Anthropogenic Damaging of the Environment [Playfishpaste vs. Arian the Heretic]

[Playfishpaste]

(I made teh name all fancy)

Anyway, this debate is on whether or not human beings are "hurting" the environment. Arian, would you like to open? I'm okay with either way.

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Link to Commentary Thread.

[Vladimir Lenin]

I'll open then.

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First off, I would like to thank my opponent for inviting me to Debate this most interesting question of whether or not Humans are damaging the Environment.

The key thing in this Debate is whether or not Humans are damaging the Environment. It doesn't matter if we atone for our damage through other programs, we still are causing more harm to the Environment then benefit.

My first contention is that we as Humans severely affect the planet,

Whether we are discussing things like Global Warming or Ocean Acidification or Deforestation or Oil Spills or

Even Urban Sprawl:



The fact of the matter is we Humans (whether or we like to hear it or not) are slowly murdering our Environment through our actions.

My second contention is that we as Humans try to make up for our faults,

We as humans are the only ones who can try to reduce our impact. However our attempts at reducing the impact are generally faulty which leads me to,

My third contention is that our attempts to reduce impacts do not make enough of a positive benefit to make Humans a Benefit to the Enviornment

Any questions I'll answer 'em

[Playfishpaste]

First off, I would like to thank my opponent for inviting me to Debate this most interesting question of whether or not Humans are damaging the Environment

And thank you for accepting.

The key thing in this Debate is whether or not Humans are damaging the Environment. It doesn't matter if we atone for our damage through other programs, we still are causing more harm to the Environment then benefit.

The fundamental issue with that final statement, that we are "causing more harm then benefit", is that there isn't really a way to "harm" the environment of human beings, we can indeed manipulate it, but not damage it, and if we gauge this supposed "damage" on "how much the effects hurt humans" then our planet had a much WORSE environment before humans were around, during the Hadean eon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadean

My first contention is that we as Humans severely affect the planet,

Whether we are discussing things like Global Warming or Ocean Acidification or Deforestation or Oil Spills or

Even Urban Sprawl:

All of these effects make the environment more unsuitable to humans, however, other life, like archae-bacteria, flourish in the ecological effects we produce like these. Though with respect to humans, we can actually benefit from some of these effects, depending on the way in which we choose to live. For instance, if we in the future were to have a global society based on the stanford torus: http://www.nss.org/settlement/space/stanfordtorus.htm then making our planet warmer and acidifying the oceans would actually be beneficial for energy production, rather then harmful.

The fact of the matter is we Humans (whether or we like to hear it or not) are slowly murdering our Environment through our actions.

Impossible, one cannot destroy the environment.

My second contention is that we as Humans try to make up for our faults,

We as humans are the only ones who can try to reduce our impact. However our attempts at reducing the impact are generally faulty which leads me to,

Actually this is untrue, other factors can contribute to the defence against global warming that are naturalistic, like cyanobacteria concentrations. Though as to the main point of this, it depends on what you consider faults. The only way our affect on the environment can be negative is if it affects our ability to survive, since we can adapt to the changes (like the example above) we don't need to try to "save ourselves"

My third contention is that our attempts to reduce impacts do not make enough of a positive benefit to make Humans a Benefit to the Enviornment

If by benefit you mean human-wise, then I'd say you're wrong there too, as nuclear energy has a considerable amount of impact on the "greenness" of our power, as the only aerosol produced is steam:

http://www.nei.org/keyissues/protectingtheenvironment/

Any questions I'll answer 'em

I have two:

1. Why would we need to waste money on improving the conditions for living when it has not been shown that we are having any considerable negative affect on our environment? Just because the great pacific garbage patch kills fish doesn't make it bad for us.

2. Even if we should be affected by a negative environmental impact significantly to the point at which it causes a disaster, why would an entropic and chaotic effect on human life be a bad thing? Considering it has been shown to only positively affect societies when over-population, resource-limitation, or famine has occured.

[Vladimir Lenin]

I'll first start by answering the questions.

1. Why would we need to waste money on improving the conditions for living when it has not been shown that we are having any considerable negative affect on our environment? Just because the great pacific garbage patch kills fish doesn't make it bad for us.

If you read the link on Ocean Acidification, we are slowly turning our ocean into acid. If we don't seriously stop this within the next hundred years our oceans will be giant seas of acid where nothing will live.

I haven't even discussed the great pacific garbage patch. But since you bring it up it is killing fish.

This debate is not over whether harming the eneviornment is bad for us. It's whether or not we're harming the Environment, the answer is we are.

2. Even if we should be affected by a negative environmental impact significantly to the point at which it causes a disaster, why would an entropic and chaotic effect on human life be a bad thing? Considering it has been shown to only positively affect societies when over-population, resource-limitation, or famine has occured.

Your arguing Nihilism? You first say the environment doesn't matter now you are discussing whether or not Human Life matters?

