Question

This might not directly relate to ethics, but lately we've been discussing the extinctions a lot, and I was wondering if any of you knew how the ocean life has been affected by these extinctions? We talked about that one species that lived through them all and can live in space, are there things in the sea that are similar? It seems plausible.

Negative animals?

I had this thought looking at someone else's blog post.

Are there any other animals besides humans that have a serious negative impact on the planet? The first that came to my mind was cows and the methane that they produce in large quantities, but this seems to be a product of mass farming by humans and therefore not necessarily the fault of the cows. I'm sure there must be some animals out there that have a negative impact, but could any of them possibly add up to the damage we have done ourselves?

Broken System

Cows. We talked about how there could be a perfect closed system of cow and dairy production. But instead we feed them corn which is not their usual diet, and we keep them penned up in warehouse and barns where the methane builds up over time. It seems that we took a perfect system and over time ruined it. So why are we trying to make this broken system work instead of moving back to a closed one?

Not quite Leopold

I would like to talk about a point raised in Leopold's essay. I understand now after reading it a few times, that this sin't Leopold's stance at all. This is something I messed up in my SLAP, but better luck next time I guess.

He points out another side of things that he doesn't believe, but still feels is important to mention.

"The evidence had to be economic in order to be valid."

Obviously this isn't 100% true, but economics still play a vital role in our decisions when it comes to the natural world. If we completely outlaw companies that our polluting the environment at once then an unreasonable amount of people will be out of jobs. So how do we find a balance?

Russow

One thing that immediately strikes me is how she says she can't say that it's wrong to deprive an individual animal from its natural habitat. She starts the essay describing why it would be silly to compare a species to another calling one more important than another, then moves on to say this. But humans are a species just like any other out there. Do we allow humans to be kept captive against their will? So why are we doing so to other species?

Dealing with Anthropocentricism

First of all, I hope I spelled that right

But, do you think it's okay to work through our problems with an anthropocentric view for now?
We can use that view and apply it the best we can to other animals to imagine what their views and values might be. Maybe in doing so it would make for an easier transition into a non-anthropocentric view

Anthropocentric

It seems as if it's impossible maintain a view that isn't in some way anthropocentric. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but more so just a fact of life. It is a view we can't escape simply can't escape because we can only see the world through our own eyes. But there have been studies with great apes of people teaching them sign language that have garnered quite a bit of information. Perhaps this is a step in the right direction. In a very small sense, we were using the same language and could understand each other . Experiments like these are a huge step in seeing the world through the eyes of other creatures, and moving away from an anthropocentric state of mind.