[geeks] Mr Bill?

[nate at portents.com]

> 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?

I have a rather unorthodox view - there is no "us" and "nature", we are
basically a part of nature, just like any communal species/group is. 
However thanks to language as a tool of understanding, action, and
prediction, we can review past decisions, make new ones, and plan future
ones, which allows us to shape everything around us and us (essentially a
manifestation of free will you might say).

A rational viewpoint then would assess that we currently have insufficient
information to make accurate long-term predictions on our impact on the
environment and therefore err on the side of caution right now while
investing heavily in the tools and means to improve our ability to predict
and generate resources long-term that are capable of both sustaining the
human-environment condition how we like/need it and potentially shaping it
in the case of drastic negative events precipitated either by us or
outside processes (such as asteroid/comet impact, etc.)

I don't see the core of my view as necessarily religious, spiritual,
economic or ethical so much as just plain *practical*, though I think the
general populus certainly likes framing the conversation in their own
idiomatic agendas, probably due to issues of not wanting to face their own
collective mortality in a more direct manner.

- Nate