----- Original Message -----
From: Ray Lanier <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2001 6:10 PM
Subject: Re: Survivors will not be living in Franken Trees
> Hello John Foster,
>
> You offer some very informative posts. You raise very important
questions.
> But I'm going to pick on you because I generally agree with what I see as
> the value framework from which you approach the questions.. Most if not
all
> others on this list seem, to me, to be just as fuzzy about ethical issues
as
> it seems to me that you are. There seems to me to be not much rigorous
> attention in the approach to ethical issues. In spite of the fact that
both
> list owners seem to be in the business of studying/teaching ethical
> considerations. And, I think they have the responsibility for initiating
an
> exploration of the several schools for approaching ethical issues *prior*
to
> and then *reconsidered* iteratively as we test the hypothesese against the
> particulars.
>
> BUT, with respect, to start with you John. What are the ethical issues
> involved in your post?
Good question. And thank you for taking the time to reply. The scientific
approach is a valid one to take wrt to ethical issues; it is not the only
one, but it is required. Science means knowledge which is constructed from
facts and information. But first of all I would like to suggest that any
statements of mine should begin with one assumption. For example, I have
made an assumption regarding the metaphor of the Survivor. This metaphor is
a moving metaphor in the sense that the Survivor represents various cultures
that have existed in the past as local populations living in regions of
relative natural abundance. My assumption I think was to assert that there
could have been valid ecological reasons for the demise of these local
populations. For instance the Roman Empire was said to have fallen because
of lead in their water pipes. Lead poisioning led dementia in the
population, and the highly organized order of the culture collapsed. Another
example may be situated with the British Empire after it became difficult to
maintain a large marine culture resulting from a shortage of oak to build
boats. I want to concentrate on the human causes of depletion with respect
to forest loss.
Now these examples reflect what I think are cases of Survivorship. In the
case of the Romans the civilization lacked the necessary understanding of
lead toxicity. In the case of the British Empire, this civilization
represented a failure to cultivate adequate material to maintain a fleet of
military and merchant ships. The British were able to survive as an empire
so long as they were able to obtain wood for boats. The British were
fortunate to find a substitute for oak in India where vast forests of teak
were found.
So far I have not explained the ethical issues involved here. The ethical
issue referred to here is similar to the ethical issues that modern cultures
are faced with. In the case of the British, the traditional source of oak
was primarily located in North America in the colonies (now the US and
Canada). There were no longer any oak forests of sufficient size in Europe
especially in the Meditterean. In North America the British created the
"Broad Arrow Policy" which effectively prevented the exploitation of oak by
the colonists for their own uses, and this fact partially precipitated the
American Revolution in the New England states (Dana, Forest Policy).
The case today is much similar to the British example. The US is the largest
importer of wood, and possibly the largest per capita user of wood in the
world today. The US imports about 50 % of its demand from Canada primarily.
In Asia, Japan has systematically deforested much of the Phillipines and
other large South Pacific islands by purchasing mahogany, etc., from timber
companies partially owned and controlled by Japanese nationals. As most of
us now know, the world's forests are increasingly being relied on to supply
wood for homes, fuel and paper products. The demand for wood has grown in an
exponential fashion over time during the last 2 centuries. The world's most
developed nations exploit as much as 1000 times more wood than some of the
least developed nations. For instance Sudan consumes about 0.1 cubic meters
per capita in wood per year, and Peru consumes about 0.3 cubic meters per
person per year (Can. Pulp & Paper Institute). The average per capita
consumption in the US and in Canada is 1000 times greater.
Because the worlds forests also are habitat to most of the species on earth,
the ecological impact of harvesting trees, raising livestock on these lands,
and gathering non-wood forest products has a negative and cumulative impact
on species in general. The recent scientific reports from Europe indicate
that there is massive flooding, productivity losses, and species extinction
occurring in managed forests The impact is said to be catastrophic and the
predictions are that ecological collapse is immanent. Now if this is assumed
to be a true representation of the facts, the future of forests in many
nations will follow a similar sequence of events: soil erosion, flooding,
species extinction, etc.
