Friday, February 3, 2017









The real risk





Anonymous said...

No mention of the rights of other species to exist in the face of the human forced 6th mass extinction. Overly reliant on an ethics of anthropocentism; the dilemma is not quarantined to human survival on a denuded planet, but reaches to a morality that considers the intrinsic value of every other living thing and ethical imperative to walk-back the human-project to a level that does not impede prosperity for other species and ecosystems.

Ken Weiss said...

Unless your comment comes from a religious doctrine, it reflects a personal judgment about things, and there is of course no problem with that. However, this post was intended to deal with, as you say, a human-centered perspective. One of my intents was to show that the 'Earth' per se is not in danger from us, but our way of life is. That many other species are being ravaged by our activities seems true, but is a separate point. I think those who don't want to cut back their lifestyles or acknowledge human-induced climate change have little sympathy for tigers, gorillas, Houston toads, and the host of other endangered species. But another point is that extinctions do happen, to every species, with or without human intervention, so that this post was about our custodianship of the planet from our personal rather than a global biosphere perspective.

Edward Hessler said...

I really liked this post.

More than 25 years ago, science educator Rodger Bybee wrote two papers on the state of science education with a proposal for a change in emphasis. In that paper he noted that students would be facing problems of lifetime, lifespace and lifestyle or as you put it about our way of life. These problems which embody our way of life are deeply threatened by GCC.

It is clear to some, less clear to others and denied by way too many. Michael Specter in a recent entry in The New Yorker (February 3) wrote "Denialism--whether it stems from suspicions from vaccines, dread of G.M.O.s, or even confusion about climate change--is often rooted in fear. And fear needs to be taken seriously." Specter also thinks that Trump's denialism "is not based in fear, it's based in arrogance." In any event both can kill us.

The prompt for Bybee's paper may have been the opening sentence in Robert Heilbroner's "An Inquiry to the Human Prospect." Heilbroner who was one of the darkest of economists, asked in the opening "Is there hope for man?" I remembering wondering why people would read further. The answer is clear in the question.

Thanks again.

Ken Weiss said...

Sadly, I'd go a lot further than you have done. Denial or suppression of facts is not at all new. One bit of evidence is the longstanding word 'propaganda', but religious dogma and suppression of dissent (to wit, burning at the stake) is age-old. Use of ideologies by the few at the top to suppress the rest is the oldest trick in the societal inequity book.

Scientists are people with egos and, these days especially, a need to hustle and self-promote so that climate and other issues are vulnerable to overs-statement. And there's the value judgment that we make related to why some might feel nostalgic about endangered species.

And to refer to your opening comment, if we decided to live in the real world, we might also decide to start educating educators more rigorously, and paying teachers more to attract people to that profession. Whether society would then live more by reality than wishful-thinking and emotion is a separate issue.....