Homer Alaska - Letters

A letter in the Jan. 28th Homer News tells me "It is about time we established a critical habitat for the human species ... ." Indeed. Given the density of our population I'd say the entire planet is a critical habitat for the human species, and if we don't take care of it better than we have up till now, we'll be in even greater trouble than we already are.

In addition to being a constitutional conservative, or a fiscal conservative, one might be an ecological conservative. There are at least three times as many people on this planet as when I and the previous letter writer were born. The idea that ever larger numbers of humans can achieve ever higher standards of living by extracting ever greater amounts of food, energy and other resources from a finite planet is worthy of Bernard Madoff. A biospheric Ponzi ploy.

Localized critical habitats aimed at helping certain species may sometimes be part of the answer, but we also need a global view. The bottom line of our biological economy is that nearly all food and energy available to us was recently or anciently the result of plants capturing solar energy by photosynthesis. The same process absorbs carbon and solar energy while providing the oxygen we breathe.

If we want to prosper, photosynthesis must increase rather than decrease. We must realize that the God-given "dominion ... over every living thing that moveth upon the earth" assigned us in Genesis 1:28 is not an unlimited license, but an awesome responsibility critical to our very survival.

The general idea is to nurture rather than pillage our habitat. A good start would be to plant forests wherever and whenever the opportunity arises and educate women in every corner of the Earth in hope that they might figure a way to keep men and goats from destroying things faster than they grow.

Neil McArthur