As someone who has recently decided to look at evolution as legitimate, I feel a vague sense of despair when considering the statement that we are in a “6th mass extinction event.” I’ve been listening to Jim and Collen’s mini series on extinction, and I can’t help but wonder: “Why do we care?”
That sounds apathetic at first, and I don’t want to sound like I don’t care. I do. But if extinction has happened naturally long before humans showed up on the scene, and if the climate has changed many times, then why is there a push to save or correct? I guess I’m trying to justify the concern we feel (aside from us not wanting extinction and climate change to be our fault). Perhaps my question seems silly, but these are things I’d never considered until lately.
The question is Sustainability, currently We need the Free in the ground Oil to power our existence. It’s shown in the News what happens when we don’t have Gas or Diesel for life. Eventually it’s going to run dry in the ground and Will We replace it before this happens? Climate change is further away then the Oil running dry. If We cared about Our Children’s, Children’s, Children, we should be using the Free oil now to create something else big enough for Energy, like Hydrogen, but we might run out of oil before that and also there might be a big fight over the remaining Oil.
I would think it’s because this extinction could include us. We’re not cut off from the rest of the world – we’re an integral part of it and when other aspects of the ecosystem are harmed, we suffer too, even though we like to pretend we won’t be affected.
There’s a thing called ecosystem collapse. Many trends point to a global ecosystem collapse. So even apart from the fact that all these species are God’s critters and thus part of the great earthly choir that keeps on praising him, and we have no authority given to wipe out any of them, we should worry about ecosystem collapse that could result in such things as not being able to feed everyone.
To me there is a difference between using and squandering, between existing in a system you give to and take from and ruining a system. I feel like the difference between anthropogenic climate change and the natural cycles of climate changes that earth history has witnessed over the milennia and its effects on other species is that humans are moral creatures, capable of moral choices. And we are choosing to waste, pollute, destroy, and permanently disrupt resources in the ecosystem that doesn’t only belong to us or our generation. I care if human selfishness is what destroys our species, not nature. That moral element is the reason we should care. Unlike the dinosaurs who had no choices when the asteroid hit and destroyed life as they knew it, we are the ones making the choices that are causing the destruction. I think that matters.
Because with the exception of asteroid impacts, both climate change and extinction are happening faster than they ever did in the distant past, and because the effects of both on us are liable to be catastrophic.
The outgassing associated with the formation of some large igneous provinces (especially the Siberian Traps, since those also ignited huge fields of lignite) was probably also faster, but the point still stands.
Extinction is like illness: it is painful but inevitable, and usually we come out stronger from it. Extinctions are painful events for life on Earth but will happen nonetheless. But, like illness, we want to prevent them as much as possible; no one is going to be licking doorknobs and not washing their hands to purposely get sick. Likewise, we shouldn’t be giving a blind eye to the extinction of species since we are only going to be hurting ourselves when we don’t need to.
One could also have a pessimistic outlook on many things. Knowing that photosynthesis will give up in about 800 million years, we could accept our fate as a species now and just give up. But, if we fight like heck, we may have a fighting chance to colonize over worlds and increase our potential for long-lasting survival.
Tromping along and driving species to extinction amounts to taking a baseball bat to fellow choir members – God’s choir.
The utilitarian argument may be nice for politics, but it fails in theology. All those species were made for Jesus; they are His and nowhere do I find authorization to remove the least of them.
You set out a utilitarian argument for not driving other species into extinction. But utilitarian arguments can’t reach beyond politics because they are inherently about humans and humanity.
In theology, start with Jesus. In this case, Jesus is the one all species were created for, the one they all praise together (along with the hills and the stars) – and that’s where a Christian should start.
I think this is something that I have strayed away from too much. I’ve somewhat been focused too much in the physical and not spiritual, something I definitely need to fix.
For believing Christians, the theological (/biblical) approach should matter. I use the word ‘should’ because in reality, a large percentage of believers do not really care about the theological/biblical reasons why they should change their lifestyle or act to prevent the ongoing destruction of the ecosystems. Yet, the theological/biblical reasons why we should take care of God’s creation should be told more actively.
Jesus is the Lord of the creation but that is not the only theological reason. Starting from the first chapters of Genesis, humans are given both priviledges and responsibilities as the images of God. We are given a position as stewards on God’s property. We are allowed to utilize the creation but we should also take care of it. If a steward misuses his/her position, neglects the duties and destroys God’s property to gain wealth, that is a breach of trust that could be compared to embezzlement.
Utilitarian approaches that invoke selfish interests may work better than theological/biblical reasons because there are many more who will listen to such reasons. It also helps if we can tell how we can act so that we take care of ecosystems without loosing too much economical interests.
Two of the greatest challenges for the utilitarian approaches are that
(1) most people do not really care if someone far away suffers, at least not enough to sacrifice something from their own comfort,
and
(2).most people seem to want the economical (and political) benefits now and here, even if they could get much greater benefits in the future by investing something now. In that, their actions seem to be at the level of small children.
Research programs have given warnings of what will happen if we do not make major changes to the way how we utilize the creation. Those warnings and calculations have been available and told in the media for decades. In parts of the world, some actions have been taken to mitigate the serious consequences, in other parts there has been less action or lately, even attempts to halt any actions to improve the living conditions of the future generations.
If we make now profit by destroying ecosystems and worsening the global climate change, our societies and children will pay that price thousandfold. If we invest now a billion to creation care, we may save a trillion in the future. This kind of reasons are sensible but the majority of the politicians and businessmen think in quartals or election cycles. Better a small profit now than a thousandfold bill after some decades.
By the way, here (Finland) the nation and the companies have invested much to green energy. IIRC, less than 5% of electricity and heating is produced with fossil fuels. That has been a great blessing as oil prices have jumped due to the war in Iran. The increased prices of gasoline have been a serious economical burden to transport companies and has an economical impact on those driving with cars using fossil fuels. In the other parts of the society, the impacts of higher oil prices have been dampened because the society is less dependent on fossil fuels. In this situation, green equals cheap, at least compared to fossil fuels.
Transport is what hurts everyone; it isn’t a one-point increase but a systemic one: raw materials need transport, then transport again from factory to warehouse, then from warehouse to manufacturer, and so on.
Companies that back in the 1990s went to “just in time” deliveries of things have cut out a couple of transport steps and are benefitting substantially.
True, it increases inflation - all the prices tend to increase.
I read today that also the companies in US are investing in renewable energies, more than in fossil fuels. For example, 88% of the new investments in the production of electricity in USA are either solar or wind. It seems that this is a global trend. It slows the rate of climate change but unfortunately not quickly enough.
I hope that the next step will be a growing emphasis in the prevention of extinctions. Preservation or restoration of ecosystems is the most efficient way to preserve species. Loss of natural ecosystems and the associated species can have almost as bad consequences to human societies as climate change. The loss of key ecosystems is linked to climate change. Two examples: the loss and lowering quality of the utilized rainforests in the Amazonia will lower the amount of rainfalls in much of the South America and also feed carbon into the atmosphere - the sparse utilized rainforests burn easily, in contrast to the wet natural rainforests. Another example is that climate change has already passed the critical point where most of the coral reefs in the world are doomed. As the temperatures rise, we start to lose also populated areas, partly because of rising sea levels, partly because of intolerable climatic conditions or lack of fresh water. This should be common knowledge as there have been plenty of reports and warnings about what will happen in the future if we continue on the old track.