Several examples have alread been documented regarding forests and
civilization: the Meditterean area and the forests of China. The
deforestation of the Yangtze River watershed resulted in massive flooding
which killed approximately two million persons at the beginning of the
century. Scientists are convinced that the flooding was in large part caused
by deforestation.
These examples reflect what happens when there is a civilization that fails
to value forests for much more than wood. The current impetus for scientific
research in the forested areas of the world is to develop practices which
make forests function in the same way: to produce wood. That is to say we as
forested nations are attempting to entrench practices which would confer
some reasonable hope of 'sustainability' in terms of exploitation of wood
over long periods of time.
The ethos, if you will, is evolving within forested nations (as a mental
niveau or paradigmatic model) to practice forestry which is sustainable. In
my opinion, however, the assumption is that science is making attempts to
progress toward sustainable practices of forest useage in terms of wood
production in exclusion to other functions and purposes of humane desires
and values such as the spiritual and other diverse non-wood kinds. The
ethos, or habit, from which the term ethics derives, is a non-attainable
goal because there are few adequate substitutes for the primary end uses of
wood: paper and houses. The term sustainability is a term that is being
'reified' and turned into a noun by well meaning forest managers. We have
the example of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) which has various good
criteria. In Sweden currently almost all forests are now certified as to
being sustainable. Yet reports from Sweden now indicate that up to 450
species of insects, birds, etc., are in serious decline. Increasing amounts
of wood biomass are being exploited to fuel plants for electricity and
industrial energy. The World Wildlife Fund has published various reports and
advised the public that the rate of exploitation is threatening sensitive
species.
The term sustainability is derived from the latin 'sostenir' which is term
denoting an act of sustaining. The term has a universal application to any
process or function which is observed to continue. Democracy can be
sustained providing the principles and elements are observed to be operative
in the relations between citizens, etc. Therefore to make a transistion from
the 'unsustainable practices' of forest exploitation there are necessary
antecedent conditions that must be recognized and observed prior to any
enactment of the basic elements of sustainability. To think sustainability
means to observe an antecendent 'state' - if you will - of decline in
functioning: loss of integrity and resilience in a primary order of
functioning.
> What difference does it make whether or not
> "survivors (will or) will not be living in Franken trees"?
The will be a difference. If these Genetically Modified trees are
established on vast forested areas, there will be difference in the forests
comparatively. The issue therefore is whether the difference will be
significant in terms of the value of forests for non-wood forests purposes
such as biological diversity, spiritual values, etc. Trees which are sterile
cannot regenerate. That means that forests of genetically modified trees
will not have flowering parts, seeds, etc. Most forest dependent species use
these flowering parts in the spring and in the fall for food (mast). The use
of insect resistant trees genetically modified will alter the primary food
web by eliminating the primary herbivores. Seed predators will dissappear
from the forest, and insectivorous birds will dissappear. So will most of
the carnivores that are dependent on these herbivores and seed predators.
The use of herbicide resistant trees will result in the increased use of
herbicides which will impact most of the browse species such as shrubs,
grasses, and forbs. Many of these species will vanish from the managed
plantations of Genetically Modified trees. Hunting as a form of sustainable
forest useage will become negligible. Traditional food sources such as deer,
hares, etc., will be negligible. This is already well documented in the
literature regarding broadcast useage of herbcides in forests. In summary
the trophic levels that exist in the natural forests (which are diverse)
will be simplified and reduced in abundance. Short rotation forestry which
occurrs within a short span of 35-40 years will also accelerate that
simplification. Most of the species that occur in forests are dependent on
forests that have patches of old growth withint them (eg. 150 year old
forests have more insects and epiphytes than forests less than 100 years).
Further risk will be associated with developed resistance to the Bt toxins
that are genetically engineered into the trees. Some insects will become
resistant (or there is expected to be conferred resistance over time). These
insects will lack natural predation and will become epidemics that can only
be controlled by chemical insecticides. Some resistance has occurred in some
insects to the use of Bt already. The use of Bt producing trees will alter
soil fauna significantly with the result that some bacteria will dissappear
and further alterations will develop in the soil.
