means you should look after the world - its the only one we've got - and we want to maximize human flourishing in it so we need to care for it.
But these people are so far removed from nature's reality its crazy - especially considering they are biologists. This idea that nature is something beautiful and lovely apart from these evil humans who live in it is, frankly, absurd. Nature is harsh, brutal and violent. If you don't believe this try living without heating, electricity, running water, and access to a grocery store for a prolonged period of time. I've done it and its brutal and that is with a massive amount of technology and tools to overcome the harsh environment that surrounds us.