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If climate change was a natural phenomenon, would environmentalists still feel the need to combat change? In other words, if the planet was changing even discounting anthropomorphic factors, would environmentalists instead be called interventionists?

Other Answers (7)

  • bcoz at the end of day we r responsible for climate changes due to pollution. 14% 1 Vote 14% 1 Vote
  • The problem is that climate change is not entirely natural and it is possible to mitigate it to some extent. If you were trapped in a swimming pool with the water up to your eyes, but only 4%26quot; of the depth controllable, would you want someone to lower the depth to below your nose or would you want to drown because most of the depth was %26quot;natural%26quot;? 0% 0 Votes
  • In the first place, environmentalists are people who are well acquainted with the science of ecology, which is a branch of the life sciences (it includes biology, botany, zoology and some geology and paleontology). Environmentalists care about the Earth and the creatures that live on it, which is more than I can say for Republicans and fundamentalist Christians.
    People are a part of nature as well, but we have enormous powers at our disposal for both good purposes, ignorant purposes and evil purposes. The impact that people have on the Earth is very readily visible, and people ought to be rational stewards of the planet.
    As for intervening in nature, environmentalists don%26#039;t like to intervene with many things, unless it is a case of an alien species invading an area that is helpless to fight it. For example foresters are still trying to fight the fungus that killed off the American Chestnut forests. These trees provided valuable food for people and all kinds of animals, and their wood was also valuable for furniture. Why shouldn%26#039;t we try to restore them by manipulating chestnut tree genes until we hit upon a formula that can protect these trees from the Asian fungus?
    I once saw a tiger beetle kill a frog by chewing underneath its armpit until its lung came out. I could have easily squashed the beetle and saved the frog. I prefer frogs to beetles, and even like them (after all they eat a lot of mosquitoes). But this was part of the world of nature, and I felt I didn%26#039;t have a right to intervene. Most environmentalists would agree with me. Friendly guy 14% 1 Vote
  • It depends on to what degree that change was expected to occur. If it where likely it would reach an additional warming of 2-3 degrees Celsius and above we would need to try to come up with solutions to mitigate that change. The higher the expected warming the more we would have to try to find solutions. If the expected rise in temperature was expected to go above 6 degrees Celsius (which currently is not an impossible scenario if we don%26#039;t take any actions at all to limit our emissions), then humanity it self would be in severe risk in the long run if we couldn%26#039;t come up with solutions to stop the warming.

    Fortunately, though it%26#039;s a very tough task to limit emissions of greenhouse gases it%26#039;s not impossible. If the sun or any other %26quot;natural cause%26quot; where responsible then we would probably have had an even tougher, maybe impossible, mission ahead of us. 14% 1 Vote
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