What I am describing here is a complex of interactions which are
consequences of technology. The impacts of these consequences on the ability
to sustain forest ecosystems in perpetuity is placed at risk. The probablity
of harm is great versus the application of forestry practices which
'imitate' natural disturbance regimes (temporally & structurally).
> I read your post
> copied below - and most of the other stuff posted here - and say so what?
> What difference does it make? What are the criteria that one might follow
> to determine that the "difference" matters?
I think the first think is to recognize that there will be differences, or
consequences, that are probable in advance of the implementation and design
and establishment of these artificially procured forests. Once there is a
recognition of risk and potential harm, then a decision can be made as to
the utilization of these genetically modified forest trees. It is ultimately
the decision of the forest owner what practices are implemented in the
design of the forests used for wood production. The criteria that could be
useful for the decision making are numerous. I prefer to refer to the
criteria as principles or elements. They should be criteria that have a
causitive aspect to them. For instance, the principle of wholism is a very
general principle which in application has a causitive effect. The principle
of wholism is a universal term which reflects the recognition that systems
(as concepts) are interactive. The principle of holism in the ecological
and social sense means for instance that any intervention within a smaller
component of a larger system will cause a reaction or response to some other
component from both a spatial and temporal order. The impacts of course will
ramify throughout the whole, incrementally, even though the initial impact
has occurred in a remote portion of the whole. Cumulative impacts however
small -if they are degradative- should be balanced by impacts which are
restorative (aggradative). There is in this sense of the meaning of the
principle of holism no rationale therefore to create and adopt 'sacrifice
zones'. Sacrifice zones, therefore, are zones of forest where the primary
use of a forest is to produce one product or service such as Eucalyptus for
pulp.
In contrast with single purpose forestry epitomitized by genetically
modified trees to maximize economic returns from one or two species of
treses, the holistic criterion and principle would in practice result in a
balanced sense of forest land useage which would combine all the primary
purposes and functions of a forest with the net result of achieving what I
call a 'syn-holon'. The term 'synholon' is greek for 'whole of wholes' or
'synthesis of wholes'', with synthesis emphasizing processive and whole
emphasizing static elementary forest functioning. The outcome of the
holisitic approach thus would be that forests would be managed for the
benefit of all dependent species, resulting functions in terms of climate
and hydrology, etc. The failure of modern forestry has been in my
understanding an emphasis on the maximization of yield for one or two
primary outputs: wood and recreation, perhaps. Rare, unique, and sensitive
forests would be protected. Examples of senstive forests would be the
floodplain forests of the Mississippii River, the Fraser River Delta. In
these examples, of course, they are in extreme jeapordy, and as a result the
implementation of sustainable, holistic forestry would entail the initial
restoration, i.e., urban and agriculture useage would be halted in these
sensitive areas. In essence there would be large forest ecosystem networks
(FENS) established in these areas several kilometers to hundreds of
kilometers wide with forested buffers in the uplands. The restoration of the
hydrologic functioning of large riverine habitats would extend to upland
forests as well. In agricultural areas riparian forests would be established
along smaller tributaries, many damns would be breached to permit fish
migration and so on.
