[nothrabannosir]

> Why is this so hard to understand?

Who said anything about hard to understand?

Are you explaining the observation or justifying it? Because the former might be a fool’s errand; everyone understands, as you so eloquently put it.

In other words: just because I know why something happens, doesn’t mean that I think it’s a good thing, or that it shouldn’t change.

[corporateslaver]

I’m saying enough with these lamentations about the environment, would these people rather be living in the woods? It’s complete nonsense. Destroying the environment has been a necessary step to human evolution.

[nothrabannosir]

This feels brittle. Does that include lamentations about global warming? If so: I’m afraid I disagree. If not: that’s a bit arbitrary.

I understand the sentiment, but sometimes, a complaint is valid. And making it over and over and over again is also valid. It is the first step towards fixing it. If we stop acknowledging this problem we lose all hope for ever finding a way out.

I would say the litany of woeful clamouring is already driving SOME people to consciously consume , buy electric cars, (or we can focus on conscientious vegetarians, if you don’t like the global warming analogy) etc. Sure , it could be a lot better, but it could also be a lot worse.

If nobody ever complained , I bet there would be a lot fewer vegetarians.

[rosser]

We are not separate from our environment.

We wreck it at our own peril.

Rapacious destruction may have been an expedient shortcut to our development, but unchecked, it will also end us.

[lopmotr]

What's your evidence or reasoning for the claim that unchecked destruction of the environment will destroy us?

I understand that it _might_ and that that would be a pretty bad thing. So there is a risk, but why do you think it's so certain?

[rosser]

Are you legit saying, "I don't know if extinct-ing most of the species on the planet will wipe us out. It might. That seems like a worthwhile hypothesis to test empirically!"?

When the dice are that loaded, you throw them at your own peril.

When they're that loaded, you keep throwing them because it's more profitable at everyone's peril.

[lopmotr]

Sounds like you agree it's not certain but you're exaggerating the risk to scare people who don't understand risks. It might be appropriate to yell during a Greenpeace march but I would rather have intelligent discussions than just yell slogans at each other. It's like a parent telling their teen "If you don't wear a seat belt, you'll die in a car crash." It's obviously not true but dying in a car crash is so bad that it's worth telling a lie to increase the chance of saving their life. That's what the parent would desperately yell at them as they run off with the car keys, but not if they want to develop an independent person who can make complex decisions for themselves.

[rosser]

There's a very good reason we don't run experiments to test, e.g., the hypothesis that a certain chemical might cause birth defects: the consequences of the hypothesis being accurate are morally abhorrent.

You don't do something that might kill or maim people to test whether or not doing the thing does kill or maim people — unless you're Mengele or something.

Is it really that hard to extrapolate from the specific case to the general? If we get this one wrong, we're dead. Even the possibility makes it incumbent upon us to tread exceptionally carefully.

EDIT: This, "Hey, now. Let's have a rational, skeptical discussion about this" is a disingenuous tactic, in the first place. If we played that game, we'd still be debating whether or not rising CO₂ levels are dangerous, as they crossed the 500ppm threshold. We know, for practical purposes, that this is coming, unless we change course. We know the consequences of its happening. But we're still somehow dithering, apparently in order to convince trenchant outliers who have identity-level investments in being trenchant outliers, that they're wrong. That ship will never sail.

"Oops. Yeah, I guess that was a bad idea after all," is not an reasonable response to an existential threat.

[mikeash]

Can you survive without air, water, or food?

If you haven’t tried it to see what happens, you can’t be certain....

[outworlder]

Good luck continuing your "evolution" when you have no food, no clean air and abundant diseases.