Imagine a person who is sick. Her home has been destroyed and she has little to eat and a lot of her family members have been killed.
Now imagine that what we do is build a screen so we can look at her.
I know it's not as bad as that. But maybe you get my drift.
All these animals and this natural world of rivers and woods and glades and moors and marshes and we can only manage resources to protect it a bit if we can look at it or walk in it or if we're persuaded that we need the 'ecosystem services'. Nothing has any value in its own right - only that which we accord it. We don't believe anything matters as much as us and we believe that we are the only beings who can determine what matters.
We resent changing our practices to accommodate each other, let alone future humans - so why believe we would change for other species? And it's not just that we resent changing big things like fuel sources - we resent the slightest infraction of our precious liberty. Even if it's worse for the planet, I want cheap burgers! Even though it's worse for the planet, I want cheap throwaway goods imported around the world for my crafting or my gadgetry or my nail extensions or my nik-nak collection. Even though it's bad for the planet, I want servers in Iceland using vast amounts of power to store trillions of gigabytes of useless stuff - like photos I never look at, data no one wants or blogs no one reads.
I was thinking about the UK. This pie chart is not of course accurate.
A is like the Brecon Beacons or Lake District which are deserts - very little biodiversity and not natural - they are kept artificially bleak by over grazing and now the paucity of the soil. But we think they're pretty and are sentimentally attached to them.
B is all monocultures and industrial agriculture - pollution, insecticide, fertiliser, torn down hedges. Fewer animals.
C is towns and cities.
D is industry.
E is nature reserves - but they have to be welcoming to people even though the people leave their footprints over all the rest of the land.
We are still, despite Kepler and Darwin, the centre of the universe.
The Selfish Ape.
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