For instance in the Amazon River there are many species of fish which are
dependent solely on the large seeds that fall from the trees growing in the
floodplain forests. When the river level is low the fish no longer are able
to feed on the large seeds. These fish have to live off of body fat, and
they become quiescent, or even estivate in the mud. When the river levels
rise during wet seasons, the fish feed on the large seeds that fall from the
trees. Unfortunately logging and agriculture have removed many of the trees
in the floodplains, and as a result the fish that depend on the seeds have
been locally scarce and even extirpated. These fish species are valuable to
the ecosystem in several ways. One reason that they are valuable is due to
the fact that seeds require 'scarification' of the seed coat to break seed
dormancy. The trees have evolved a physiological mechanism that ensure that
they regenerate only after ingestion by the fish to ensure that the species
continue to produce seeds that are only eaten by fish. They evolutionary
trait confers an absolute advantage on the these genera of trees to
reproduce in the floodplain forests. No other trees can regenerate there
because the seeds are simply washed out of the forest, or are left in the
mud and begin to decay. The 'scarification' ensures that only seeds eaten by
fish and excreted are going to germinate. With the removal of the these
trees from the floodplain forests, the fish dissappear with the consequence
that people and other species like river otter have diminished food
supplies. A whole set of interactions between trophic levels of consumers
severed. Over eons of time the cumulative impact of sequential removal of
sensitive habitats results in the simplication of ecosystems and the removal
of key energy flows between trophic levels. Trophic means food (energy). The
resilience of diverse ecosystems is further reduced and stronger and
stronger stressors impact sequentially the full function of each forest or
proto-riparian forest is impacted. There are numerous examples that are
similar: rainforests of riparian salmon streams in BC and Alaska, Mangroves,
Carolingian wetlands, and the Mississippi.
>What are the characteristics of
> the several world views that inform the way we individually and severally
> make ethical choices about environmental issues?
The key thing here is that ethics must be perceived as being practical. The
subject of ethics is practice, and practice makes perfection 'coincident'
the conceptual opposites of idea (meaning, substance) and (material form.
Ethics is different than ontology, and metaphysics. Ontology and metaphysics
are 'speculative' more than practical. Sankara and Nagarjuna, the ancient
East Indian philosophers admonished the sole study of ontology saying that
that it is far more valuable and necessary to find salvation since
speculative ontology does not result in salvation. What is left unsaid of
course is why salvation is different, why is ethics practical? Ethical
practice results in a fundamental 'inversion' of values, or if you will, a
submersion/subversion of values. What I mean is that the attitude of basic
value regarding any topic of understanding is predicated on the 'feeling' of
good versus evil. Malinowski observed in Africa neolithic peoples would
would be in a state of joy and extroverted delight in the daylight hours.
Eveyone was friendly and loving and affable with everyone during the day.
But at night these neolithic peoples were morbid, and fearful. He theorized
that their consciousness was largely 'symbolic' in that night was a psychic
counterpart to dread and day was the psychic counterpart to joy.
Interestingly enough a recent researcher on bears in the rainforest observed
a different phenomenon. Using night vision binoculars he observed groups of
bears within a few meters of himself during the night feeding on spawning
salmon the size of tree trunks. They appeared to be completely unconcerned
with his near presence, and never threatened him. But during the day the
bears were never seen together in groups feeding on salmon. They become more
fearful during the day.
The ethical component is already there in consciousness during emotional
forms of knowing. We call this form of knowing emotional. It is largely
intuitive, undifferentiated thought. Husserl, the German phenomenologist,
described this awareness as 'categorial intuition' which has in
consciousness a knowledge of the external world with 'relief' and appearing
as opaque. There is a feeling about the object: the night is dreadful. We
feista en las noche por esto razon.The other form of knowin of course is the
cognitive, but cognition is not value, nor is it emotion. The idea of the
good, and of the bad is essentially emotional, undifferentiated thought. The
psychic counterpart of night is dread, joy of day. In bears the opposite
appears to be extolled.
At to the environmental ethical counterpart of Franken Trees, there is a
psychic counterpart in dread, in sadness, and in grief. The reason is that
the consequences of genetically modified trees has ecological and social
consequences that are hightly probable, consequences that are 'felt' first
as emotive. Now the other thing is that value is an intermediary of emotion
and logic, or cognition. Value is not itself an 'emotion' but intermediate
between both logic (reason) and emotion. Thus for a value to be expressed in
the understanding involves a complex experience. The person that lacks a
sense of value for the forests as a preserve does not feel a positive nor a
negative emotion (dread nor joy) because of a forest. In fact persons from
the Prairie province coming to BC hate the forests, and they cut them down
for the sole reason to be able see out. They also often hated mountains
which make them fell hemmed in. They often over time change their sense of
values because they like the calm winds, the fishing, the hiking, and the
berries and deer. There are people that prefer the grasslands to forests and
never change. I think that that is perfectally acceptable. Therefore the
urban dweller in a large city many never see the stars, may never hear a
ruffed grouse drumming in the spring, and may even be frightened by the
sound of the drumming (some Germans I know were startled to their wits by
the drumming as I was once when I first hear a spruce grouse making it's
mating call). Something sounding completely strange at first may have a
psychic counterpart in dread because it is 'uncanny' or 'worrisome'. It is a
sound that appears out of knowwhere and does not sound human nor even like
an animal. The first time I heard howler monkeys I was camped in my tent in
the upstairs of the biological station at Corcovado Parque Nacional. I would
have been frightened had I not remembered what they were....it was ungodly
loud and frightening for a short period of time. Snakes, even harmless ones,
can frighten anyone intially.
