Are we saving the Earth, and if so, why?

The focus of the environmental movement lately seems to be climate change, but honestly, it’s hard to feel passionate about avoiding famine, plague, and war, some year. For inspiration, I need a more immediate concern: Carbon from the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean, increasing ocean acidification, which dissolves the shells of marine animals, reducing shellfish supplies for both humans and sea otters.

Sea otters are creatures I can motivate myself to preserve.

The environmental movement is not only abstract, but also high-tech. I appreciate the benefits of wind farms, but not those placed in fragile ecosystems. Unintended consequences await. These Big Picture Solution people should consider preserving an actual ecosystem, if they can identify one.

Moreover, building huge facilities implies that the main goal of environmentalism is to continue what Dr. Seuss might call biggering. More people, more energy use, more expansion and colonization, more Progress. The goal of biggering the human race is not inspirational.

Human animals are not good planetary companions for wild animals. We seem to gravitate toward destruction–some would call it domestication–of anything that is untouched, that is, non-human. And we’ve been doing this Simply Forever. Plenty of scientists believe that human predation had some role in the extinction of the megafauna such as mastodons and cave bears after the last Ice Age. We’ve been building dams willy-nilly since we were in ancient Egypt, and ejecting pollutants and poisons all over the place since before the Industrial Revolution, although that transformation really upped our game.

Today the Asian elephant, mountain gorilla, Emperor penguin, and Bengal tiger are just a few of many endangered species. Habitat elimination, poaching, invasive species, and climate change are the main culprits, which is to say, humans are the culprits. Why not? Humans don’t need big animals, especially now that most of us get food from farming rather than hunting. We need microbes and bugs to clean up after us, but big animals are just eye candy, albeit inspirational eye candy. Sort of like Art. Do we need Art?

The Bushmen are doing their part! Too bad the other….let’s say 100% of us, since scientific notation has no place in today’s blog. Too bad the other 100% of us can’t need a little less. Meanwhile, if you save a creature, it may not help the climate, but it can soothe your soul. Do we need a soul?

I get to say this because I am a Human. My barcode proves it.