Abstract it is, but that's because I don't have enough knowledge to be more specific.

You believe that the required specifics are to be found in the Bible. I don't buy that. The Bible, for me, represents a human attempt to conceptualise God - just like the Qu'ran or the Vedas, or the tales of Mount Olympus.

I see around me in nature clues that there is a deeper reality than the one I percieve. I don't believe that any human being has understanding of this deeper reality. That's why people invented religion, to try to explain and conceptualise that which we can't really understand.

I agree, Joe.

It's amazing to me that this thread has gotten almost **1.3 million** views so far. That's an enormous amount of people interested in the dialogue!

I am curious about this -



Do we feel that our ecosystem is functioning perfectly? I get a sense that we have some fairly serious issues.

If we say "man caused the issues" - surely God knew what we would do. He's all knowing. Should he have created an ecosystem which wouldn't collapse around us as we struggled to figure out toxic waste?

Man has "free will" so I guess God decided to let us use it and one can only hope we do better at creating things only after we know what the final outcome would be to our planet.

Just about everything we invent or create has a consequence on something else. We humans made nuclear plants and did not care or had no insight as what we would do with the nuclear waste. There are many examples of no forethought or consequences of our actions. We strip land of trees and leave it baron and the animals that live on that land become extinct.

Looking at the big picture most of the examples were done from a pure greed stand point. How much money we can get for the power or the lumber is the primary concern. Very sad.

To be fair, a lot of what we do is simply to survive. The people in South American "destroying" the rainforest are often doing it because they need the farmland to grow crops. Wolves are killed because they are attacking people. So part of the problem is that the human population is growing. It naturally then spreads into areas where there were no humans before, and displaces the natural plant and animal life in the process.

I.e. we'd have to have a perfectly stable, non-growing population in order not to have any impact, and even then there will be non-renewable resources like oil that we're likely to consume.

When we look at activities done by "greed" - those couldn't be done if there was no market. If nobody at all wanted oil, then oil companies wouldn't have any incentive to go drilling everywhere for it. US people are buying gas guzzling vehicles and not driving them efficiently. So I wouldn't call that greed; I'd call it lack of concern. Most people I talk with in Europe are quite annoyed with the average US citizen's lack of concern about driving a super-efficient car and batching up their driving tasks.

most deforestation is corporate, not perpetrated by peasants. more often than not it is about profit not survival.

yes, it all serves a market, but what alternatives do we really have - how for example can i stop blowing 40% of our family income on energy, be it diesel, gas or electric? they create the markets and trap us in them.

beyond there are people who clearly do not care and don't help by running their kids to school with v8 monsters, but they are not the real problem. corporate power in the government is. they will not allow us to live without fossil fuels.

I get your point Lisa but wolves are killed not for killing people but for killing cattle and sheep that man has deemed more worthy than the wolves hunger. Wolves roam the vast public lands that the government has given to any who chooses to use it as grazing land and that comes with predators.

They round up wild horses who simply eat the grass to live and slaughter many of them so that man can keep the grass for their cattle.

We are simple higher up the chain and we make all the decisions.

Janimal -

I do agree that a portion of the problem is corporate. At the same time, I think it's a multi-pronged problem.

Here's an interesting story from the WHO indicating that the worst pollution killer right now is home cooking fires from people too poor to afford better solutions -

Cooking Fire Smoke Issues

I think it's surprising how many issues like this there are, that often get "lost" when we only go after corporate targets.

According to a NASA site, the top reason of rainforest removal right now is for agricultural reasons.

Deforestation of Rain Forests

These are harder issues to tackle so I don't think they get as much press as the "scary evil corporate invader" stories do.

Janimal -

I know a number of people who live nearly off the grid. They have solar panels on their roof, they use biofuel in their car, they ride a bike when they can, and so on. I think often what we think is "critical" for life is part of our lifestyle choice.

A friend of mine lives in a trailer and is quite happy doing that. She collects rainwater from the roof. Several friends have no car at all.

I know people who only use wood stove heat in the winter.

Dear Tessboss -

What's odd about the wild mustang situation is that there's apparently oodles of unused grassland. So it's not even a competition issue. They just won't less the horses go eat that grass.

Wild Horse Roundup