Human Life matters for two reasons:

1. We are a creation of God
2. If you don't buy the first one think of supply and demand. Humans are just a random pile of atoms that happens to be rational and can think in the abstract.

Human Life for those reasons has intrinsic value. But once again that is not what we are arguing. We are arguing whether or not Humans are harming the environment.

Moving on to his arguments,

The fundamental issue with that final statement, that we are "causing more harm then benefit", is that there isn't really a way to "harm" the environment of human beings, we can indeed manipulate it, but not damage it, and if we gauge this supposed "damage" on "how much the effects hurt humans" then our planet had a much WORSE environment before humans were around, during the Hadean eon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadean

I contend that the Hadean period had no environment, there was NO life at all.

All of these effects make the environment more unsuitable to humans, however, other life, like archae-bacteria, flourish in the ecological effects we produce like these. Though with respect to humans, we can actually benefit from some of these effects, depending on the way in which we choose to live. For instance, if we in the future were to have a global society based on the stanford torus: http://www.nss.org/settlement/space/stanfordtorus.htm then making our planet warmer and acidifying the oceans would actually be beneficial for energy production, rather then harmful.

Killing all living things in the ocean, the destruction of the arctic biome are a few dangers of Global Warming and Ocean Acidification.

Archae-Bacteria be damned we're destroying way more life as well as letting our world turn into something from the Hadean Eon.

Impossible, one cannot destroy the environment.

Correct, but we can destroy all life. Which is the current track we're on.

Actually this is untrue, other factors can contribute to the defence against global warming that are naturalistic, like cyanobacteria concentrations. Though as to the main point of this, it depends on what you consider faults. The only way our affect on the environment can be negative is if it affects our ability to survive, since we can adapt to the changes (like the example above) we don't need to try to "save ourselves"

Correct. But we as Humans also try to make up for our faults. Also the bacteria sadly is not enough to outweigh 6 billion humans and growing.

I disagree, the environment as we normally look at it can be destroyed.

If by benefit you mean human-wise, then I'd say you're wrong there too, as nuclear energy has a considerable amount of impact on the "greenness" of our power, as the only aerosol produced is steam:

http://www.nei.org/keyissues/protectingtheenvironment/
.

I agree, I like Nuclear Energy. That still does'nt address any of my impacts of Ocean Acidification, Global Warming, Deforestation, or Urban Sprawl.

At the end of this Debate it's clear to see that we are harming our environment much more.

[Playfishpaste]

I'll first start by answering the questions.



If you read the link on Ocean Acidification, we are slowly turning our ocean into acid. If we don't seriously stop this within the next hundred years our oceans will be giant seas of acid where nothing will live.

Not true, in fact, that very article says the projected figures for 2100 have the ph level at 7.824, as you probably know, 7 would be neutral. Most fish can tolerate swings in the decimal range here, but not 1 to 2 point changes:

"Most life is comfortable at a near-neutral pH -- stray too far from pH 7.0, and delicate organisms begin to die. Plankton and invertebrates are sensitive to changes in acidity and die first. At pH 5.0, fish eggs degrade and young cannot develop. Adult fish and frogs can sometimes tolerate acidities as low as pH 4.0, but they starve as their weaker food sources die out."

http://science.howstuffworks.com/acid-rain1.htm

The article you mentioned also points out that ocean acidification can actually be beneficial to the climate of the earth in stabilization as it would take in more Co2 from the atmosphere. At the same time, even if it became more acidic and all life in the oceans somehow died for whatever reason, that would only make the ocean a better source of energy for us. The acidity would increase the possible generation.

I haven't even discussed the great pacific garbage patch. But since you bring it up it is killing fish.

black bears are killing fish too, I fail to see how that is harming the environment.

This debate is not over whether harming the enviornment is bad for us. It's whether or not we're harming the Environment, the answer is we are.

If that is what the debate is about instead then you have already lost. The environment is a non-living thing, and consists of non-living things, it therefore cannot be harmed, by anything. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_environment

Your arguing Nihilism? You first say the environment doesn't matter now you are discussing whether or not Human Life matters?

Human Life matters for two reasons:

1. We are a creation of God
2. If you don't buy the first one think of supply and demand. Humans are just a random pile of atoms that happens to be rational and can think in the abstract.

I never said human life doesn't matter, I said the stabilization of humanity is beneficial, not negative. If you want nature to never kill any of it's humans, our population would grow several orders of magnitude, far greater then the extent of a Malthusian catastrophe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_catastrophe

As for point 1, please cite a source as to us being the creation of god, and please note that the bible doesn't count as a biological science citation.

as for 2, what does that have to do with anything? Everything is just a pile of atoms, I don't see your point. Are humans special because they can think? That makes sense, that's why we should try to keep them here right? If catastrophes didn't happen as you seem to want, then humans would DIE OFF.

Human Life for those reasons has intrinsic value. But once again that is not what we are arguing. We are arguing whether or not Humans are harming the environment.

