Balance of nature (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, January 12, 2025, 13:28 (10 days ago) @ David Turell

Thank you for these illuminating articles, which raise two separate issues. The main focus is on the damage we humans are causing to ourselves and our planet. Under “global warming”:

dhw: You agree that we are already causing damage to ourselves and our planet. Would you also agree that we need to take steps now to stop those interferences from increasing the damage?

DAVID: […] I agree at the level of local damages.

All damage is “local”, in the sense that floods, fires, droughts, storms, hurricanes etc. occur in different places at different times. The increasing degree to which these “local” catastrophes are taking place (we are all currently shuddering at the horror of Los Angeles) is believed to be caused largely by global warming, which in turn many experts consider to be caused by such human-related factors as fossil fuels, deforestation, means of transport and food production.

DAVID: "Catastrophic" is the usual hype word asking for unreasonable actions like the Paris accords, which are never followed.

The Paris Agreement was that all countries should make every effort to reduce temperatures by cutting back on all the above activities. This would entail nothing less than a revolution in the way we all live. Perhaps understandably, many governments are not prepared to countenance such changes. The problem, however, is not solved by arguing over what is or isn’t a “catastrophe”.

DAVID: Watts is anti Paris Accord and his website is joined by a group of world-wide expert climatologists who agree with him.

I have just watched a very revealing interview with Watts on YouTube from about 10 years ago. Apparently his position has hardened since then, but what he says here would certainly give a much more rational basis for his non-acceptance of the Paris Agreement.

Conversation with global warming skeptic Anthony Watts: (Sorry, I can't get the link.)

He accepts that global warming is a fact, but believes its extent is exaggerated, and questions methods of measuring. The interviewer asks whether we should ignore the problem, and Watts hesitates before answering that we should not be in such a hurry (because of the chaos a quick solution would cause), but instead should take our time in developing new technologies. He likes to think of himself as a “pragmatic” sceptic, and I’d say it’s clear that a “pragmatic” approach is the only one possible. His overall response, then, is emphatically NOT a denial that the climate is changing, but the emphasis lies on the speed of our response to the problem, not on the existence of the problem itself.

DAVID: Yes, we are currently warming, but observing that event tells us nothing about the future which results from a large number of factors that impinge on warming.

You agree that we are currently warming. Does Watts now disagree with you? If he does, he is certainly in a minority among "experts". I have just listed the human factors which cause warming (“impinge on” would imply that they reduce warming). Has Watts now reversed his view that it is happening and we need to take pragmatic steps to stop it? I can’t find any updated interview.

DAVID: (under “The water cycle”): How we treat the land and its plants has an direct effect on the water cycle. It is important for us to understand those effects and be sure they are not detrimental.

That is the key to this whole discussion. We are currently in the process of destroying the balance of nature, and unless we change our activities, the results will be “catastrophic”.

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Ozone layer

This raises religious issues:

DAVID: another example of contingent processes which had to follow a certain course to give us the Earth we have now. Chance or design?

dhw: Why would a designer who wanted diversity have designed a battle which delayed this diversity for 2 billion years?

DAVID: God-thinking vs. human analysis. The whole process took a very long time. Why should it be shorter? Human impatience?
And:
DAVID: It is just His all-everything that tells us it had to be that way.

dhw: It is you who tell us that he exists, is all-everything, and had to fulfil the purpose you impose on him by using the method you impose on him. You are happy to use logical “human analysis” to show that life’s complexities are so great that they must have been designed, but when it comes to testing your theories concerning purpose and method, you prefer to label your all-everything God “messy, cumbersome and inefficient” rather than challenge your own human thinking.

DAVID: I impost nothing on God. I assume this reality is caused by Him as it appears to us. The method is messy and non-direct, and putting Him in charge changes nothing.

If he exists, then of course we can assume that he caused this reality. But that does not mean that we were his sole purpose, that he specially designed the 2-billion-year long battle between iodine and oxygen, and then went on to design and cull countless species and ecosystems, solely in order to produce us. Nor does it mean he is all-powerful and all-knowing. These are your “impositions”.