Because in the end, that's really it. Even if it's due to human intervention and even if that makes us feel sad.
At some point, a new habitat will reach a new balance with our introduced species and there's no going back.
And yes, there may be less diversity in species all over the world (for the time being) thanks to that. But once the new species learn to reproduce and survive in a new place, then that is the "new" state of the habitat.
I agree we should strive to not fuck up our place on the planet. But habitats will change whether we like it or not.
Maybe in a million years feral cats in Australia will differentiate themselves with the ones in Europe.
> At some point, a new habitat will reach a new balance with our introduced species and there's no going back.
> And yes, there may be less diversity in species all over the world (for the time being) thanks to that. But once the new species learn to reproduce and survive in a new place, then that is the "new" state of the habitat.
Yeah but won't that be just as true of a re-introduced de-extincted species? Mammoths / mammoth-ish elephants might change the new equilibrium in Siberia just like it changed when they were extincted in the first place... maybe the change could even be for the good. Why is the latter just accepted but the former is not?
There's this weird status quo bias that seems to say "ecosystems re-adjusting if humans deliberately re-introduce a species is artificial and must be bad" while also saying "ecosystems re-adjusting when humans literally do everything else that humans do is somehow natural or fated"
Can we really re-introduce a de-extincted species?
IMHO we are either overestimating our potential at consciously controlling the natural world, or either underestimating the complexity of nature.
While I love technology as a part of being human and something that definitely sets up apart from other primates (even the other tool making hominids), I find it awkward to see organizations attempting to make planetary artificial changes without even being sure if we can survive as a technology-capable species at all without turning the planet into a boiler.
E.g.: We should still make sure that future generations will be able to enjoy technological wonders like computation without having to throw toxic byproducts into the rivers and seas.
Human societies are coming to value and protect biodiversity. Extending your argument this is just another change in the habitat, one for which native species may be better adapted. Judging by the rules on what you're allowed to bring in to the country, Australia now appears to take invasive species very seriously.
I can imagine de-extinction and other genetic engineering techniques being useful to increase the amount of diversity in many habitats, which will theoretically give them a better chance of weathering huge environmental changes (as natural selection has a broader base of genes to work against). Since we need the biosphere to continue existing in a pretty narrow range of configurations in order to keep us alive (for example, we probably don't have the technology yet to sustain our civilization in the face of the whole planet becoming a desert, or not providing enough oxygen to breathe without artificial assistance), this might be a useful technique.
I think my dog prefers her swimming pool and heart worm medication so she can live more than a few years. Humans have a negative effect on some ecosystems but it seems inevitable that viruses,fungi,etc will eventually take over without our intervention.
This is technically correct, but I think this misses the point. Unhabitable future Earth with molten icebergs and polluted gray sky may, technically, be a "natural change" and a consequence of "natural" human actions.
But we, humans, want to avoid this future. The same goes for causing extinction of most wild animal species.
Edit: to expand on GP's point: imagine your house burned down, and somebody said "> Your property wasn't destroyed nor hurt in anyway. It just changed". Yeah, all the atoms are still there, but it changed in a way we find undesirable.
The analogy doesn't work for the nature. It already went through very drastic changes, at least some of them attributed to activities of living organisms, and while it was bad for some species, it was good for others. It's even more so when we're talking about less than cataclysmic changes. It's hard to find any clear logic why disappearance of dodo bird is bad, and e.g. extinction of horses in America is ok.
Global warming will definitely lead to mass extinctions.
But the opposite does not work that way.
Even the most optimistic outcome with the lowest amount of warming, or even none at all, will be accompanied with a drastic change in habitats around the world.
At some point, a new habitat will reach a new balance with our introduced species and there's no going back.
And yes, there may be less diversity in species all over the world (for the time being) thanks to that. But once the new species learn to reproduce and survive in a new place, then that is the "new" state of the habitat.
I agree we should strive to not fuck up our place on the planet. But habitats will change whether we like it or not.
Maybe in a million years feral cats in Australia will differentiate themselves with the ones in Europe.