Who gets to decide what is natural?

Question

AGW advocates love to contend that using fossil fuel resources is an unnatural act. What makes harvesting a resource unnatural? All life does it in some fashion. Further, what makes natural automatically "good?" When a volcano explodes and kills thousands, is this a "good" thing because it was a natural occurrence. To most of us I'd say no, but to radical environmentalists who advocate population cuts, maybe so.

Answer 1

I dont think the earth could support 6 billion people without the use of fossil fuels, and still have anything natural left on it. Science clearly indicates that we are at the mercy of the natural world.

Answer 2

The lefts definition (really look it up in the dictionary):

Anything with man's involvement is unnatural and therfore, by definition, evil.

Anything without man's involvement is natural and beautiful.

Answer 3

it can never be a Christian they have been systematically alienated from Nature for 6000 years http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

and would not even know what natural was if it sat on their nose.

So a indigenous pagan person would get my vote.

Answer 4

i'm not sure you're asking the correct question.

i guess polio and malaria are natural.

my criteria for maintaining an environment that's friendly to our species would include a number of things, including:

-- protecting the genetic diversity of life on earth.

-- to the best of our ability, maintaining the climatic conditions that appear most suitable for our species, and appear to be those we currently enjoy.

-- preventing war, as much as possible.

-- maintaining a population that is sustainable.

etc.

i don't care that it's been warmer and colder in the past.

i don't care that ice caps on mars appear to be melting.

i don't care that people were not the cause of warming in the past.

i do care about the world, and climate, that we're leaving behind for our children and grandchildren.

i do care that the culture in the US seems to not worry about the future at all.

consider what tax cuts, in the face of world record deficits do.

they steal from our children.

how corrupt does a society have to be to steal from it's own children?

remember that tea party they had up in Boston a couple hundred years ago?

what was the rallying cry?

"No taxation without representation."

so who asked our children and grandchildren if it was okay that we significantly increased their taxes?

so natural is not automatically good.

maintaining an environment where we can all prosper and live healthy is good.

that would be my goal.

as for your comments:

<<they neglect to consider that the earth is quite capable of taking care of itself.>>

clearly the earth will be here long after we're not.  however, the earth doesn't care whether we all die off.  maybe that's okay with you.  i'd like to postpone that event, however.

<<I personally believe God designed it brilliantly,>>

okay, your choice.

<< and it is not near as sensitive to our footprints as many in your camp have led folks to believe.>>

remember the ozone hole?  we did that.  we're working on fixing it.  it would seem that it is somewhat sensitive to our being here.

you might also remember the passenger pigeon, the dodo bird, the moa, and thousands more species that we've wiped out.  the earth, and the environment, is most certainly at risk when we act irresponsibly.

<< I further believe that modern climate science is just scratching the surface of those designs.>>

the height of conceit is when you think you know more about science, any branch of science, than those who have been studying it for many years.

clearly there's lots more to learn about medicine.

but i'll bet that when you kid gets sick, you toddle off to see the doctor.

interesting how science you like is good, and science you don't like is bad.

if i had to guess, you were thrilled with Palin's speech.

and all of the errors didn't, and don't, bother you at all.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080904/ap_o...

Answer 5

Encarta Dictionary...

Natural:

in accordance with the usual course of nature

1. Gasoline does not occur naturally. It is a refined liquid.

2. Autos are not a natural occurrence.

3. Power-plants are not a natural occurrence.

Why is this such a hard subject for you? No one said everything in nature is good.

Answer 6

This is really quite simple.  When we burn fossil fuels, we add new (formerly sequestered) carbon to the system.  The 'natural' carbon cycle is in balance.  'Natural' sources absorb as much (actually slightly more) carbon than 'natural' sources emit.  When we add more carbon to the system, it accumulates in the atmosphere, increasing the greenhouse effect and thus causing global warming.

I don't care if you call it natural, unnatural, supernatural, or what.  The bottom line is that whatever you call it, we're throwing off the balance of the carbon cycle and causing global warming in the process.

This is not an issue of semantics, it's an issue of science.  I'm sorry, but you can't disprove a scientific argument with semantics.

Answer 7

Yes GOD is a great Eng. of this Earth. Most things happen in cycles . like the water cycle. then the CO2 to oxygen that the plants do for us. There is another cycle that most do not know about. That is the fossil plants . The plant takes in CO2 and give us O2 but the plant keep the C. The C is what nature gets to make our oil & gas. There are many more and under that there are variables. So a volcano dumps huge amounts of CO2 ,and the plants can not handle it. The plants will grow bigger and the next time they can handle much more CO2.GOD bless America...  

Answer 8

As far as I can tell on this forum it's Dana that gets do decide, and don't dare disagree with him or he'll surely tell you how uneducated you are and that you just don't understand...

Answer 9

Oh darn! Stinky Badger beat me to the best answer. Since I've been trying to figure that out for along time now.

Answer 10

"I would contend that the earth has ways of dealing with imbalances."

You're right. But here's the problem:

The way the earth deals with an overabundance of carbon is to create more rocks containing calcium carbonate. And it takes millions of years to make a rock.

In the meantime, we've played havoc with the climate and caused mass extinction on a global scale. And that aint' natural.

"I personally believe God designed it brilliantly, and it is not near as sensitive to our footprints as many in your camp have led folks to believe."

You're free to hold whatever religious belief you want. But you're not free to claim that your religious belief is scientific.

"The search for knowledge is an admirable God inspired characteristic in human beings. Being presumptous about that knowledge is not."

Nor is being presumptuous about ignorance. Just because science does not have all the answers does not imply that the answers we do have are wrong.