[danparsonson]

> I think your assumption, that valuing human life more than trees instantly implies we should kill trees without end, is wrong.... were I forced to make a choice between shooting a human and cutting down 150,000 trees, I'd chop the trees.

Could you elaborate on that because it sounds like you're contradicting yourself :-) Unless you're making the point that 150,000 != 'without end', in which case I would venture that 150,000 was originally just chosen as an arbitrary large number, and the two are therefore effectively equivalent in the context of this discussion.

And yes, when posed in the abstract, chopping the trees versus shooting the human is a different question as when posed in the real world - as I said previously, the balance of the Earth's macroscopic ecosystem is fiendishly complex and not well understood, so destroying the trees may indeed wreak all manner of havoc and result in the loss of other lives elsewhere, and/or at a later time.

That's not to say that I advocate shooting people either - I believe we must find ways to coexist with our surroundings.

[Jach]

I agree. My point in the beginning was to say just because I value a human life more than trees, doesn't mean I wish to go out and kill any trees I find for no good reason or without weighing things. The 150k number was in keeping with the thread's number of choice; it's not a sufficiently large number that I'd think twice about it, though if you bring in an unending amount we're talking about infinite value so...

Hope I've cleared it up a bit, it's early. ;)