Zeke wants more in Ch1

[MatthewHeun]

Zeke wrote:

Page 3-4 It is stated that "Beyond these basics, some people view the nonhuman world as having inherent worth or standing and, as such, to also be worth preserving, even if it has no (or negative, for example, smallpox) impact on human continuity."

I think this concept is worthy of further exploration especially in light of the fact that it is later stated that:

“Different answers to these questions come from different a priori assumptions and values.”

The sustainability of human activity is the topic of the book, the achievement of which is taken as a desirable goal a priori (which I do not disagree with of course), but why?

If we establish as an axiom that life on Earth and the stability of Earth’s biogeochemical cycles must be maintained (a precondition before progressing to assert that maintaining human life is desirable), and accept with confidence that humans won’t simply choose to perish in order to conserve biodiversity and maintain the stability of Earth’s biogeochemical cycles, a sustainable civilisation is therefore required.

But even if sustainability is achieved, unless the human organism exists in a mutualistic niche within a given ecosystem, there is always an opportunity cost to human activities. This is where there is a value-judgement regarding what entities should be conserved, and at what magnitudes. Do we conserve only the species required to support human life (unknowable, as you describe), or do we set some level of human population and consumption that is desired (within safe limits) and accept that a given reduction in the diversity and abundance of non-human organisms is the acceptable cost, as human life is deemed to have more inherent worth?

Early humans have been framed as a “patch disturbance species” by some, but as an organism our dispersal was too fast for the ecosystems we colonised to adapt. Despite this some indigenous peoples may have potentially achieved a mutualistic relationship with their environment: · Historical Indigenous Land-Use Explains Plant Functional Trait Diversity https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-12322-260206 · The Biggest Estate on Earth; How Aborigines Made Australia https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Biggest_Estate_on_Earth/u-R8BNRYSbMC?hl=en&gbpv=0

In fact it is the very same societies which had more pantheistic, animistic (etc) worldviews (“view the nonhuman world as having inherent worth or standing”) which could be argued to have achieved sustainability. An empathetic relationship with non-human entities, along with an understanding of our mutual dependence and interconnectedness inevitably leads to decisions which conserve those entities. A good reference for this argument is: · Traditional knowledge in a time of crisis: climate change, culture and communication https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-015-0305-9

I think it would be worth expanding the pre-analytical framework established in chapter 1 in such a manner!

[MatthewHeun]

I take Zeke's comments to mean that we should do more to describe the why of sustainability in Ch1. Some of Zeke's ideas might be helpful in that direction.

[jgvanantwerp]

Respond to the notion that primitive = better = "they would still be sustainable if they developed"?

[MatthewHeun]

Do more to describe the "why" of sustainability in Ch1.