Polar Bears

[nikki]

:/
*snip*there're still enough people out there who care to keep shit going.

Im not so sure of that. The only reason you care so much about animals (I think) is because you arent starving or living in abject poverty like a good portion of the world's population. Ask those people if we should spend money on the polar bears.

Thats why its hard to fault people for cutting down rainforests or killing elephants to sell their ivory, or undeveloped countries spewing toxins in the air, why its hard for me to get on board with the whole "save the planet" stuff.

If I was desperate enough, Im sure Idkill some baby polar bears and eat their brains and not feel the slightest bit guilty. When it comes right down to it, human beings will always choose their own survival. Until the human problems are solved, Im afraid nature will suffer. We cant expect people to say "well, theres already an awful lot of people in the world. I guess Ill let me and my family die so the lions can have their habitat back."

If somehow the polar bears can be used for tourism dollars like the wildlife in africa, supports a lot of native people...maybe then people would be more concerned.

 

[Venetia]

yea but there are people helping people and there are people helping animals. you can't just 100% ignore one problem to make the other go away because then everything'll go to shit anyway.

let's say your kitchen is infested with roaches and your bathroom is infested with ants. well the roaches are a bigger problem in your opinion because they carry disease. so you spend a bunch of money on roach traps and roach bombs and roach motels and then after a long battle, the roaches are gone. but then you go in the bathroom and your walls and floor are literally black with ants.

you argument is along the lines of "well why don't ALL medical scientists try to find a cure for cancer? who cares about erectile dysfunction or baldness anyway?".
Well you can't sit there and tell medical scientists what to care about. Maybe they don't WANT to cure cancer, maybe they have better ideas about curing baldness.

Same with me. I don't really give too many shits about suffering people. I feel like they have the brains to figure out on their own that they should stop fucking constantly if there's no food to share with their children. But they don't.
But animals are dumb, yet important, and it's not their fault they're being killed off by our multitude of methods of death. I'd rather help them. There's no real persuading me otherwise.


Saying "Well the 3rd world countries don't care" also isn't an argument. I'm not IN a 3rd world country, and I DO care. Furthermore, people who join the WWF and similar wildlife organizations in 3rd world countries enjoy the same benefits as anyone who participates in it (job, steady income, etc), and farms that comply with international wildlife preservation standards get stipends for doing so.
also in south africa for instance, if you own a farm and an endangered animal is on your property, there's a hotline you can call or an office you can go to to have it removed for free. so you don't have to kill it. those initiatives aren't everywhere but with any luck, sometime in the future, it will be.
it's not really hurting anyone to look out for wildlife.

 

[Venetia]

let's say we let all the cheetahs die out.
then the gazelle population would SURGE.
they would consume way more grass.
which holds down topsoil and prevents flooding.
so there are massive floods during the monsoon season, way more than usual.
and when the locusts emerge every few years, they'll have no grass to snack on, so they'll hone entirely in on crops rather than partially.
entire african cities go entirely without food.
world superpowers divert money to aid them, funnelling away money perhaps from wildlife support initiatives.
more species die out.
more problems.
etc.

there's a ripple effect that affects everything in an ecosystem you know!

 

[Venetia]

plus,
if we stick entirely on polar bears,
polar bears are in alaska and canada (and to a lesser extent, upper russia) which def are not 3rd world countries o.O

 

[nikki]

I dont want all the cheetahs to go extinct either. Not because of any of the reasons you mentioned but because I like cheetahs. (what a cute word...cheetah lol)

You have your mind made up however. But Id actually be ashamed to admit some of the feelings you profess about other human beings. Theres no other animal on earth capable of such misery as human beings. We feel not only physical pain but regret and all of the other emotions that animals are simply incapable of.

You really cant expect people to stop fucking! And even if its hard to feel pity for the adults, kids are another matter altogether. I say, save the children. Fuck the whales.

 

[Kuahewa huki 'ino]

I say, save the children. Fuck the whales.

And this, dearies, is why Idiocracy is destined for actualiztion.

 

[nikki]

I say, save the children. Fuck the whales.

And this, dearies, is why Idiocracy is destined for actualiztion.

Explain to me exactly how helping children as opposed to whales makes me an idiot.

 

[Glitchfinder]

You have your mind made up however. But Id actually be ashamed to admit some of the feelings you profess about other human beings. Theres no other animal on earth capable of such misery as human beings. We feel not only physical pain but regret and all of the other emotions that animals are simply incapable of.

nikki, this is an invalid argument. It is invalid because there is quite literally no proof that animals can or cannot feel emotions that we can. And, if you've watched animals for any extended period of time, you can see that pretty much every animal is capable of at least some emotions, even if not every animal has the same range of emotions as humans do.

As a side note, it has long been quoted that humans are the only animals capable of understanding human speech on the same kind of level we do. This has been disproven. There was a parrot named Alex that researches taught to not only speak, but also to understand, the English language. (To note, Alex also invented a word for apples, "banerry", and, when asked, said they looked like a cherry and tasted a bit like bananas) Not to mention the fact that primates have been speaking to researchers using sign language for years.

