Morality in Conservation

      Let’s change direction in today’s article. Listening to the BBC World Service on NPR this morning gave me inspiration.
      I hear a lot of “conservationists” advocate totally halting the changes to the planet, or even reversing some of them. The problem that I see in this is the halt of the mechanism of evolution along with it. The assumption these people make is that all changes to the planet are human-caused. This is pure hubris. Earth is dynamic and constantly changing, growing new life and killing off old life. The Earth’s climate has gone through thousands of cycles of change, warming and cooling. All of these changes in the biosphere have been accomplished for billions of years without benefit of human intervention.
      I question the morality of arresting change for the sake of conservation. If evolution is such a precious fact, almost a religious dogma, to these conservationists, why do they want to tinker with Mommy Nature’s mechanism. The moral question has not been discussed in the public forum. The arguments have all been framed only in terms of conservation vs. exploitation.
      Humans have an awesome responsibility to tend the world, to maintain the health and growth of the great diversity of life around us. We have never developed a satisfactory outline for the accomplishment of that mission. I don’t propose to give any answers. I have bearly discovered the questions. I do propose the following studies: 1) Look into how much of the change of climate is actually caused by human activity and how much came from natural mechanisms; 2) Look into the synergy between diseases and the species they prey upon, to discover the mechanism of extinction that diseases are a part of; 3) Look into the possibility of creating habitats for humans and domestic animals in orbit and in deep space; 4) Look into methods of truly terraforming Mars should we conclusively discover there is no life currently on Mars to be affected. (I will discuss ideas for terraforming Mars in a near future blog post.) Once we answer these and the other questions that arise in the course of our studies, we will be better armed to both discuss the moral question and map out a course of action to follow into the future.
      The way we are currently discussing the problems of conservation and climate change are counterproductive and polarizing. We cannot come to a consensus unless we come to a mutual understanding. Those of us who derive our faith from the Patriarch Abraham and his descendants are even more compelled to take care of our planet because of the edict God gave to Adam and all of his descendants, that’s us, to tend the world and care for all life. It becomes imperative, therefore, that we begin to inform ourselves and discuss the morality and feasibility of conservation. Make your own studies and form your own opinion. Then join in the public debate in a more intelligent way.