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the big debt
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** For Your Eyes Only **
Ausser,
apologies if ive misunderstood ur points but...
1. you seem to imply that just because previous species have become extinct, so too our own must some day perish.
But there are 3 major problems with this view;
(it overlooks our intelligence, the real problem and other species)
1. Our intelligence to realise that our lifestyle threatens others and that we can do otherwise, i.e. such behaviour is needless, entails that we have a duty and responsibility to do otherwise.
Just because previous species have become extinct does not entail that future generations of our own have no rights claims to a viable existence. unlike the puffin, we are able to conjecture and rationalise. we have realised that our behaviour impoverishes the opportunities of future generations. such intelligence endows us with a duty and responsibility to act in the interests of future generations.
2. you may argue that future generations have no rights claims to existence but given that is within our power to provide them with similar opportunities that we have benefitted from ought we not act accordingly? it is not so much that or species will become extinct but that future members of our species will be unable to utilise the earth's ecological resources, for we will have plundered them.
its not just a matter of the species ending but that their opportunities will be limited and their standard of living will suffer as they endure the consequences of ever-increasing pollution, tropical storms, a lack of energy sources etc etc.
3. even if our species does become extinct, what about other species suffering at the hands of our selfish exploitation of this planet? surely the debt is due to all those we have taken from. i mean u cant really say that we owe this debt to the planet, because its not a 'moral agent', so to speak, but surely we owe this ecological debt to all those which have an actual or potential interest in such matters.
As Aldo Leopold said "[We need to] change the role of humans as conquerors of the land community to plain members and citizens of it".
Surely, each person should attempt to maintain a degree of sustainability in their lifestyle but at present we are incurring a massive ecological debt. We use far more of the pot than which we are entitled, merely on the basis of "wanting to, being able to and hence doing".
Can any suggest a defence for current behaviour?
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