[Guthur]

How do you figure, is there some formalisation of what is anti nature? Or is it just some dream a hippy had on lsd at Woodstock?

The world is constantly in flux, there used to be animals the size of houses roaming about and then there wasn't, were they not in tune with nature or something? This is all idealogical nonsense.

[BLKNSLVR]

Or is it just some dream a hippy had on lsd at Woodstock? Let's not, hey? This is HN, one of the last bastions of meaningful discourse left on the Internet.

Human activity didn't wipe out the animals the size of houses, which also means that the overall interdependent ecosystems back then weren't critical to human survival since there were no humans yet. Unlike today. The meteor and subsequent volcanic and tectonic activity were natural occurrences, without which humanity wouldn't be where it is today.

I'm sure that humans can 'science' their way out of many of our potential existential problems, the question I wonder about is what does that cost future generations in terms of the natural wonders that all things "The Earth" has to offer. This, of course, is only tangible to those who value such things, so the argument falls flat against a backdrop of Wall-Street style career ambition which leaves little room for much else.

My reading indicates that human activity is causing environmental damage that has the potential to cause human-society-as-we-know-it existential damage, and this is generally backed up facts about the changes we're seeing in nature - raw data, numbers, about the current state. What this means for the future is hotly debated and, like everyone says 'all models are wrong, some are useful', so, again, it depends on one's point of view as to what value is attributed to nature.

One thing is inarguable, however, which is that human survival is dependent upon a certain level of a functional natural world.

[cyber_kinetist]

I think the commenter is not talking about the validity of climate change or environmental damage, but about the troubles of assigning which is “nature” and “anti-nature”. This dialectic isn’t really helpful to really solve the problem since that if you assign “anti-nature” as both human and corrupt, then the natural argument goes to Malthusian control of populations (believing the existence of “more humans” in itself as dangerous and shaping societal organization within this limited framework)

Instead, I suggest we opt for throwing away the concept of “anti-nature”, and instead acknowledge that humanity is part of nature. What has changed over history is that we are active agents in changing the totality of nature instead of being passive agents only being “affected” by it. This creates a more optimistic path towards a better future, since while it acknowledges that we have the capacity to destroy ourselves it also creates hope that we have the agency to actually “change” nature itself towards a direction we desire. Welcome to the anthropocene… (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene)