HumaNs are a Vviruss.

--Agent Smith

You illustrate my points exactly. Thank you.

Here in southern California, housing projects (where human families would live and raise beautiful human children) are being held up to protect species such as the Stephens kangaroo rat and the Delhi flower-loving fly. Apparently many people have an opinion of humans akin to your own: rats and flies before humans.

Here's a funny one: When the West Nile virus arrived here late last summer there was much concern. But the newspaper was quick to assuage everyone's fears, "Don't worry - the Least Bells Vireo and the (some other bird) have gone to their wintering grounds and won't be affected." Whew! I'm sure glad those little birds are gonna be safe!

To quote:
Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.
Albert Schweitzer (1875 - 1965)

or a more simplified version:
Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.
Albert Schweitzer (1875 - 1965)

Perhaps algae would be a better analogy. When algae has a population explosion due to a lack of limiting factors or predators, it kills everything around it off. Then dies itself, leaving a dead body of water. Sounds like a great plan to me! Also, I don't enjoy looking at people everywhere and people-made stuff everywhere. There is something to say for nature. And if nature is only preserved in small areas, we will have to spend vastly more resources to maintain it. Or we could just let it all die, and have waving fields of grain slowly dying off as we try and figure out why. Oh yeah, and then we could all suffocate as the oxygen all becomes carbon locked. Enjoy!

Chess, I do not advocate killing animals for fun.

Kcarlie, people have always had that sense of impending doom - "environmentalists" have it bad. Lacking religion, they find their solace in that Mother Earth thing. But I doubt human beings are capable of COMPLETELY eradicating ALL life from the planet. Should humans annihilate themselves, something will survive (or again spontaneously evolve) and it all starts over again. Eventually, the earth spirals into the sun, or the sun burns up, and it's over. Absolutely nothing for us to worry about.

I'll have you know, BigWill, that I do not "lack religion." I believe that that has nothing whatsoever to do with my environmental beliefs, and in fact may support them. I also know many other people you would brand as environmentalists do not "lack religion." Say, my mother, who is a United Methodist minister.

In addition, I'm not one you might brand as a "tree-hugger." I'm not an activist. I'm just interested in science. Read some magazines such as Natural History, National Geographic, or Smithsonian sometime. You might learn that there is reason to be afraid.

I can see your point of view, (humans do need a place to live) but you seem to be making little effort to see mine. Perhaps a compromise is more than order than the "nature must be subjugated to our will, since we are the most important things ever" or my (possibly percieved) earlier "humans must all die, because we will kill everything else."

Who does it hurt to put environmental controls on factories?

Who does it hurt to drive hybrids instead of (large, unnecessary) SUVs?

Guess what. I'm also a car nut. I read Road and Track. I drive a Volvo 850 Turbo wagon. Don't try to pigeonhole me, and I'll try not to do the same to you.

In reply to:

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I do not advocate killing animals for fun.

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That's good to know Bigwill.

What in THE hell is this thread about again?!?!

Y'all weird.

Chess, btw, thanks sincerely for changing your avatar back. I feel a LOT better.

We have a Corolla and a Minivan.

You guys see any football today, for chrissake?

I perhaps was over-generalizing when I implied that all environmentalists lack religion. My bad. And if you refer back to an earlier statement I made, you will see that I too would like to see clean air, clean water, and healthy food. Add to that: intelligent management of the old growth hardwood forests, being very careful with what we put into the oceans, saving the whales and dolphins, etc...
But here in my neck of the tumbleweeds (no woods around here) the "environmentalists" have made unlikely bedfellows with the grumpy old anti-growth people and the old school ivory-towered urban elites to conspire against suburban sprawl. While their motivations and solutions are all different, they oppose new homes for families. The areas they are fighting over are environmentally, ecologically, and asthetically (sp?) insignificant. The endangered rats and flies are their weapon to oppose growth.

I don't think you guys necessarilly disagree- there's a lot of instrumental value to humans in saving these sorts of critters and their environments (look at how fruitful studying rainforest critters has been to science).

Save the critters, cure cancer- it's all good.