[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.