[geeks] Mr Bill?

[wa2egp at att.net]

-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: der Mouse <mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG>
>
> > I teach Environmnetal Science and from all I've read it appears that
> > 99% of the time when humans "improve" on nature, they usually just
> > f__k it up.
>
> First off, I agree with the basic sentiment I think you are trying to
> express.  But there's something which bas been bothering me for a
> while, which I can perhaps best phrase as a rhetorical question:
>
> Why do we consider it "damage" when humans alter the planetary
> ecosphere but not when other creatures (pine beetles, ocean algae,
> beaver dams, etc) or effects (volcanoes, sunspots, whatever) do so?
>
> The reason I prefaced that with the remark I did is that it would be
> easy to jump from the rhetorical question to the (completely erroneous)
> conclusion that I think we shouldn't pay any mind to our effects on the
> planet's ecosphere.  I haven't yet resolved these conflicting
> attitudes, and I'm curious to hear any thoughts on the matter any of
> you care to talk about - whence this post.
>
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Well, some of the things you mention are not as devestating as what we
could/can do.  I don't consider a beaver dam as much damage as, let's say, a
small housing development.  Things shift around when there are changes and the
system stabilizes.  Many of our changes are either too wide spread or too fast
for ecological systems to adapt.  One of the best improvements I can think of
right now is a sewage treatment plant.  We would dump stuff into a river
faster than natural processes could handle it before the next town downstream.
A sewage treatment plant actually processes things faster than in nature with
not that much "side effect" compared to other things we do.  A farm on the
other hand can produce more food per acre than would be produced by the plants
growing wild but a farm is more unstable since it is a monoculture where a
disease can race through, a drought can knock down productivity, runoff and
erosion is greater and irrigation, the way it's usually done, will increase
salt content to a point where plants can't grow.  We've learned lessons on how
to do things better but we either tend to forget or take the cheap, easy and
quick way.

It's easy to say not to pay attention since most of the changes will affect
humans in general after any individual human alive today is dead. (How many
people today remember gas at < $.30/gal?)

Bob