(no subject)
Ack - thanks for the lj nudge, I apparently need it sometimes.
Some quick notes:
I fail - utterly, completely fail - at not overworking myself. I've added another class, which puts me at not-enough-hours-in-the-week for my regular deadlines. Not good. Learning a lot, but I'm not sure how much I'll retain.
Watchmen was great. I'll definitely give it that. An incredibly, painstakingly accurate adaptation of the comic - in all of its glory, intrigue, and above all, brutality. I lost count of how many times I turned away from the screen for the gore and shattered bones, but probably five or six. But the characters were wonderfully played, and the scenes were brilliantly shot straight from the pages. The director may not have been creative, but he appreciated the brilliance of the work he imitated. I'd definitely like to see it again, maybe in a few weeks.
:
A friend of mine emailed a link to this article on the successful relocation of a butterfly population in response to climate change, and brought up the question of investing resources in saving endangered species. In her words,
"In a warming world, one that we helped create, what is our ethical obligation to the other species that share the planet with us? I feel that there’s a certain amount we certainly should do, but there’s a line, somewhere. When species were threatened with extinction through other human intrusions (hunting, for instance) programs, regulations, etc. are put in place. ... I think attempting to protect species from extinction from hunting is a pretty clear-cut - ‘yes we should’. With habitat reduction, you see a little more discomfort - it’s a bigger problem, and measures are still taken, but building, logging, etc. continues. It’s a lot harder to change these patterns. With climate change, take that times a _planet_. Do we reach a point where the energy we would spend on preserving species would be better spent elsewhere?"
It's a theme I have thought a lot about over the last 8 months, while reading and discussing what it means to be a sustainable person, town, business, or civilization. It's a much more complex question than it seems: what, exactly, are we trying to sustain? Over what time scale? What aspects of sustainability are the most important, and can they be separated? How do you measure it? How do you incorporate adaptability and resilience (an entirely different and equally huge concept) so that a sustainable system can be maintained in the face of variability?
My answers to my friend's questions:
I think that the biggest question here is one of scale: how big an impact can we have on our environment? Obviously, causing extinctions isn't *good*, but in general losing (or greatly reducing) one species doesn't have a major negative impact on our quality of life, or on the basic structure or function of the ecosystems of which they are a part, and on which we depend (directly or not).
What matters most is to understand the changes (extinctions, land use change, shifts in geochemical cycle, etc) that *do* cause the actual underlying natural systems to change: tipping points, or thresholds. We can't concern ourselves too much with loss of individual species, because to some extent there are always extinctions going on, and everything we do as an expanding species will cause some displacement or distress to other species. But there does come a point where our activities and impacts change the structure of the systems we rely upon. Hence the big fuss over climate change, desertification, etc. While yes, the Earth will recover in time from anything we do (possible exception for nuclear war), we as a species should have some desire to attempt survival in the long run; which means avoiding major shifts in global geochemical cycles, climate, etc. And this fits in nicely with the more "ethical" view of protecting other species; by preventing extinctions in general, we preserve the structure of natural systems and hence the climate that allowed humans to evolve and explode in the first place.
So... no, I don't think we should be going to great lengths to resurrect 'fallen' species; optimally, we should be focusing our energies on understanding and maintaining the systems that are currently keeping all the current species alive. However, given how much damage we've already caused, it might be a good idea to have some very thorough seed banks around. Just in case.
Some quick notes:
I fail - utterly, completely fail - at not overworking myself. I've added another class, which puts me at not-enough-hours-in-the-week for my regular deadlines. Not good. Learning a lot, but I'm not sure how much I'll retain.
Watchmen was great. I'll definitely give it that. An incredibly, painstakingly accurate adaptation of the comic - in all of its glory, intrigue, and above all, brutality. I lost count of how many times I turned away from the screen for the gore and shattered bones, but probably five or six. But the characters were wonderfully played, and the scenes were brilliantly shot straight from the pages. The director may not have been creative, but he appreciated the brilliance of the work he imitated. I'd definitely like to see it again, maybe in a few weeks.
:
A friend of mine emailed a link to this article on the successful relocation of a butterfly population in response to climate change, and brought up the question of investing resources in saving endangered species. In her words,
"In a warming world, one that we helped create, what is our ethical obligation to the other species that share the planet with us? I feel that there’s a certain amount we certainly should do, but there’s a line, somewhere. When species were threatened with extinction through other human intrusions (hunting, for instance) programs, regulations, etc. are put in place. ... I think attempting to protect species from extinction from hunting is a pretty clear-cut - ‘yes we should’. With habitat reduction, you see a little more discomfort - it’s a bigger problem, and measures are still taken, but building, logging, etc. continues. It’s a lot harder to change these patterns. With climate change, take that times a _planet_. Do we reach a point where the energy we would spend on preserving species would be better spent elsewhere?"
It's a theme I have thought a lot about over the last 8 months, while reading and discussing what it means to be a sustainable person, town, business, or civilization. It's a much more complex question than it seems: what, exactly, are we trying to sustain? Over what time scale? What aspects of sustainability are the most important, and can they be separated? How do you measure it? How do you incorporate adaptability and resilience (an entirely different and equally huge concept) so that a sustainable system can be maintained in the face of variability?
My answers to my friend's questions:
I think that the biggest question here is one of scale: how big an impact can we have on our environment? Obviously, causing extinctions isn't *good*, but in general losing (or greatly reducing) one species doesn't have a major negative impact on our quality of life, or on the basic structure or function of the ecosystems of which they are a part, and on which we depend (directly or not).
What matters most is to understand the changes (extinctions, land use change, shifts in geochemical cycle, etc) that *do* cause the actual underlying natural systems to change: tipping points, or thresholds. We can't concern ourselves too much with loss of individual species, because to some extent there are always extinctions going on, and everything we do as an expanding species will cause some displacement or distress to other species. But there does come a point where our activities and impacts change the structure of the systems we rely upon. Hence the big fuss over climate change, desertification, etc. While yes, the Earth will recover in time from anything we do (possible exception for nuclear war), we as a species should have some desire to attempt survival in the long run; which means avoiding major shifts in global geochemical cycles, climate, etc. And this fits in nicely with the more "ethical" view of protecting other species; by preventing extinctions in general, we preserve the structure of natural systems and hence the climate that allowed humans to evolve and explode in the first place.
So... no, I don't think we should be going to great lengths to resurrect 'fallen' species; optimally, we should be focusing our energies on understanding and maintaining the systems that are currently keeping all the current species alive. However, given how much damage we've already caused, it might be a good idea to have some very thorough seed banks around. Just in case.