What appears to me be the characteristic ethical sense ultimately derives
from feeling and sense, and not from a subsequent rational or calculative
part of the soul or personality. I think that Aristotle was correct in this
regard. He described the human soul as having two fundamental counterparts
that function together - in varying degrees of emphasis- when he described
the 'sensitive' and the 'calculative' nature of the soul, persona, or
pscyhe. There is a lot of truth to this because the idea of health for
Aristotle was defined as the 'absence of disease'. Therefore health is not
defined as positive state at all but rather as a negative condition being.
Wisdom for Aristotle is defined in the Metaphysics as 'the knowledge of
causes and principles.' Principles are <archke> or principalities, and even
elements. Now the idea here (or meaning) is that with wisdom some balance
can be achieved, value is a form of balance, it is an intermediary of logic
and emotion. A good feeling therefore is an experience of balance in the
environment whether it occurs within a social, economic, or ecological
melieu.
In summary I would suggest that the ethical is derivative from a primary
intuition that is felt as a psychic event; it is felt as dread or joy. The
dread that is felt initial appears as an opaque awareness, as awe-fulness,
as the uncanny. Thus when the idea of the Franken forest is presented to the
consciousness in terms of an opaque value, it appears as strange, as without
relief. As more and more informed scientists, philosophers actually
understand the rational or logical consequences for the establishment of
Genetically Modified Organisms, the primary intuition of dread turns to a
representation consisting of images (objects with symbolic referential
meaning). The reinforcement of the dread may continue toward the much deeper
or wider meaning sense where the object of concern is raised to an object of
ultimate concern; it becomes an issue of ultimate concern that must be dwelt
with. The issue may become so ultimate that it becomes a categorial decision
in the processive phase of the concern rather than a merely hypothetical
decision since the potential impact on the health of the ecosystem is
adverse enough to warrant a decision to prevent irreversible harm. There is
no longer a perception of risk when the issue becomes an ultimate concern
versus an issue of preliminary concern (cf. The Courage To Be, Tillich). In
otherwords the issue becomes an issue of ontological and theological
concern. The ontological concern reflects the potential harm that dread is:
the fear of death rather than the fear of the unknown which it was initially
(the uncanny). The theological concern arises from the sense that all hope
for glory will be lost irretreviably. In the idea (meaning sense) of the
notion of an ultimate concern there is left only a feeling of 'abandonment'
of all hope for glory, and the end point is certain death. The ultimate
endpoint of hopelessness is nihility, or valueless nihilism. One must
recgonize that in the endpoint there is an abandonment of all good and evil.
There is no coincidence of values in nihility since there is no glory. Hope
is active and only occurs in faith arising from the empowerment that future
glory brings.
The indication of an ethics for the environment always arises from the
'basic concept of dread' provided by a primary intuition as primary as the
'uncanny' and 'dreadful' sound of the howler monkey or the ruffed grouse. So
far with the primary intuition as emotion, there is the possibility of
value, of feeling, and the categorial. The sense of dread is similar to the
understanding of 'not goint along with the thesis of the material world'.
