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Re: fHuman vs. natural influences on the environment



In article <4vn11r$9h3@igc.apc.org>, tomgray 
<tomgray@igc.apc.org> wrote:
>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,

You are once again taking things way out of context.  It's a 
long way from hunting a species to extinction vs. worrying 
about whether or not a species can tolerate a 1-2 deg F 
temperature change in its environment.  I never advocated 
humans totally having their way with whatever species they 
see fit.  I would like just as much as anyone to keep whales, 
rhinos, elephants, and other species on this earth.  However, 
these species all have to compete within their environment 
against nature and other species.  If something comes along 
that is much more successful than an individual species 
(excluding man; I was explicit this time!), and that species 
goes extinct as a result, so what?  This has been going on 
>from  day one, and there is little we can do to stop it.

Hopefully, you will not take my followup out of context.



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