I find it odd to see people criticizing each other because their comments are too human-centric. I happen to be human, and I believe the same is true of most of the commenters here. I don't really care very much about what happens to the Earth as a whole, but the survival and prosperity of humanity matters a great deal to me.

> the survival and prosperity of humanity matters a great deal to me

Just curious about what drives that particular viewpoint. Why do you care about the survival of the species? When you die, the world ends. It doesn't really matter what happens after that, does it? You could be dead two milliseconds and then a big rock hits the Earth and everything is gone. Still it doesn't impact you, because you are dead. And I am asking for the sake of discussion, purely.

I'm going to be around for a while, probably, and living in a better world makes for a better life. After I'm gone, I still want a better life for my child.

I suspect this kind of thinking is an innate evolutionary reflex. Similar to why people love having kids.

Sure. All live will grow until it consumes all available resources. There is no such thing as voluntary growth control in "natural systems". Agent Smith was wrong when he claimed all other life seems to find a "balance". Balance emerges from mortal competition between species.

Only humans have this: http://www.vhemt.org/

I find it odd, that you don't care what happens to the Earth as a whole, given that is the only place you can live as a human :)

And the thing is that the prosperity of the human species in the last century has been made largely at the expense of the Earth as whole.

I care about the Earth as far as it affects humanity. If white rhinos go extinct, that's sad, and the loss of biodiversity is harmful, but it's a fairly small thing. If, say, wheat were to go extinct, that would be a huge disaster.

The fact that our recent prosperity has come at the expense of the Earth is only bad in so far as that harm to the Earth is harmful to humans too. The two are linked, but not identical. The only way to eliminate human-induced harm to the Earth would be to eliminate humans, so the goal needs to be mitigation of harm and where possible moving harm to the Earth into areas that affect humans less.

No, its a systems viewpoint. And it can only be held by an organism that can appreciate the system. All other organisms breed util the systems natural capacity is exhausted and continually competes against one another.

You know exactly what I mean by "work". The current 6'th mass extinction (Holocene) is currently ongoing. The species responsible for this has no natural enemies against which we compete and will therefore continue unabated until all resources have been consumed and the system collapses. Just like it always has.

> The species responsible for this has no natural enemies against which we compete and will therefore continue unabated until all resources have been consumed and the system collapses.

This isn't remotely true. There are tons of bacteria and viruses which are parasitic towards us. We compete against them.

Nevermind the fact that the greatest competition always comes from your own species. The greatest check on human expansion and prosperity is humanity. We kill, maim, and restrict each other on grand scales.

There is also no historical evidence that a single species has ever been responsible for a mass extinction, so I find it odd that you're assuming we'll be the first when there is a historical record that spans billions of years. That's just arrogance.