[Closed] Humans are a Plague on Earth.

He is correct.

Yep, fair cop.

It's about time someone with influence said it.

What do you disagree with him on Glupton?

Did anyone read the comments? There's some real nutters on there.

Mikey74 - way too much to go into on here (so dont ask again. :D)

Comments are classic.

Just being discussed now on Radio 5 Live if anyone is interested...

Technically I think we're parasites.....

From the comments:

It is high time that young Prince Harry turned his Apache's gunsights on the Media Taleban spouting extremist nonsense at the BBC!!!

They are just as dangerous as their turbanned cousins in Afghanistan!! As Attenborough has proved!!

😯

If he truly believes this, why hasnt he ended his life? The bastard needs to practice what he preaches.

😯

Ah no, go on glupton, just give us a taste. What [i]do[/i] you disagree with him on?

Parasites are natural, no?

Firstly........sorry but how does David propose to limit population growth? No reasonable method will work (except for increased wealth and access to family planning)....people aren't going to volunteer to be sterilized any time soon.

Secondly.....we are assuming that Davids Malthusian opinion, that somehow dwindling conventional resources is going to hurt the human race, is correct.

Prefer the way Bill Hicks put it: "We're a virus with shoes."

So Attenborough has decided that he quite likes the planet the way it is and that the dominant species should be stopped in their entirely natural pursuit of whatever aims were given to us by the very nature he is intending to fix?

To suggest that we are a virus or in some way damaging makes a few pretty huge assumptions about the development of nature and the universe as a whole does it not?

EDIT: FACT!

The comments are brilliant. I like how using the word "fact" is basically a codeword that means "I am a nutter"

I agree Northwind. Commonly used by eejits on here too.

FACT!

Guilty as charged.
We'll kill this planet and everything on it.
To say this is natural is a bit of a cop out IMO. We are aware of what we're doing.

We'll kill this planet and everything on it.

I think you might be giving us little too much credit.

The comments are brilliant. I like how using the word "fact" is basically a codeword that means "I am a nutter"

Twas always thus, and always thus will be

I think you might be giving us little too much credit.

We are no more a plague than any other species.

If as he suggests the food runs out and the human race as we know it dies out (or evolves) then something else will just take our place....the world will be a different place due to climate change but extremes of temperature have been a feature of this planet's history...species die out, they adapt etc..

Epic hand wringing from Attenborough, shame as I like his programs.

Fair enough. Wipe us out, give chimps 50,000 years and they will only do the same as us.

Exactly, it's the way of the world.

Viruses are natural, we're just on a larger scale. Think Gaia and it all makes sense.

Eventually the host organism either produces a suitable defence against the virus, or it dies. Either way life goes on, either the saprophytes get to live on a virus bloated corpse, or the virus ends up being beaten. Nature is great at stuff like this! We're just a bit ignorant and arrogant as to how much power/influence we have... ...except when it comes to destroying things that enable us to live!

And at the end of it all....the whole ****ing planet will be engulfed by the Sun anyway.

Nihilism.....it's the way forward.

Regardless of any of it the earth will recover, we will eventually wipe ourselves out or be destroyed somehow and then give it 500,000(short term in earths life) years and we will be a mere blimp in the earths history.

Actually the more we try to preserve the earth, the longer it will probably take for full recovery, so being green is just human selfishness not actually helping the environment as a bigger picture.

ericemel - Member

we will be a mere blimp in the earths history.

Not even a zeppelin 🙁

Could it be that Attenborough is the self correcting mechanism that nature has come up with to regulate our population? He is going to have to up his game a little if he is...

Most animal life would trash the environment if it didn't have checks and balances.

He's wrong philosophically, because 'plague' is only judged by human standards. If you consider humans to be just another phenomenon like asteroid strike or some other, then we're just part of nature.

In fact, it's not possible to be anything other than part of nature, really, is it?

It's not like nature is some wonderful loving environment where everything's happy, is it?

ericemel - Member
we will be a mere blimp in the earths history.

Not even a zeppelin

ooops! 🙂 * blip

What tyres for the apocalypse?

What tyres for the apocalypse?

F******g snow tyres!

Ever so slightly the wrong thread

I'd go with lead beading

Most of the animal practices in religion are founded in a prctical aspect- it's quite a good way to think about how religions are developed. Kosher and halal are both fundamentally the same thing- a healthy eating system. Ban unclean animals, place restrictions on how you slaughter them. Over time it gets more ritualised because that's what religion tends to do.

