<< If a species' existence depends on a landowner's good will, and the
landowner is not interested in saving it, is it okay (socially, morally,
whatever) to allow it to go extinct? Private property laws are based on
prior claims (i.e., who was there first). But is it morally right for those
people to claim ownership of the rights of the biological blueprint of every
living organism that lives on or passes through that land, some of which
have lived for tens of millions of years? If one thinks it is, then I am
concerned to the point of nausea that people are basically willing to say
that these species should be held for ransom. And no one is saying anything
about the logical outcome of such an unregulated situation, where lands
would be bought and destroyed by commercial interests and developers with no
consciences (or regulations). >>
O.K., let's play the devil's advocate for a bit. Jay, you're being too
extreme in your analysis example. If you use the most extreme conditions (a
specie's total destruction) then ANY other steps that can be taken can be a
conscientious person's only choice. Choice is the key word here. We have
many choices, probably several differing ones would have positive results for
species' preservation. But back to a point most of you seem to miss: are you
willing to move out of your city and restore it to what it was for millions
of years before you & I came along? Where are you going to go, how are you
going to live? How can you miss something so glaringly obvious in your
argument? Now I'm not arguing against restoration on farms, in forests,
along rivers, etc., but who among you are willing to do the same kind of
retooling of where you live and how you live? For me to admire all of your
rhetoric, I'd like to know when you & others on the list are going to restore
the places where you all live to some sort of balance as it was for millions
of years before you & I came along? I'm not willing to abdicate my way of
life for this kind of sacrifice and I'm betting you're not either. Seems to
me that the burden of your 'artificial' balance on nature is pretty much
placed upon the shoulders of others? It also appears to me that it's pretty
easy to espouse all of these virtuous ideals when one doesn't personally have
to change anything in one's own comfortable living arrangements. Danged if
that ol' population problem isn't in this somewhere.
Bruce
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