This is exemplary because the basic sense of dread in a forester occurs when
something appears to be out of sorts in the forest: a forest fire set by
arsonists, a new proteded areas that is proposed by ENGO's, etc. Not all
foresters would sense dread the same way, but any sudden 'uncanny' intuition
that is primary: a plume of smoke from over the horizon, a loud snap of
branch by a black bear. Any preliminary concern arising from a perception of
sensory object is an indication of an ethics of care....
> How do we - or can we -
> establish an order of competence/relevance/significance among the several
> world views that inform our ethical stance(s)?
This is a very complex question to answer. Information regarding world views
(Weltanschaungs) can be very important for resolving conlficts of an
interusubjective nature, indeed international nature. I would like to point
out for instance a recent finding because it is informative. There was a
recent discovery that the aseptic environment that is now common in the
household of the more developed nations is causing immune deficiencies in
children. The conclusion of the informed researchers was that because
antiseptics are now commonly used in modern homes, children are never
exposed to a common pinworm found in the lower instestinal tract. The
absence of the this relatively benign worm prevents the young immune system
from developing a wide spectrum resistance to many other potentially toxic
organisms and substances it is inferred. As a result children not exposed to
these pin worms develop hypersensitivity to classes of toxins; they may even
develop allergies to many substances that children exposed to pin worms do
not have. The other example is infant formulas. The nursing infant at birth
in nature receives a complex mothers milk full of enzymes and biocompounds
that bolster the immune system and aid in the development. The biocompounds
in the mothers milk cannot be synthesized in man-made infant formula and in
commercially prepared cows milk.
The world view that values the technological competencies of manufactured
products extends to 'all embracing' ideology. The extension of course
originates from a metaphysical perspective in that man is understood as
being in constant conflict with nature, and more importantly nature is in
conflict with man. Man must therefore violate nature in order to succeed, to
improve, and to reduce his own suffering. This metaphysical statement
becomes a categorial in that the 'Question of Man' is raised versus the
'Question of Being' being raised. Man therefore in the current technological
epoch of the last 2500 years is the 'one who violates nature' because nature
is violating man, and his reason. While Being and Nature is demoted, being
of man is raised - who is no longer being but rather man is now above and
beyond being -as a founding of all foundations. Nature in the history of
western civilazation is sequentially being demoted. Woman has been demoted,
Man has been raised. Nature is 'red in tooth and claw', nature is there to
be trained, and civilized since nature is constantly violating Man. This
tradition is typified by the Baconian scientific creed which singles out
nature as the sole servant and slave, mistress if you will, of all the
material desires of Man. Mountains and swamps are useless areas, as are
preserved forests. This attitude expressed by proponents of modern
technology is to terminate the overship of nature of man, and convert the
relationship toward one of an opposite bondage: man must place into full
service all of nature, place nature into his bondage. There is no psychic
counterparts to nature in this paradigme since nature is simply matter
without symbolic form. The culmination of the technological paradiqm is 'a
totalizing efficiency' of all planetary resources for the ease, pleasure and
entitlement of man. The ontotheological corrollary is simply to complete the
project of man; and that project is God. Man will make God, not God make man
in his own image. The mystical and ontological reverse paradigm in contrast
is to let God finish with Man since Man is not yet finished, nor is Man a
Finished Animal. And neither is Nature finished, nor completely evolved. The
teleological ojbect of nature and man in this sense if to grant nature
'coevolutionary status' with the cultural institutions of Man.
So Man will finish God, whose project it is Man's to finish. Of course the
idea of God is one of a 'creative and animative principle' in nature: the
copy that the demiurgous fashioned in patterning the universe from. If this
last perspective is correct, then the imbalance of the western technological
paradigm is obvious: nature is 'imperfect, unruly, and mocking', in other
words a scornful, diabolical entity, formless muck or like a harlot.
Now the destiny and history of Being is no longer in question because Being
and Man will culminate in the end of Nature as a seperate entity. Man's
project which is to complete God will reach stasis, or become a terminal
value as opposed to a normal value. The cathedral will replace the grove of
the pagans as a place of worship.
addios
John Foster
> The discussions here, imho, seem to be *mere* expressions of each
> individual's *feelings*, *unconsidered bias*. No attempt to try to
> formulate a general statement that addresses the issues, nor to even found
> one's position *clearly* on the general foundation of some "authority".
