jumptheshark wrote: ↑Mon Oct 15, 2018 8:37 pm
...this argument is not simply about the planet warming, but our stewardship of our finite environment...
You imply the green church has all the answers? I'd suggest it is fundamentally disconnected from the reality.
1. Humans vs nature dichotomy is the norm. Humans as part of nature never even enter the thought. Something only someone utterly disconnected from nature, only someone who lives in modern city could think.
2. "West is uniquely anti-nature and pro-human". Reality is, it's the most anti-human and pro-nature. You need not look beyond how shamelessly people outside West dump their waste, or where the plastic garbage filling the oceans comes from to see that "think of the nature before yourself" attitude is utterly absent outside the West beyond a few village idiot types.
3. Strange empathy towards other species that assumes that other species can be more valuable than their own. Not a single creature on this entire planet follows this philosophy in their actions. Nor does overwhelming majority of people, luckily, as this attitude is self-exterminationist. This mindset is almost uniquely locked to the certain parts of modern Green movement, which can commonly be described as "medieval nature worship" - worship of idealized view of nature as something beautiful, that human tarnish. Without ever realising that nature in reality is the bloodiest, most brutal, most amoral and unethical state of being, by definition.
This mode of thinking is utterly absent outside West, and represents a tiny and vocal minority among even the Green movement itself. It's unfortunate that it's increasingly taking over the movement, and its various forms ranging from deranged animal activists from PETA to vegan extremists violently attacking people eating meat dishes in restaurants are increasingly taking control over the movement that used to be quite close to nature and very much pro-"humans as a part of nature" narrative rather than "humans against nature" one that is advanced here.