Likewise hindus and cows. Farming cows for meat is a pretty inefficient process, so cows were more valued for dung and milk. (going back far enough, the prohibition only applied to milk-cows).

Welcome to the Humans are a waste of space thread. You will fit in nicely. 😆

He looks like he's had a proper liquid lunch TBH, what with the red nose and the squiffy glasses.

glitch

Flitting between two threads Northwind? Also, I think I was quoting someone else! Nevermind, we all make mistakes, I went to Church once, and hospital, didn't catch the plague at either though.

Yeah, I totally meant to do that 😳

In fact, it's not possible to be anything other than part of nature, really, is it?

It's not like nature is some wonderful loving environment where everything's happy, is it?

Nature Red in Tooth and Claw?

I'm a big fan of Attenborough he's possibly done more to popularise science and environmentalism than any other living person.

But his argument is basically flawed, you can't exclude humans from nature. His argument is predicated on the assumption that his version of the natural world is the correct one. You can argue the merits of whether his ideal of the Earth is a nicer one all you like but humans evolved on the Earth through entirely natural processes. So how can we be not part of nature?

Interesting question given that rates of population growth are falling pretty steadily according to the World Bank. But OK, the population is increasing in absolute terms, Why? Birth rates are falling, [b]but death rates are fallling faster.[/b] So a nice moral dilemma here then? Over the last 20 years, the number of maternal deaths have fallen by 47% - is this good or bad?

So how do we feel about China's one child policy?

But his argument is basically flawed, you can't exclude humans from nature. His argument is predicated on the assumption that his version of the natural world is the correct one. You can argue the merits of whether his ideal of the Earth is a nicer one all you like but humans evolved on the Earth through entirely natural processes. So how can we be not part of nature?

Closet religious sentiments? We were supposedly cast out of Eden yadyadayada, so we are now separated from god/natures original will?

Swap god with nature in this video.

So many narcissistic egomaniacs in the Telegraph comments. He's is quite clearly not suggesting we start culling ourselves, he is merely making a point, which in my opinion (although I don't think it's a matter of opinion) is correct.

richmtb - Member

But his argument is basically flawed, you can't exclude humans from nature.

Humans are part of nature... But we go around destroying other parts of nature. It's not that he's excluding humans from nature, it's that humans are excluding nature from ourselves.

Hmmm me thinks that man Attenborough has been doing a lot of refecting over the last few months.

Humans are part of nature... But we go around destroying other parts of nature. It's not that he's excluding humans from nature, it's that humans are excluding nature from ourselves.

Exactly 😀

bikebouy- It's not a new theme from Attenborough, it's a recurring theme in his autobiography.

But we go around destroying other parts of nature

No we don't, we may digest them, or contaminate them with other bits of nature that were maybe not previously, but we don't destroy anything. It's all a big cycle isn't it?

Torminalis - Member

No we don't, we may digest them, or contaminate them with other bits of nature that were maybe not previously, but we don't destroy anything.

Trying to make any sense of this. Tell an extinct species it's not been destroyed, oh no wait, you can't.

I think he's correct. Humans as a species are taking over the planet, to the cost of other lifeforms. As a naturalist, he has seen personnaly the lost of diversity, habitat and species first hand, allover the globe. I'm sure that if the average man in the street had seen even half what he had seen they would probably agree with him.

BUT, the way of the world is, and always has been, is survival of the fittest, it's how it works this "life" thing. And humans, well, we've learn't to master our environment to a degree no other animal has even come close to. Ultimately, Nature is self limiting imo, it's just that it might involve pretty much the loss of a large chunk of biodiverity that makes our natural world so incredible, and that would be a shame.

However, the achilles heal of us humans is that this artifically high population density totally relies on systems that are not natural. Across the globe, in the space of probably 100years, a VAST number of human beings are now totally reliant on a power and food supply system that is artificially generated. Think to yourself, if your power and gas/water/sewage turned off in 10 mins time, how long would you realistically survive for? It's not a nice answer btw!

We always overestimate our own importance in these matters.

So say the worst case scenario happens, over population and we use up 99% of resources on the planet. Well, we die out, the planet goes in to hibernation sorts itself and starts again in a few hundred thousand years.. Energy doesn't die, it just gets converted from one form to another, the resources are still there in one from or another, hell in a million years, the cochroaches will be out driving their cars with petrol made from human remains!

We are not going to kill the planet or every life form in existence, only ourselves and admittedly some of the others, but evolution is quite a powerful force, it'll diversify again soon enough. Well, until the sun goes supernova, more likely some time before that. There's about a billion earth years left, we'll barely be dominant for a fraction of that if you ask me.

