Why do people seem to think that man is a separate "species" than nature?

Question

like in global warming, where the blame is put on the human race (that's EVERYBODY, not just the people who don't believe in it) and why is it that people believe that we were put on this planet to save the planet from ourselves, not be a caretaker of it? that's why we hunt, fish, use resources from the environment that are renewable, and other things like that. i find it hard that we are finding new and surprising things about our planet every day and we think that we are upsetting it with cars? most of global warming comes from water vapor and i mean like in the nineties of percents! i think man should be viewed as part of nature, because we were made to take care of it and be one with it. not an outcast from all of nature! i think we are overreacting when it comes to what we think what bad we are doing to this planet. its a wonderful planet. its not just gonna burn up because of a bunch of little cars. we need to look at this world like we were put on this planet for a caretaker of it like what god intended us to be. he will know when the end is, and we wont engulf this planet in flames, because we are just mere humans. God knows how to take care of us and the planet as well. we just help.

Answer 1

In the concluding his inaugural speech, JFK said,

"here on earth God's work must truly be our own"

God gave us our minds and our hands. These our the tools he gave us to take care of his creation. We need to be stewards of this earth. We need to protect it for future generations.

A few little cars won't change the planet, but 6 billion would (that assumes one car per person just like in the USA). And it is also all the other little stuff we do. Transportation accounts for only 20 percent of the global greenhouse gases.

Global warming has become a pressing issue because we did not realize the long-term consequences of our actions. We know better now. We need to take action now.

You raise a good point regarding water vapor. To understand it you need college math and chemistry. But I'll try to teach you here.

The earth has an equilibrium temperature. The gases in the atmosphere create a greenhouse blanket keeping it nice and cozy. If the gasses weren't there, this planet would be a giant ice ball.

What happens is that when we add CO2 (which is a much more efficient greenhouse gas pound for pound than water), the temperature goes up. This causes more water vapor -- which raises the temperature even more. This is called amplification or positive feedback. The end result is a little CO2 has a disturbingly large effect on temperature.

I want to protect this planet not just for me, but my children and my grandchildren. It would be foolhardy to mess up this planet -- our home -- and then expect God to bail us out.

Answer 2

Water vapor varies a lot from day to night, season to season place to place.  When it reaches a max, it rains out.  It is a feedback mechanism. It does not have nearly the radiative forcing of CO2.  To get religious about it, man is supposed to be a good steward and take care of the Earth.  God gave us the brains to figure this stuff out, and although I agree nature will prevail, the problem is how many of us and our ancestors will be allowed to prevail with it.

A bunch of little cars (and power plants, industrial process, land scape changes, etc), put billions of tons per year into the air which is 100 times more than a volcanic eruption.  Since we know this, know the physics behind the problem, know what actions we can take to mitigate the effects, isn't it silly not to be proactive? I see nothing "anti-Christian" about fighting global warming.  I actually see it as a Christian obligation.

Answer 3

They don't.  Nor do they think global warming will destroy the Earth.

What they think is simply this (from the National Academy of Sciences):

"The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to begin taking steps to prepare for climate change and to slow it. Human actions over the next few decades will have a major influence on the magnitude and rate of future warming. Large, disruptive changes are much more likely if greenhouse gases are allowed to continue building up in the atmosphere at their present rate. However, reducing greenhouse gas emissions will require strong national and international commitments, technological innovation, and human willpower."

Whether or not it's "natural" t will cost us far less to reduce it than to deal with the consequences.

As a man of faith, you might want to check this out:

http://christiansandclimate.org/concerne...

Answer 4

Do you not see the similarity with your body?

What will you do if you discovered you had lice? Will you leave it to God or will you take actions into your own hand and get yourself an anti-lice product?

Will you not protect and cherish your own body you live in?

What excuse do you have, not to protect the celestial body we all live on, called Earth?

Answer 5

I believe human actions are as natural as any other lifeforms actions, including the harvesting of fossil fuels. Perhaps it even serves an intricate purpose in earth's cycles, much like insects in their role in pollination. For instance, A bee uses pollen for it's own purposes, and is clueless of the significance of this act. Why can't it be the same with many human actions. Maybe it's because it doesn't fit the radical left environmentalist agenda.

Answer 6

What Dana is talking about are these ancient creatures and they are still alive today:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

(Sharkbay changed there website so the new link is:

http://www.sharkbay.org/

http://www.sharkbay.org/default.aspx?Web... )

Why he thinks dinosaurs sequestered the CO2 is beyond me, in fact these creatures sequestered most of it before dinosaurs even came into exsistence.

I've asked similar questions to yours and it's hard to get a good answer. The truth lies somewhere inbetween. Meaning some of the substances we create aren't good for nature and those substances should be recycled. I know it all came from nature, but like taking your boat from one lake to another without cleaning it you could transport something that wasn't native to that new lake.

I heard that happened with sparrows too. Something like the English sparrows were killing off the American sparrows when some people brought them over from England and released them here.

Same with some strains of honey bees.

So yes we can effect our environment negatively, but I highly doubt we could do it on a global scale. Except by launching all of the worlds nuclear weapons.

But I feel the only way to get the people who believe we can do that off our case is to lower our CO2 out put. That way we can rule that out of the equation entirely than the scientists would have to find what really is causing the global average temperature to increase. If in fact it still is increasing.

Answer 7

Man is not seperate from nature, but man is the only species with sufficient technological and industrial powers to cause global changes to the planets climate and eco-systems. We can move mountains, create lakes, divert rivers, etc. No other species has that kind of capabilities.  Some of these things are fine, but some have unexpected negative consequences which we should try to avoid.

I'm not attacking religion here, but if your "solution" to global warming is to merely let God take care of us, then perhaps you've not read the history of massive natural disasters that have killed millions of people. Most religious scholars would agree that God gave us brains and we should use them to care for both the world and our own species.

Answer 8

Here's what it boils down to - millions of years ago there was much more CO2 in the atmosphere and the planet was much hotter.  Over a long period of time, much of that CO2 was absorbed by life forms which died, trapped the carbon, and became fossilized.

Now we're digging up those fossil fuels, burning them, and returning the CO2 to the atmosphere.  That is not a smart move.

As for water vapor, you're confusing atmospheric concentration, the greenhouse effect, and global warming.  Water vapor accounts for something like 95% of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but it's a weak greenhouse gas, so it only accounts for 36-66% of the greenhouse effect.  It also cannot initiate global warming, because the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere depends on the temperature of the atmosphere.  Thus water vapor does not initiate global warming, but it does act as a feedback.  See the link below for further details.