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Re: NFC: Fundulus Chysotus Sellers needed.
--- Scott Olson <olson7 at hotmail_com> wrote:
> I think this is perhaps the principle difference
> between an 'Environmental'
> organization, like Greenpeace or the Sierra Club,
> and a 'Conservation'
> organization like Ducks Unlimited or the NFC. One
> views nature as an
> untouchable, unuseable ideal that humans can only
> destroy, usually with even
> minimal contact. The other sees nature as a
> valuable resource, having both
> economic and spiritual importance. I am proud to
> consider myself a
> conservationist, but to me, 'environmentalist' is a
> filthy word.
The bigger question may be, does nature have a right
to exist beyond economic valuation? Humans are not
evil. But we have a bad record in the world lately,
maybe a bull in the china shop effect. There is
increasing evidence of negative human impacts on
natural systems even 10-40,000 years ago, when there
were very few of us. See Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs
and Steel" for a review of this evidence. This
includes the destruction of all large animals over 100
lbs in Australia, New Guinea and New Zealand, and the
elimination of much of the large fauna in the Americas
more recently by ancestral Indians. This is why many
people slide into your "environmentalist" heresy. They
have looked at history! We may all walk lightly in the
U.S. today (we think), but you hear 260 million people
pussyfooting around.
Boo Radley, Saraland, Alabama
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