It's probably certain that we'll destroy ourselves one way or another. So my conclusion is, why worry about it! 🙂

No we don't, we may digest them, or contaminate them with other bits of nature that were maybe not previously, but we don't destroy anything. It's all a big cycle isn't it?

I don't see how you can be so narrow minded that you think that we aren't destroying parts of nature.

Oh right, of course, we're not destroying enormous parts of the Amazon rainforest, because we use the wood in our homes so it doesn't count.....

Yes, in terms of millions of years it may be a cycle, but that doesn't mean it is okay to treat our environment the way we do. It's also unfair to treat the home of future generations with such disrespect. We are buying our quality of life with our children's.

Humans are part of nature... But we go around destroying other parts of nature. It's not that he's excluding humans from nature, it's that humans are excluding nature from ourselves.

What's nature? The sun? Or every competitor and ecosystem on the planet?

If by nature you mean life, we'd be doing pretty well to make this planet totally inhospitable to human life.

No we don't, we may digest them, or contaminate them with other bits of nature that were maybe not previously, but we don't destroy anything. It's all a big cycle isn't it?

Humans are part of nature... But we go around destroying other parts of nature. It's not that he's excluding humans from nature, it's that humans are excluding nature from ourselves.

Yes but if you take a - dare I say "God's eye view" then we are just another natural process on the earth.

Species try and out compete each other all the time, that's how natural selection works. We are the dominant species on the earth and our selfish genes make us want to shape the environment to suit ourselves, so we can continue with our dominance.

I'm not saying this is a good thing but its wrong to suggest its not natural

Don't we also dig/mine/chop down a lot of stuff and burn it?

All of those activities fall under the category of desequestering stored energy, mostly solar. We don't destroy anything, we just reallocate it, and though it may be seriously detrimental to us, there is no reason to believe that the Earth or the Universe gives two hoots.

I'm not saying this is a good thing but its wrong to suggest its not natural

Morality is a human invention anyway. As others have said, nature is neither good or evil. It just exists.

What then, is so immoral about out performing our competitors? Do some posters here think nature would think twice about wiping us out with an apocalyptic disease if it could? Why should we therefore put nature on a pedestal and give it such thought beyond protecting our own fundamental interests?

richmtb - Member

Yes but if you take a - dare I say "God's eye view" then we are just another natural process on the earth.

Absolutely. But we compete with other natural processes, and we destroy them to an extent seemingly unprecented- we are a 2 legged extinction event. The world will always be covered in "nature", even if that nature is ice sheets and deserts.

After that, it becomes a moral or aesthetic judgement. Monocultures are both boring and potentially delicate, the more dependent we are on complex systems and the more saturated the world is with us, the more likely we are to **** it up, or to find something changes that we can't respond to, and the less likely we are to find new and exciting things in it.

bwaarp's spot on, we'd be hard pressed to wipe ourselves out as a species. But, it's easily within our scope to destabilise our current state of existence. As you approach the planet's carrying capacity, you also lose the ability to deal with changes in that capacity without enormous consequences.

So, IMO it's clearly not in humanity's interest to expand until we can't. It's unhealthy and it's uninteresting.

What then, is so immoral about out performing our competitors?

The fact that we are slowly, and very successfully ruining our environment, for our co-inhabitants and future generations, instead of using our "morality" to cut down on consumption and create a sustainable equilibrium.

It's not okay to just destroy everything and claim it was supposed to happen because it's nature and we're the dominant species. That sounds a little like Hitler believing it was okay to commit mass murder because he thought Aryans were the dominant race and the needed lebensraum.

The fact that we are slowly, and very successfully ruining our environment, for our co-inhabitants and future generations, instead of using our "morality" to cut down on consumption and create a sustainable equilibrium.

It's not okay to just destroy everything and claim it was supposed to happen because it's nature and we're the dominant species. That sounds a little like Hitler believing it was okay to commit mass murder because he thought Aryans were the dominant race and the needed lebensraum.

Godwins law. Fail.

There are utilitarian social and political arguments to be made against genocide as there are against destroying the environment.... but any reasons beyond protecting our own self interests (eg keeping the environment stable enough for own own existence) are superfluous.

If you claim otherwise you're as bad as the people who believe in a big beardy guy in living in the sky.

All of those activities fall under the category of desequestering stored energy, mostly solar. We don't destroy anything, we just reallocate it

I agree, but in the long term we're not exactly keeping the environment stable though are we?

