Do you care about environment protection?

[luckyhelen]

Some say that they want to save the environment because they feel the responsibility to preserve species because of how we have damaged their habitats.  

What are your thoughts? 

[jellysundae]

Anyone who genuinely feels that way needs to realise that's way too narrow a view, if you ask me. That's basically implying that what happens to the environment doesn't have any impact on humans. A way people definitely thought in previous eras, but science keeps showing people now how what we've done (and are continuing to do) to the planet is causing us enormous problems, that are only getting bigger.

The lose of habitat and biodiversity - through greed, monumental arrogance, and ignorance - is 100% our fault, and we're paying the price for it big time now with (amongst so many other things, can you say micro-plastics?) the rise in health problems because our diets aren't varied enough. A failure in one of the major crop varieties now is gonna be catastophic because there's so few different types being grown now that the loss of one would basically mean famine. Maybe that's hyperbole, but it would definitely mean significant shortages; and not comfortably far away shortages either, not African villagers that you can change channels when you've had enough of looking at crying babies with flies crawling in their eyes, but shortages, oh my god, for your privileged first world white folk! and don't get me started on the loss of pollinators. >8[

We've just spent too long sat, comfortably ignorant, on top of the pile as the top predator, that it's STILL not got into the heads of so many that we rely on all the other living things on this planet for our own survival. Right down to the bacteria in the soil that we kill off with chemicals...

I've seen theorising that Covid made the jump to humans because we've encroached on the wildlife's space too much, that's poetic justice in spades...

 

Ok, so yeah, seems I have OPINIONS

[ikids]

On the one hand I do believe that we have a certain responsibility as the dominant species on this planet to take care of it.  On the other, we are directly affected by degradation of the environment.  Obviously through climate change, but also through loss of biodiversity (potentially relevant biochemicals that we never get a chance to study), loss of ground water, loss of fertile land, etc.

6 hours ago, jellysundae said:

A failure in one of the major crop varieties now is gonna be catastophic because there's so few different types being grown now that the loss of one would basically mean famine.

I personally find it rather unlikely that a crop failing would cause catastrophic famine in first world countries.  We are actually far more diverse with the types of crops we grow compared to our ancestors.  Yes, you always hear about loosing heirloom varieties.  But for the most part, none of these were ever a staple. On the other hand, we now have access to every major staple crop throughout history.  Rice, barley, wheat, corn, potatoes, etc. Add on top of that our improvements in science which allow us to directly combat the potential causes of such a catastrophe in the first place.

Something like what you described would definitely be an abrupt shift in our diets.  But it would not likely lead to starvation in fully developed countries.  Now those countries already facing food insecurities on the other hand, they would likely be in massive trouble...

[jellysundae]

12 hours ago, ikids said:

I personally find it rather unlikely that a crop failing would cause catastrophic famine in first world countries.  We are actually far more diverse with the types of crops we grow compared to our ancestors.

Yeah I'll admit I was being a tad over-dramatic there, lol. But I believe it's not beyond the realm of possibility; bananas now... there's something very troublous in the world of bananas, isn't there...

Our growing food in massive monoculture fields and plantations is a big part of the reason for loss of both the pollinators and the diversity of wildlife in general, isn't it. We are quite literally shooting ourselves in the foot with pretty much every thing we do to try and increase yield. I mean we at least know this now, but that doesn't mean methods will be changed. On a smaller, more local scale they are changing; but the bigger the corporation the more they focus on nothing but profit margins.

Oh! and...while we're poisoning the soil (and the seas with the run off) and killing the small critters and blah blah blah etc. in that perpetual quest for MOAR FOOD; there's thousands of tons of it going to waste daily because of the aesthetic rulings enforced by the supermarkets...

[Secre]

I think whichever way you look at this, we have a responsibility to protect the environment we live in and we are failing massively. As @jellysundae remarks, our neglect may have significantly wider consequences than just 'animal species die-offs'. If you take it just on one micro-spectrum, you have the loss of bees from environments. Last year 40% of honey bee colonies died off during the winter and they are my no means the only insect declining in population. This has been forewarned as the precursor to a sixth extinction event on earth and could obviously have catastrophic impacts. A number of plants, such as many of the bee orchids, are pollinated exclusively by specific bees, and they would die off without human intervention. This would alter the composition of their habitats and affect the food webs they are part of and would likely trigger additional extinctions or declines of dependent organisms.