I say, save the children. Fuck the whales.

And this, dearies, is why Idiocracy is destined for actualiztion.

Explain to me exactly how helping children as opposed to whales makes me an idiot.

It makes you an idiot because several species of whales are what are called "keystone" species in their biomes. In other words, without these species of whales living in their habitats, the local biome would collapse. Not to mention the fact that, for the most part, whales are the biggest predators of the sea in more than one regard. You have whales like the orca, that keep the populations of pretty much everything down, or like the sperm whale, that prey on the giant squid. Then, you get filter feeders like the blue whale or humpback whale, which are the single biggest and most prevalent predator for plankton and various other microscopic sea life.

If whales went extinct, the entirety of the oceanic biosphere could theoretically collapse, leaving us with almost literally nothing in the oceans. In other words, the oceans could theoretically become a massive dead zone, like those already seen off the coast around the outlets of several major rivers. There's one like that at the terminus of the Mississippi, that is several hundred square miles of basically no life in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

 

[nikki]

Ok, for one I was being sarcastic about the whales mmkay? I was trying to point out the sheer idiocy of putting animal's welfare before human beings. Families with starving kids dont give a shit about whales, and I dont need any scientific proof to back that up.

As for animals having emotions, its wrong headed to attach human emotions to animals. I dont argue they dont feel fear, anger or happiness. But its not the same as what we feel.

And thats all I have to say about that. No need for a word block to explain something so simple. People are more important than animals.

 

[Glitchfinder]

People are more important than animals.

But what I'm asking is, what makes people more important than animals? I mean, it's one thing if you're religious, and believe that as part of your religion. It's another thing entirely if you're trying to say that scientifically. Especially since, as far as the majority of scientists are concerned, that statement has been disproven a multitude of times. From when we believed that earth was the center of the universe, because we were the most important things ever created, to when we believed that we were the only living things capable of using tools, we have made assumptions about the life around us based on one of the most impossible to prove statements ever uttered by a human mouth and believed by millions.

 

[nikki]

Its not about whats important scientificly. its about the struggles human beings have to deal with on a day to day basis. Desperate people will do what it takes to survive, to make the lives of their families better. Destruction of nature cannot be stopped unless you resort to worldwide genocide.

Or invent a never ending supply of clean fuel, and food production.

 

[Glitchfinder]

Its not about whats important scientificly. its about the struggles human beings have to deal with on a day to day basis. Desperate people will do what it takes to survive, to make the lives of their families better. Destruction of nature cannot be stopped unless you resort to worldwide genocide.

Or invent a never ending supply of clean fuel, and food production.

So you're saying that, to save the world, we have to either eliminate ourselves or find some kind of impossible source of fuel and sustenance? Why can't we coexist? It certainly seems possible. And, as I said, what makes people more important than, say, your pet cat, or the California Condor I saw the other day?

 

[nikki]

So you're saying that, to save the world, we have to either eliminate ourselves or find some kind of impossible source of fuel and sustenance? Why can't we coexist? It certainly seems possible. And, as I said, what makes people more important than, say, your pet cat, or the California Condor I saw the other day?

Its all about perspective. Habitats are being destroyed because from the destroyer's perspective, it is nessessary. It has nothing to do with whats scientifically logical. It would be great if we could live comfortable lives in harmony with nature, but it wont happen until we have some sort of utopia.

 

[Venetia]

wow glitch you do your homework +5 rep

@nikki: lol

no one is saying that we abandon all initiatives of bettering human life to support wildlife instead. notice how i've never said we should divert money from the red cross or anything.

yeah ok there will never be a perfect balance. has anyone ever argued that there COULD be? the goal is to strike as close to a balance as you can. that means that, yes, you put money into conservation efforts, and yes, you put money into relief efforts. different people doing different things to achieve a more harmonious outcome.

damn the debate is about fucking spending money frivolously on efforts just because they're popular instead of being about what's necessary in the ANIMAL KINGDOM. can we stick to that @_@

 

[Incognitus]

Norwegian researchers have found evidence that Polar Bears are managing to adapt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5bUqoiSTsU&feature=player_embedded

Are there any Canadians here who could illuminate the "discussion" between the Eskimos and climatologists regarding the number of polar bears? I've heard that the former are insisting there isn't a problem - indeed the polar bears are overpopulated, and this, more than anything else, accounts for them heading further South looking for food and so on.

 

[Truly else]

The thing about the "endangered" line is it deals with the population compared to everything else, not the population required for ecological balance. (eg, this one species of pike is classified as "endangered", despite the fact that it's entire population is in one lake [and always has been] and threatens other life in the area due to it's sheer numbers.) So technically it could be argued that Polar bears are meant to be endangered to allow them to thrive, making the Inuits and climatologists right from a certain point of view.