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Re: fHuman vs. natural influences on the environment



jscanlon@linex.com (Jim Scanlon) wrote:
>In article <4um1hj$6s4_002@pm6-81.hal-pc.org>, charliew@hal-pc.org
>(charliew) wrote:
>
>> ALL species must adapt to survive, and they 
>> have always been under this "pressure".  If they can't adapt, 
>> they will surely go extinct, with or without our help.  I 
>> will discuss what rate of adaptation they are capable of, but 
>> I do not intend to worry one iota about some creature that 
>> has lost its ability to adapt.  If this is true, the species 
>> doesn't deserve to survive, because it doesn't have "what it 
>> takes" to survive.  Too harsh?  Too bad.  That is the way 
>> that nature is, and has always been.
>
>Individual adaptation and species adaptation are much different on a
>vastly different time scales.
>Some species change, or evolve and turn into something else. Others hardly
>change over millions of years like bacteria, or the horseshoe crab. Some
>change very radically and lose functioning organs (i.e. degenerate) in
>adapting to their environment like so many parasites.
>The wretched inhabitants of the ruins of Imperial Egypt and the
>descendants of the Mayan Kingdoms adapted and survived to reproduce.
>That's the way "nature" works: whatever it is that survives is the
>fittest. Fitness can only be determined by humans in retrospect.
>From what I understand about mass extinctions, they are caused by radical
>changes in the environment, which is to say habitat. These radical changes
>do not usually occur suddenly or that often. Our earth is undergoing
>several kinds of simultaneous rapid, radical change right now. 
>It may be impossible to alter these changes, but it seems to make more
>sense to at least try to do something reasonable,  rather than just let
>nature (or "the market") take its course.

Definitely "the market," I would say, as what we are talking
about here is NOT letting nature take its course.

Charlie's statement sounds very Darwinian, and all that, but a
moment's reflection will expose its weaknesses.  Consider the
passenger pigeon.  It is extinct today because it failed to
adapt.  But what did it fail to adapt to?  Humans shooting
millions, some for food, but many for feathers to decorate
ladies' hats.  No matter.  The point is, using Charlie's logic
("Don't worry one iota about species that can't adapt."), if
the pigeon were being hunted to extinction today, the proper
course would be to do nothing.  It would be have "lost its
ability to adapt" and therefore be quite deserving of extinction.

Consider the buffalo.  Again, we should do nothing, let it
become extinct.  Notice, though, how stupid this would have been,
even from a totally self-indulgent, anthropocentric point of
view.  Today ranchers are discovering, wonder of wonders, that
cattle don't seem very well-equipped to survive the occasional
harsh winters of the northern plains, and that the buffalo is.
So buffalo ranching is growing steadily and rapidly.  Imagine
what an intelligent thing it would have been to think about
this possibility in the first place.

Tom Gray
Director of Communications
American Wind Energy Association

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-----------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Gray <tomgray@econet.org>





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