Read Online Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You by Dan Riskin Ph.d. - Free Book Online
Authors: Dan Riskin Ph.d.
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than reading about their salting behavior. You can watch all the documentaries about vampire bats you want to, but when you stick your head into their cave and let them scream at you, it’s different.
Take a moment to think about your own experience with this. Have you ever seen a wild animal that made your jaw drop? A whale? A bear? An owl? A sea turtle? Have you ever gone snorkeling or hiking or even just watched birds at the feeder? Think about the value those experiences give you as a person. Why not make a decision to fill your life with more of those experiences? Visit parks. Spend your dollars on ecotourism in other countries. Take your friends and family members with you. Get out there and remind yourself why nature is worth preserving.
Another great way to help protect the world is to support science. Science is how we learn what species are out there and come up with plans to preserve them. By taking pride in our intellect and letting our species push the boundaries back, we’re finding new ways to interact with nature, to protect our planet, and ultimately to protect ourselves. Some technologies, like genetic engineering, scare a lot of people because they seem so unnatural, but that might well be the best thing about them. It’s only by looking beyond what’s already been done that we can have our best hope of improving our trajectory. We have to have open minds about technology if we want to survive.
Every plant or animal we’ve ever changed through breeding has been genetically modified. Now that we understand the molecular basis of those changes, we can make them more quickly and effectively than ever before. There’s good reason to be wary of large multinational corporations controlling the availability of foods, but there’s no reason to fear genetic engineering as a technology. Just because it feels unnatural doesn’t mean it’s bad. We have to let go of that knee-jerk assumption.
And just as the tools of agriculture must change, so too will the scale. It might seem appealing to dream of a world where weget all our foods from nature, without big farms, but there are just too many people on Earth now for that to be a solution for everyone. With an expected population of 9 billion within the next forty years, we’re going to need agriculture to be more efficient than ever before. I know big farms might not have the appeal of small, family-run ones, but big farms can be more efficient. So if you’re going to cut down hectares and hectares of the Amazon rainforest to set up farms so people can eat, it’s far better to grow as much food per unit area as possible so that we can cut down as little as possible. The dream that there’s a natural way to live without agriculture just doesn’t work in a world of 9 billion people—at least not for all of us.
Scientists are scrambling to find ways for our species to survive. They deserve all the support they can get.
Moving away from this false ideal of “natural” living would be good for sustainability, but it’s also important socially. What’s natural about gender equality? What’s natural about human rights? Nothing. A sea lion torn to shreds by a killer whale has no rights, and the female pintail duck doesn’t get to file legal proceedings against the lecherous males who attacked her. Human rights are a fundamental component of the future we’re trying to create, so let’s call them what they are—unnatural and essential.
Rape has been part of the behavior of our species since before we were humans; we inherited it from our prehuman ancestors. Let’s leave rape behind. There’s no use for rape in the human world, and there’s no place for people who think they can justify rape because it’s natural. When a woman gives birth, let’s notforce her into making difficult decisions based on some imaginary “natural” way to do so. Let’s give her the freedom to choose the experience she wants, secure in the comfort that modern
Take a moment to think about your own experience with this. Have you ever seen a wild animal that made your jaw drop? A whale? A bear? An owl? A sea turtle? Have you ever gone snorkeling or hiking or even just watched birds at the feeder? Think about the value those experiences give you as a person. Why not make a decision to fill your life with more of those experiences? Visit parks. Spend your dollars on ecotourism in other countries. Take your friends and family members with you. Get out there and remind yourself why nature is worth preserving.
Another great way to help protect the world is to support science. Science is how we learn what species are out there and come up with plans to preserve them. By taking pride in our intellect and letting our species push the boundaries back, we’re finding new ways to interact with nature, to protect our planet, and ultimately to protect ourselves. Some technologies, like genetic engineering, scare a lot of people because they seem so unnatural, but that might well be the best thing about them. It’s only by looking beyond what’s already been done that we can have our best hope of improving our trajectory. We have to have open minds about technology if we want to survive.
Every plant or animal we’ve ever changed through breeding has been genetically modified. Now that we understand the molecular basis of those changes, we can make them more quickly and effectively than ever before. There’s good reason to be wary of large multinational corporations controlling the availability of foods, but there’s no reason to fear genetic engineering as a technology. Just because it feels unnatural doesn’t mean it’s bad. We have to let go of that knee-jerk assumption.
And just as the tools of agriculture must change, so too will the scale. It might seem appealing to dream of a world where weget all our foods from nature, without big farms, but there are just too many people on Earth now for that to be a solution for everyone. With an expected population of 9 billion within the next forty years, we’re going to need agriculture to be more efficient than ever before. I know big farms might not have the appeal of small, family-run ones, but big farms can be more efficient. So if you’re going to cut down hectares and hectares of the Amazon rainforest to set up farms so people can eat, it’s far better to grow as much food per unit area as possible so that we can cut down as little as possible. The dream that there’s a natural way to live without agriculture just doesn’t work in a world of 9 billion people—at least not for all of us.
Scientists are scrambling to find ways for our species to survive. They deserve all the support they can get.
Moving away from this false ideal of “natural” living would be good for sustainability, but it’s also important socially. What’s natural about gender equality? What’s natural about human rights? Nothing. A sea lion torn to shreds by a killer whale has no rights, and the female pintail duck doesn’t get to file legal proceedings against the lecherous males who attacked her. Human rights are a fundamental component of the future we’re trying to create, so let’s call them what they are—unnatural and essential.
Rape has been part of the behavior of our species since before we were humans; we inherited it from our prehuman ancestors. Let’s leave rape behind. There’s no use for rape in the human world, and there’s no place for people who think they can justify rape because it’s natural. When a woman gives birth, let’s notforce her into making difficult decisions based on some imaginary “natural” way to do so. Let’s give her the freedom to choose the experience she wants, secure in the comfort that modern
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