Do we have a duty to conserve Nature the way she is now?

The problem with global warming now is two-fold. One, there were not 7 billion human beings around the last time the earth had major climatic changes, and anthropocentric as it may be, I con't help considering that we should be doing whatever we can to safeguard the future of the race. If the worst scenario occurs, humanity will be in severe trouble, not just from the physical changes but through what will almost certainly be dramatic social changes, perhaps even the collapse of civilisation as we know it. The second point is that even though past changes may have been relatively fast in climatic terms, in human terms they were very slow. If we are indeed speeding up the rate of change through our industrial activities, and I believe we are, then doing something about those changes would not be conserving nature as it is, it would be merely allowing nature to do its thing in its own time. It is the rapid rate of change that will bring about the potential disaster scenarios I mentioned in the first paragraph. Like David Suzuki, I believe it is far too late for anything we do to reverse the changes that have now begun, but can possibly still slow them down to give us time to make the social and geographical adjustments that will be needed to preserve human society. Of course the nihilists among will probably consider that ambition pointless, and the pessimists may consider it useless, but hey, that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least go down fighting. Lash PS Thank you for posting a discussion with some meat in it, the last few days have been a desert. And welcome back.

Yes we should at leas try to do something to help. Global warming will not go away but maybe we can reverse some of the effects it cause. I hope and pray they find better way to do things. Maybe cars that run on air or water . Get rid of garbage some how. I dont know but we have to do something..

What you are saying may happen and human beings may well be one of the species that is wiped out. I personally believe that we are a large part to blame for this change and we have also decimated the bulk of the species that live on Earth. In fact humans are responsible for more extinctions than climate change. There may not be enough species left to survive if nothing is done. As to the risk we face if nothing is done then you only have to look at the rising sea levels. If the seas rise to the levels that they say could happen in their darkest predictions then most of humanity will go with the animals. What will be left. After all we mostly live in coastal cities and if the sea level rises enough none of them will survive. I am not aware that any animal in nature apart from humans has ever been responsible for an extinction as they only hunt for food not for destruction the way we do. So I believe we have a duty to protect what few species are left and also to protect the human race.

The world is in constant flux... As some say, it is a living being whose breath is seen in the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere around her during the Fall and Winter (due to the decaying leaves) and the increase of O2 in the atmosphere around her in the Spring and Summer. She changes often in cycles... And yet there are experts who say that the changes that we have seen in this Century have been more rapid than ones that have been seen in our recorded history... And there is some evidence in the form of ice core samples, etc., that our activity may be hastening or triggering natural processes... There are animals being affected by our actions and human beings are also in danger due to the rising flood waters in some areas, the greater intensity of storms and fires, and the increase of diseases wafted on the wind and/or carried by plane from areas where there are disease outbreaks. We do know that deforestation has changed the natural surroundings adversely, that pollution has done damage to the environment and that our consumerist life style is not going to be sustainable for the long haul as it is not giving the soil enough time to recover in between plantings of cash crops, is not giving the animals enough land to roam on, is not granting enough bio-diversity, and is causing many people to suffer due to the scarcity of food and clean running water. We have not been good stewards of the Earth and this is unfortunate... There has been a tendency to take the Earth for granted, to subdue it, to use and exploit it rather than living in harmony with and nurturing it... This continues to have widespread consequences. A shark has not the power to exploit the Earth... It eats only that which it needs and does not waste its natural resources on producing things that will get thrown away, or that are collected and horded... The shark is a preditor, yes. It eats to survive. It is not and never has been interested in making it or keeping up with the Jones or in expanding its territories except to search for food. We are capable of so much more good than sharks and also so much more evil. Our actions have wider and more severe consequences. We do not just have an impact on one territory with our actions. We are spread out all over the world and impact the Earth on a large scale. We act often blindly, quickly making decisions for profit motives in the short-term, not just to eat, but to get rich, to have status and power, to create, etc. We divert waters, cut down or burn down old growth forests, build our buildings, roads and freeways, pump up the oil, mine, build more and more waste dumps, burn things, and we then want to argue and say that our actions have not impacted the Earth and have not caused other species difficulties... Honestly... Is this blindness or just perhaps a wanting not to see that our actions have an impact. You and I do have a moral responsibility to be good stewards of what we were given... for the future generations as we should strive to insure that they enjoy the natural surroundings that we ourselves enjoyed... This is the responsible thing to do. To believe that we have not really effected the Earth adversely by our changes of her is to believe in a lie. To sit back and do nothing to make a positive difference is to sin by omission. We have a responsiblity to do something to improve the situation even on a small scale where we live by conserving energy, planting trees, recycling, reusing, etc. and by participating with others who are helping to prevent further deforestation, soil erosion, the polluting of water and air, and the despoiling of pristine wild lands and waters. Whether or not we believe in global warming our responsibility to help the Earth heal and to help other species survive remains. We like to think that we are moral and that we have a conscience. We act as if we believe that we are superior to non human beings here on Earth as we take them from one place to another, use them to meet our needs, and consume them... And because of this we have a responsibility to preserve them, conserve them, care for them in a humane manner... To just sit idlely by and let them die is not humane nor is it ethical. To act to protect that which is endangered is both humane and ethical.

Scientists have proven that much of it is caused by our own devices. Things do change down through the ages but that doesn't mean we don't have a direct responsibility to what is happening all around us. If we are the culprits then yes, we should atleast try to make things better for species we have helps to nearly eradicate. Yes, I think we should be responsible for what we have done! Do you understand that in the scheme of things if we don't help keep these species thriving we will be killing ourselves in the long run? The food change comes right back around to us. If we let them go by the way side we ultimately hurt ourselves!

I try to be pessimistic but the way things are going today(aka 1% of the worlds species and rain forest disappearing every year) we wont have any animals left to save. If the US ate less meat and had better organized public transport, used renewable energy sources and used all the land they had in their back gardens etc to grow their own produce/raise their own animals then we would be getting somewhere but we all know that isn't going to happen especially with the rate of globalization and the push to develop any less economically developed countries, in short we are all doomed to stew in our own juices.

I think so, yes. In a way, we're the hones who cause global warming and deforestation and all the other pains that nature has to endure. So it's our responsibility to fix it. And our responsibility to prevent further degradation by conserving it. Ultimately, bigger companies and industrial giants should shoulder the burden, but at the same time, we can only be successful if we all work on it together.