And they are not, the environment is not alive.

I contend that the Hadean period had no environment, there was NO life at all.

A natural environment does not require life, again I shall direct you here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_environment

Killing all living things in the ocean, the destruction of the arctic biome are a few dangers of Global Warming and Ocean Acidification.

How are they dangers? They are only dangerous to us. You are arguing about how they can be dangerous to the environment, the environment does not care.

Archae-Bacteria be damned we're destroying way more life as well as letting our world turn into something from the Hadean Eon.

This isn't necessarily bad, see the stanford torus argument. Which you neglected to refute.

Correct, but we can destroy all life. Which is the current track we're on.

Actually this is impossible, or near impossible, for us alone to do, unless we planted nuclear missile silos on the moon and completely obliterated the entire planet, and by obliterated I mean completely seperated into drifting rock masses or disintegrated. This is the only way you could destroy all life. After any natural disaster life still exists. I don't think we're planning to blast our planet to bits anytime soon, unless it's useful to us, like say, when we terraform mars sucessfully.

Correct. But we as Humans also try to make up for our faults. Also the bacteria sadly is not enough to outweigh 6 billion humans and growing.

Actually it would be, with a little aid from the humans, and a more acidic ocean as was covered in your article on acidification.

I disagree, the environment as we normally look at it can be destroyed.

"as we normally look at it"? What? The environment is a clearly defined scientific term, and can never be destroyed unless you were to obliterate the whole of the earth into nothingness, and even then that would only end "earth's environment".

I agree, I like Nuclear Energy. That still does'nt address any of my impacts of Ocean Acidification, Global Warming, Deforestation, or Urban Sprawl.

All of these are irrelevant to the argument because they don't harm the environment, only humans and other creatures.

At the end of this Debate it's clear to see that we are harming our environment much more.

No, it's only clear that we are harming ourselves, which can easily be changed by us if we change how we live (stanford toruses, or terraforming).

[Vladimir Lenin]

Not true, in fact, that very article says the projected figures for 2100 have the ph level at 7.824, as you probably know, 7 would be neutral. Most fish can tolerate swings in the decimal range here, but not 1 to 2 point changes:

"Most life is comfortable at a near-neutral pH -- stray too far from pH 7.0, and delicate organisms begin to die. Plankton and invertebrates are sensitive to changes in acidity and die first. At pH 5.0, fish eggs degrade and young cannot develop. Adult fish and frogs can sometimes tolerate acidities as low as pH 4.0, but they starve as their weaker food sources die out."

http://science.howstuffworks.com/acid-rain1.htm

Ok, it's still a huge loss of life, but we've already seen damage done to the Coral Reef biome. This would result in a loss of life from animals and other things. Why? Because the acid will slowly break down their habitats destroying the ecosystem.

http://www.ucar.edu/communications/F...dification.pdf

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1847

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...070400772.html

At the end of the day we'll still have an incredible loss of life, maybe not due to Fishes burning from acid, but from the humongous loss of habitat.

As for point 1, please cite a source as to us being the creation of god, and please note that the bible doesn't count as a biological science citation.

Which can't be cited. You either buy the argument or you don't

as for 2, what does that have to do with anything? Everything is just a pile of atoms, I don't see your point.

Correct, but we are the only ones on this entire earth with the ability to be rational. We can actually debate the impact we're having on this planet. We as humans can change our ways and end up making this planet better.

I never said human life doesn't matter, I said the stabilization of humanity is beneficial, not negative. If you want nature to never kill any of it's humans, our population would grow several orders of magnitude, far greater then the extent of a Malthusian catastrophe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_catastrophe

Malthus was a crack pot who's been false before. We as humans are inventors, we change our environment to us. We keep doing that, and that's why we keep screwing our earth up. Humans are indeed a curse to this environment.

And they are not, the environment is not alive.

A natural environment does not require life, again I shall direct you here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_environment

But, your article makes it abundantly clear that living things are a part of the environment, therefore killing other animals and ourselves on such a huge scale will impact our environment for the negative. A loss of life is destruction of the environment.

How are they dangers? They are only dangerous to us. You are arguing about how they can be dangerous to the environment, the environment does not care.
.

Untrue they are dangerous to us. The environment is the sum of all things living and non-living (see your wikipedia article). Killing a good chunk of living things ends up with hurting the environment (as defined by your enlightening wikipedia article).

This isn't necessarily bad, see the stanford torus argument. Which you neglected to refute.

Yes it is. A lack of biodiversity is incredibly harmful to the environment. Also as I've stated above a huge loss of life (human or creature) is still harmful to the environment.

black bears are killing fish too, I fail to see how that is harming the environment.

Don't worry when Black Bears start turning our oceans into acid, start causing deforestation, contribute to Global Warming, and Urban Sprawl then I'll start yelling at Bears.

It's not that killing fish is bad, it's that killing LOTS of fish is bad.