On Jul 15, 2:06*am, (Steve Pope) wrote:

> Most people though look for something less extreme. *It comes down
> to what do people like about the planet -- species living in their
> habitats and not going extinct, oceans still with fish in them,
> not too much smog. *These are aesthetic values, but they are core
> enough aethetics shared among enough people that they form an ethos.
> What most people want is a largely intact biosphere that still
> has oceans, land masses, plants and animals, and is not flooded
> out, widespread contaminated, soil-eroded, or otherwise become a
> man-made wasteland.


I'm not arguing, only saying that as I get older I find it
increasingly easier to say I don't know. Sure, who wants to see a
bunch of smog? Who wants to breathe it? Who wants a bunch of roads
that will take us anywhere when there's nowhere left to go? I
understand all that. I'm not saying I'm taking the opposite side.
I'm only saying that sometimes I wonder if the so-called unnatural
destruction of our planet as we know it today is not somehow itself a
natural thing. Had been born into this world a million years ago you
would not have had to endure auto-induced pollution. But you would
have had to contend with other things - things that, if they were
alive today, would scare you as much or more than the threats that
have replaced them today. I'm not for going out and slaughtering all
the animals of the world or depleting all our resources with no plans
for the future - only that whatever future people are born into - a
million years ago or 200 years from today - that time will be the time
they know - and even if the sun does not shine, and even if they air
they breathe is brown and thick, if they are young and alive, that
world will be their playground. I suppose I'm saying in the long run
it really doesn't matter. And I'm saying that even if it does.

TJ