>
> In my view, until we address the fundamentals (such as, but not limited
to
> those above), the issues and opinions posed on this list are just
whistling
> in the wind. Without substance. Just bull-shitting each other.
>
> Ray
> ----------------------
> You wrote:
> > If the whole human race is viewed as living in a 'wilderness' called the
> > universe, then I think the metaphor is applicable. The survivors will be
> > future generations. At this point it is entirely hypothetical whether
the
> > human species will survive much more than a few hundred years on earth.
> >
> > It is also entirely possible that other species on earth may not survive
> > either because of human technology and population growth.
> >
> > Some day the earth will be covered in Genetically Mutilated Organisms
> where
> > wild forests once existed, and natural domesticated plants flourished.
> Vast
> > sterile plantations of fast growing populars will be growing in the
> > temperate forest lands, and Eucalypts will be growing in the Tropics.
> These
> > trees will not be able to regenerate, and there will be very few species
> > that are dependent on the flowers, catkins and seeds of these trees.
There
> > will be no bees to take the propolis from the popular catkins, no bears
in
> > these forests in the spring feeding. There will be no birds because
there
> > will be no insects. The trees will have the gene that produces the BT
> toxin,
> > so no insects will be found on these trees. The total area of these
> forests
> > will surpass what exists today in terms of managed forests. In the year
> 2100
> > there will be between 8 and 12 billion people on earth. That means that
> > there will be an increase in the demand for wood products of at least 33
%
> > and as much as 100 %. Yet the remaining unmanaged, productive forests
left
> > on earth today only amount to about 20 % of the total forests in
existence
> > today (WRI 2000). Some of these forests will be harvested for the trees
> and
> > clearcut for purposes other than forestry.
> >
> > It has been estimated that up to 50 % of the worlds species will become
> > extinct by the year 2100.
> >
> > Other examples of local extinction of the human metapopulation include:
> >
> > 1. Dorset culture in the Canadian Arctic
> > 2. Easter Island (civilization)
> > 3. Mayan civilization
> > 4. Various cultures of the Andes (Paracas, Chimu, etc.)
> > 5. Hopi
> >
> > These five represent perhaps a fraction of the cultures that went
extinct.
> > The ethical concern here is raised because current scientific
> understanding
> > is not clear on what happened to cause these cultures to die out.
Climate,
> > shortage of trees, invasions, etc., are probable as causitive factors in
> > their demise, but when the rainforest reclaims cities populated with
well
> > over 40,000 persons, there must have been a 'cause in principle'.
> >
> > The Mesopotamian civilzation failed because of de-forestation and
failure
> to
> > maintain adequate water for irrigation, but no one has any knowledge why
> the
> > Mayan culture dissappeared. The Easter Island population was destroyed
by
> a
> > fanatical devotion to wood for the purposes of worship, and for housing,
> and
> > fuel. The ancient cultures of Peru that were living on the west coast,
> > Chimu, for instance had an adobe city with a population of 50,000
persons.
> > There was lots of water from the Andes, and the city appeared to be more
> > rational and modern in design than modern cities. Yet sand from the
> deserts
> > stretching from the Atacomba Desert now cover these ancient ruins. Did
> these
> > people deplete the local fisheries? Did weather or sea currents have a
> > negative impact on fisheries favoured by the Humbolt Current?
> >
> > Mass sterilization of the wild forests of the world is now in progress.
> The
> > ethical thing to do about this issue is to do something now. Demand that
> the
> > companies that are attempting to sterilize forests stop their
> > experimentation before it is too late. Demand that the new house you
buy,
> or
> > the wood products that you buy are certified wild and organic.
> >
> > chao
> >
> > John Foster
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: L.M. Dangutis <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2001 6:50 AM
> > Subject: Re: Survivor and Environmental Ethics
> >
> >
> > > I have never seen the show "Survivor." Its rather
> > > comical you mention this show. I remember watching
> > >
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