Healing Mother Earth: E.O. Wilson

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E.O Wilson: Save the Living Environment, Save the World

02 min 45 sec

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E.O. Wilson: Low Cost of Protecting Biodiversity Hotspots

03 min 29 sec

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Watch Full Program

01 hr 19 min 09 sec

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3 Comments

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askantik

Posts: 3

Posted: 01.15.10, 02:36 PM

I don't agree with Wilson on GMOs at all. There's absolutely no need for them whatsoever and the genetic disaster that could result is far too great of a risk to take even if they COULD produce benefits (though there is no evidence that they do have benefits).

We have thousands of varieties of crops. For example, there's 4000 varieties of potatoes. Introducing GMOs would contaminate these heirloom varieties-- varieties that were created for specific reasons such as low water consumption, low nutrient needs, etc.

Additionally, we have enough food right now to feed the entire starving world, but instead of eating the grain and legumes we grow, we feed a vast amount of it to livestock. Any ecologist worth his weight in salt knows the inefficiency and energy loss as you go up the food chain... Michael Pollan talks about this, but sadly, Wilson doesn't. I was pretty much agreeing whole-heartedly with Wilson until the last 10 minutes or so of this video.

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askantik

Posts: 3

Posted: 01.15.10, 10:08 AM

manyhats, the biological terms are biotic and abiotic. We certainly see ourselves as apart from the physical (abioitic) environment, but Wilson also points out that we see ourselves as apart from the living (biotic) environment, too. We think that plant and animal biodiversity is just something to admire and isn't really important to our survival and wellbeing-- that we've somehow transcended ecology. This is easily seen in that in our common language, we refer to "humans and animals." This is like saying cars and automobiles-- cars ARE automobiles, and we ARE animals.

Similarly, it's often popular opinion that we are "more evolved" than other animals and inherently worth more. This isn't true (well, I suppose inherent value isn't a concrete idea and could be deabted), but there is no such thing as "more" or "less" evolved. Evolution isn't linear. But hell, we can't even get a lot of people to stop saying evolution is the devil, etc. While I also hope that the connection will be made in our lifetime, it's going to be an uphill struggle.

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manyhats

Posts: 4

Posted: 06.05.09, 06:21 PM

"If you save the living environment you will automatically save the physical environment too. But if you save only the physical environment, you will ultimately lose them both."

Interesting- I've never heard the distinction between the "physical"- climate change, pollution, resource depletion, and the "living" environments. Meaning that we the living still think of ourselves as independent from the physical. I guess this is the answer to why when we take 6 paper towels to dry our hands, only use otwo, crunch the rest up and throw them away, we don't think about a tree falling.
I think?

Hopefully in my lifetime the connection will be made.

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