culling the species

[dsummersminet at comcast.net]

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Charlie Bell charlie at culturelist.org
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:44:49 +1000
To: brin-l at mccmedia.com
Subject: Re: culling the species



On 30/04/2008, at 6:39 AM, dsummersminet at comcast.net wrote:
>
> OK, let's look at an area with >2x the average population density of  
> the
> world: Western Europe.  Where's the environmental catastrophy there?

>Acid rain? 
>The extinction of almost all large carnivores?

We've had acid rain in the US, but we've been luckey enough to still have a
number of rather large carnivores in the US (wolves are making a nice
comeback in Minn.).

I agree that's bad stuff. It was sad when I went on a "class 4 rapids" in
Switzerland, and saw that beyond a few trees it was all very civilized. 
Very different from back home where there are still vast stretches of
wilderness.

But, I think we have a bit of a semantic difference here.  When I think
catastrophy, I guess I'm thinking of failures of civilization type stuff,
not stuff of the magnitude you mentioned. When the four horsemen are
mentioned, I think of something more than acid rain.  I think of fall of
civilization and humanity being reduced to a fraction of its former
magnitude.

Whatever negative things I might think about Europe, I think it's a bit
much to argue that civilization is in ruins there. :-)

Dan M. 

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