I fold the aesthetic into the utlitarian, I suppose.
I think a more diverse place is more intersting to live in, and hence better for me, and mine.
But that doesn't carry much weight in the debate. Being a touchy-feely tree-hugger is a swift trip to the door. Telling a logger he can't get a job because the spotted owl feeds my soul ain't cutting any ice when he can't feed his kids.
The trick is to make the both of them so intertwined that we don't use all the Ponserosa Pine to make our pueblos.
The fuzzy I was deriding is the one which places man as the only beast who can, "save" the planet. Feh. We are, no argument, the only thing which can keep the world as it is (though how it is will, and must, change, for it is an organic whole and we are; for the moment, the major player) but those who argue the earth will, "Die" if we don't save her, nonsense.
What will die is this arrangement. It's happened before, and will happen again, so the saving isn't for the earth's sake, it's for ours.
Which, as a perfectly rational human being, with my own interests foremost, a more than adequate reason, and (IMO) a better one that the one more commonly argued.
Steven Jay Gould said much the same, and probably better than I did, or will.
no subject
I think a more diverse place is more intersting to live in, and hence better for me, and mine.
But that doesn't carry much weight in the debate. Being a touchy-feely tree-hugger is a swift trip to the door. Telling a logger he can't get a job because the spotted owl feeds my soul ain't cutting any ice when he can't feed his kids.
The trick is to make the both of them so intertwined that we don't use all the Ponserosa Pine to make our pueblos.
The fuzzy I was deriding is the one which places man as the only beast who can, "save" the planet. Feh. We are, no argument, the only thing which can keep the world as it is (though how it is will, and must, change, for it is an organic whole and we are; for the moment, the major player) but those who argue the earth will, "Die" if we don't save her, nonsense.
What will die is this arrangement. It's happened before, and will happen again, so the saving isn't for the earth's sake, it's for ours.
Which, as a perfectly rational human being, with my own interests foremost, a more than adequate reason, and (IMO) a better one that the one more commonly argued.
Steven Jay Gould said much the same, and probably better than I did, or will.
TK