Biodiversity and conservation biology are hot topics these days. Environmentalists paint humanity as a destructive entity, damaging the environment and leading to the extinction of species. A huge emphasis is also placed on 'green' solutions. However, is all of this just well-meaning delusion? I think in some ways the damage that we do to the world is greatly exaggerated.
Agreed.
There are plenty of reasons that biodiversity is good to have, and I doubt that anyone would challenge that, but are we aware of where the real diversity lies or are we just nit-picking at the borders of diversity? I believe that our desire to conserve plants and animals is just there because they are what we can see, not because they are particularly important. When compared with bacteria and viruses plants and animals are completely overwhelmed in diversity, numbers and possibly even mass. Even if we lost all of the plants and animals we would still have the majority of life, disregarding that some plants and animals are necessary as environments for certain micro-organisms. As an interesting note, because plants are often said to be vital because without them all other life would die and that they take energy from the sun and make it available to everything else, chemoautotrophs live on just carbon dioxide and inorganic minerals, unreliant on plants. And that's not actually surprising since life must have evolved before plants and the complex relationships between living organisms had a chance to form.
To say that the planet would still retain more than half of it's overall life-bearing mass might be accurate, but the logistics behind it are staggering. Also, you fail to recognize the intricate fashion in which the food chain interacts. Eliminating a single species of insect might irrevocably alter the way in which other animals receive sustenance. Just because some forms of plant life are self-sufficient on naturally occurring energy sources, doesn't mean that many other species are similarly equipped.
To show how little regard we give to microbes, one of those life forms that environmentalists are so keen to protect, let's look at how they are treated. There are an enormous number of animals and plants facing extinction, and a slew of articles talking about their plight and showing maps of their reduced range. There are even groups of people that go out to kill alien vegetation and remove alien animals. When it comes to microbes though soaps advertise how effective they are at killing. While people lament the deaths of elephants, in my first year at university I heard that a medical company whose name I have forgotten had planned to eradicate a certain disease. All well and good except that it was caused by a human parasite as part of its life cycle and in eradicating the disease you'd cause the extinction of that animal. Even more dramatically smallpox exists, as far as I know, in only two freezers in the world, certainly a dramatic reduction in range, but one that is hailed as a triumph.
Personally, I don't give a shit if Smallpox were to be eliminated. For one, it isn't even that dangerous anymore, since most Caucasians and Europeans have developed hereditary immunity to the virus; remember how early American settlers swept up the Native American inhabitants? They gave them smallpox infested blankets. Now, being a human being, I can advocate the destruction of a dangerous form of microscopic organism that is capable of bringing me harm. If destroying this organism means that I kill a species of animal, then with great sadness I would still do so. Humans have risen to a position of dominance, and we have maintained this dominance ruthlessly. The point of conservation is just to minimize our footprint in the global perspective. Alot of these animals were here first, and it would be irresponsible of us to simply allow the extinction of a species.
My one exception is Pandas. A species too lazy to fuck is officially nature's loser. Let them die.
Some people would argue that smallpox is a virus and that viruses are not alive. But, life is very difficult to satisfactorily define, and usually based on plants and animals. Also computers allow the possibility of creating something that would fit most definitions of life but only reside in the memory of a computer, something not too many people would probably wish to call alive. Personally I'd consider advancing, as the definition of life, something which exists as a discrete entity, with a boundary separating it from the environment and which can, under the correct conditions, replicate itself from information stored in a nucleic acid. Admittedly it won't necessarily apply to life from another planet, but, considering that we don't know of any other life than on Earth, that is hardly a major flaw.
This assumes that destroying any living thing is wrong. Consider this: A tiger, beautiful and majestic though it is, is still a predatory, violent creature, that if angered would have no trouble killing an unarmed human being or any number of other creatures. Now, I wouldn't do ANYTHING to piss off a tiger, because it's fully capable of fucking eating me. Even with the best of intentions, I can't be sure that tiger would respect those intentions. If I have the means to kill the tiger, and it attacks me, I will defend myself. The same can be said of microbial and bacterial organisms. They might be deadly to me, living or not doesn't particularly matter. If it is lethal to me, and I have the tools to eliminate it, I shall.
Another argument against smallpox, and most disease cause organisms, is that they are harmful to humans. This is very anthropocentric argument and can easily be extended to justify the extinction of anything else. The rainforest should then be cut down because it is blocking human expansion. What the issue really is is that people cant see micro-organisms so neglect to consider them as alive.
Going back to the focus on conservation of plants and animals as important I'd like to share an analogy. Imagine life as if it were a house. All the living organisms make up the house. Plants and animals would be the paint. They are what we see, and without them it looks rather a mess, but they are not vital for structural integrity. The bricks, cement, wiring and such is all composed of micro-organisms, far more numerous and diverse than the layer of paint.
I agree that structurally many species of plant, animal, microbe, whatever, aren't important to the continuing function of our ecosystem as a whole. What I do appreciate though, is that all of those species, by dint of one thing or another, have evolved and persisted in their environment. Human interaction with those environments is generally what causes them to go extinct or be in danger thereof. Also, back to the house analogy, who wants to live in a house without any aesthetic appeal? Sure, it might be sturdy, but it's not safe and doesn't have curb appeal. You don't read too many classical transcendentalist books on how efficient nature is; what you read about is how majestic and beautiful it is. You see landscape paintings not of stripped mountainsides and deforested valleys; you see terrific, breathtaking panoramas of tree-lined vistas and waterfalls. Without it's beauty, nature is cold and terrifying. It isn't a thing to be respected and appreciated, just something to be feared.
Yes, we, as a species, have a remarkable effect on our world but let's not immediately demonise it. Over time the world changes. To me, conservation is a lot like a little kid throwing a tantrum because he wants everything to stay the same. When photosynthetic organisms first poured oxygen into the atmosphere, as a waste product, it was toxic, but look where it has lead us now.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't conserve nature at all, but that we mustn't view conservation as vital for the continuation of life. Personally I would love to see what would evolve after we have 'destroyed' the world. Unfortunately I will almost certainly not have such an opportunity. As you go about your recycling and energy saving, just remember that what we can see is just the tip of the iceberg of life, there is far more hidden under the surface that we don't know and far more species have gone extinct than we will ever know.
I too admit to some curiosity as to what will follow us and our existence, but we as a species have terrific destructive potential, and unless we control ourselves and our society, there is the possibility that nothing will follow us. And if believing that more has gone extinct than we will ever truly know, isn't that more reason to preserve what we have for future generations?
