I'm startled to see extra-Earth modifications as objectionable. The universe is an endless landscape. The idea that the nearest available resources outside our ecosphere would be off-limits would effectively end human expansion. The moon and Mars are essentially dead, dry rocks, at least compared to any ecosystem on Earth (even the Antarctic).
In my view, its all sentiment. Saving a snail darter is demonstrably not worth the effort. The so-called 'ecosystem' we live in has been completely reformatted repeatedly by human intervention. And we're all still here. So its fragility is highly overstated.
And the intrinsic value of species is also overrated. Now that we're on the cusp of reinventing creatures through direct dna programming, native species become completely devalued. What does it matter which creatures happen to be occupying our planet when we came to a level of civilization? Its a coincidence; many more came before and went extinct, and we don't cry over them.
Just look at the artificial ecosystems we create - they aren't in and danger of collapsing - urban lawns, the vast corn crops of the bread basket, Phoenix. Clearly we're capable of rebuilding our own ecosystem, at least the rudiments of one. And we'll only get better at it.
>Just look at the artificial ecosystems we create - they aren't in and danger of collapsing
Have you seen what's been happening in California?
Do you not understand that areas without a reliable supply of water are literally uninhabitable? Or that observing your neighbour's green - or brown - lawn today says nothing about water availability two decades from now?
Ecosystems work until they don't. When they stop working, you are entirely screwed.
The point of thinking long-term is to avoid that outcome.
Saying 'Well it hasn't happened yet so it can't' is unscientific and entirely unrelated to how these things actually work.
Water availability is unrelated to ecosystem, at least the animal part. And we've arguably made the largest changes there in all off history - rerouting most water sources, tapping into lakes and seas. That's in fact a good argument for what we CAN do to 'terraform' our own planet.
The doomsday Armageddon argument about ecosystem collapse is bankrupt, principally because we have made such massive changes to the landscape and gotten away with it. We know more than we've ever known about waterway management, desalinization etc. There's no going back.
In my view, its all sentiment. Saving a snail darter is demonstrably not worth the effort. The so-called 'ecosystem' we live in has been completely reformatted repeatedly by human intervention. And we're all still here. So its fragility is highly overstated.
And the intrinsic value of species is also overrated. Now that we're on the cusp of reinventing creatures through direct dna programming, native species become completely devalued. What does it matter which creatures happen to be occupying our planet when we came to a level of civilization? Its a coincidence; many more came before and went extinct, and we don't cry over them.
Just look at the artificial ecosystems we create - they aren't in and danger of collapsing - urban lawns, the vast corn crops of the bread basket, Phoenix. Clearly we're capable of rebuilding our own ecosystem, at least the rudiments of one. And we'll only get better at it.