We don't destroy anything, we just reallocate it

You are obviously struggling with the definition of term [i]'to destroy'.[/i]

Let me, with the assistance of Google, help you.

de·stroy
/di?stroi/
Verb

Put an end to the existence of (something) by damaging or attacking it.
Completely ruin or spoil (something).

Synonyms
ruin - demolish - annihilate - wreck - kill - exterminate

[b][i]"8,000 years ago, the Earth was covered by approximately 14.8 billion acres of forests. The world's forest area has now shrunk to 8.6 billion acres as a consequence of human exploitation -- most of which occurred in the last 50 years.

In 1800, there were 7.1 billion acres of tropical forest worldwide.

There are 3.5 billion acres of tropical forest remaining".[/i][/b]

Humans destroy a lot of stuff.

Although the atoms may continue to exist.

Two planets floating around the galaxy.

Planet 1: Jeez, you look terrible, what's up with you?
Planet 2: I've got homosapiens
Planet 1: Oh well, it soon passes.

@ernie_lynch nah mate, the actual atoms aren't damaged are they? The electons are still intact so technically it's all good. We're just relocating them so its all good. Jk, jk. 😀

Torminalis - Member

All of those activities fall under the category of desequestering stored energy, mostly solar. We don't destroy anything, we just reallocate it,

So, that being the case, you obviously won't mind if I burn your house down with you inside it? 😆

I agree, but in the long term we're not exactly keeping the environment stable though are we?

That's what we should be focusing on but we should focusing on technological and consumption issues.

I'm worried by Malthusians and feel their arguments could be used for all sorts of ill thought out policies by dictatorial regimes.

Instead of going backwards and making an attempt to control our population through eugenics or whatever, we should be driving living standards up to reduce the birthrate whilst focusing on technological solutions to our pollution problem.

Science, as always, is the way forward.

I prefer the term 'evolutionary success story' to plague.

I prefer the term 'evolutionary success story' to plague.

Yeah well you would wouldn't you. You're human........sort of.
That doesn't change any facts though does it.

Humans destroy a lot of stuff.

Although the atoms may continue to exist.

A good point, well made. Does that mean that when plants consume oxygen they are in fact destroying it? When a bacteria consumes a fallen leaf is that destruction?

Maybe we are meant to be desequestering all of that energy. The very concept of 'meant' is a stupid one but maybe there is a narrative that will see humans consuming the planet like a larvae consuming their own egg to fuel colonisation of the Solar system.

I am just saying that the human concept of what is right and wrong is has absolutely no bearing on the final destiny of the planet and if nature wants to bring us back into line then it will.

That's what we should be focusing on but we should focusing on technological and consumption issues.

I'm worried by Malthusians and feel their arguments could be used for all sorts of ill thought out policies by dictatorial regimes.

Instead of going backwards and making an attempt to control our population through eugenics or whatever, we should be driving living standards up to reduce the birthrate whilst focusing on technological solutions to our pollution problem.

Science, as always, is the way forward.

I 100% agree.

It's [b]always[/b] been this way - No it hasn't.

The dinosaurs were the dominant class of animal for nigh on 135 million years and lived in balance or we certainly think they did.

Humans on the other hand have been around for maybe 750,00 years and only since the industrial revolution and more importantly the discovery of oil as a fuel have we begun the systematic wholesale destruction of many other species. We've become highly efficient killers and have spread very much like a plague.

This documentary

is very telling and also offers some tentative solutions. Limiting family size by the effective distribution and education on the use of contraceptives would be a a great start.

Maggots!

😈

Yeah well you would wouldn't you. You're human........sort of.
That doesn't change any facts though does it.

Why should we apologise for who we are?

The dinosaurs were the dominant class of animal for nigh on 135 million years and lived in balance or we certainly think they did.

Does that mean that when plants consume oxygen they are in fact destroying it? When a bacteria consumes a fallen leaf is that destruction?

You need to get an English dictionary if you are struggling with words such destroying and destruction.

It is very important for the purpose of communication that we share the same definition of words.

Look at the confusion it's caused you !

I'm actually rather pleased that for once someone get's my rather robotic sense of morality instead of calling me a "Hitler". (No hard feelings about that by the way)

This is an interesting thread guys, let's keep this civil.

Only because they didn't have the means

Those tiny little arms were a real drawback.

Geological record is littered with species the flourished then disappeared, why think humns will be any different, same was as ocean and atmosphere chemistry continues to evolve, the only constant is that things constantly change