Glad we could find common ground :). I guess I’m troubled by the anthropocentric perspective: Who - after all - is there to speak up for other critters that co-inhabit this earth for us? Call me an idealist (and I am) - but can we not find a solution where man and nature can live in harmony, rather than one exploiting the other? I’m not proposing we go back to the stone ages, rather, I’m proposing we uplift voices like Monbiot who put forth a bold vision of how we can use the best parts of technology and rewild most of the planet. It’s a philosophical perspective and one that asks us to look in the mirror and find a more harmonious and less destructive path forwards.
I just cannot get behind this argument of aesthetics. It’s crazy to me. Everything in the natural world plays a unique role. It strengthens the web of life. If we start to eliminate those strands, the web gets weaker. Putting aside my moral arguments and “plea for the animals” above, this is crazy from a conservation perspective and will lead to ecological degradation which - in the anthropocentric sense - only hurts humans. So it’s a lose-lose in both cases.
Chinese tallow (Triadica sebifera) does this in the US southeast. I have personally seen it invading coastal prairie creating a monoculture were there were previously no or very few trees. Also where there is disturbance, it uses chemical warfare to keep other tree species from sprouting. No way to get rid of it entirely since people still plant it. It’s very popular for its fall colors and for the honey from bees who feed on it.
While probably true of most terrestrial plants, it’s important to note that many aquatic invasive plants can easily degrade “pristine” wetlands where they are introduced.
I am not sure if you are saying my argument has notes of anthropocentrism, but I would say it is just the opposite! The point I was trying to make is that we want to preserve biodiversity because… we want to. There is no innate moral obligation or something. It just makes a prettier global zoo for us to appreciate, which is selfish, even if I share in that selfish desire. And I am not saying that it is wrong either, but at the end of the day, whom does it benefit? Is a world with fewer species really morally worse than a world with more? It could be that abandoned ecosystems cause more suffering than is induced by efforts to restore them to some earlier state, but this is quite an involved argument that I don’t think anyone is really interested in making.
We primarily want to preserve biodiversity just because it makes us feel good and losing it makes us feel bad. There are downstream effects, certainly, but for the most part, even if we stopped all conservation efforts tomorrow, humans would still keep kicking, so that isn’t the primary concern for most people. Having more biodiversity feels good to me, and I am not opposed to it in general, but only where it supersedes other considerations, like the lives of individual animals (“invasive” or otherwise). And even in those cases, often the “invasive” is not as destructive as is made out, and may not require eradication at all. This thread is a good example of both!
Having more biodiversity feels good to me, and I am not opposed to it in general, but only where it supersedes other considerations, like the lives of individual animals.
Wait, let me make sure I follow this line of logic: If we pit e.g. the lanternfly (which we introduced) against biodiversity (that the lanternfly eliminates, especially if we give it enough time), you’ll choose the lanternfly because it saves the “lives of individual animals”? Let me mention something you may not want to hear but which is practical: Every thing we consume probably kills some individual animal in some way shape or form. Consider where the materials to make your house came from, or your car, or your clothes, or your food. My goal - and I hope many others do share it - is to preserve biodiversity. The point is that once you snuff out a species you can never recover it, while you can recover individual animals. We can afford to lose 99% of the coast redwoods to logging (much as I hate that reality), but if they went extinct, that would be bad, right? I just don’t agree with the argument that saving every animal’s life should supersede saving species - they’re on completely different levels.
I respectful disagree with you on this, and believe that there are several additional moral wrongs commited with the extermination of the last member of a species, in addition to the harm inflicted to the individuals involved.
Killing an individual puts an end to its unique story. The individual mouse you mentioned showed every indication that it wanted to be alive, and strove to avoid harm and to survive. Killing off an entire species puts an end to a much bigger unique story, stretching back perhaps millions of years. It puts an end to the possibility of any future individuals of that species ever living out their lives again. As Michael Soulé is reported to have said, “Death is one thing, but an end to births is another”.
Extinction is an end to birth. It’s an end to the interactions that species had with others, an end to the ways in which it shaped and influenced its environment and other organisms. An end to the unique way that it developed, through millions of years of evolution, of living on this Earth. To quote Cafaro and Primack:
“Natural species are the primary expressions and repositories of organic nature’s order, creativity, and diversity. They represent thousands of millions of years of evolution and achievement. They show incredible functional, organizational, and behavioral complexity. Every species, like every person, is unique, with its own history and destiny. When people take so many resources or degrade so much habitat that another species is driven extinct, we have taken or damaged too much, and brought a valuable and meaningful story to an untimely end.”
All of that is additional to any anthropocentric concerns, such as aesthetics, wonder and awe, and so on. It is additional to the fact that we are not wiping out other species by gently plucking them, one by one, out of the environment, but through a barrage of land use and climate changes, overexploitation and pollution, and yes, introduction of non-native species, that degrade the environment for virtually all organisms, humans included. If we reign in those activities (and preventing the introduction of new invasive species is part of that) we will be in a better place for both other species, and for humans.
I honestly don’t get why you’re so focusing on someone enjoying the nature, the example of pristine forests only shows what a normal undisturbed ecosystem looks like, how much more species is seen and how different processes in there are still going the way they need to be going. It’s not really about egoistical “we love it”, this only can help with reasoning of why we should save it, but it’s not a real goal.
It’s incorrect that invasives rarely live in undisturbed areas, look what Acer negundo is making with Alnus swamps, american Solidago, lupin and many other species are growing nicely on the fields, getting everything else killed, one example you can see on the map of anti-Heracleum project https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/borschevik-sosnovskogo-v-rossii
I feel as though, in these responses, my main concern hasn’t really been addressed. Of course, nature is beautiful, intact ecosystems (though arguably not a single one persists) are amazing, and I don’t like to hear about species extinctions; I absolutely sympathize with you all on all of this, have since I was 5 years old, and require zero convincing.
Most of your replies primarily focused on this aspect, but never actually seem to overcome the difficulty. It is like saying, “why is it bad? Well, because it is bad.” I do not think having more vs fewer species is actually preferable on utilitarian or deontological or any other moral grounds; we are essentially arguing either that “species richness” is itself somehow an innate and desirable good, or that it is just an arbitrary and subjective priority. I think something like minimizing suffering or considering rights violations is far more easily defensible than “biodiversity-prioritizing” ethics.
You can dismiss this as overintellectualizing and navel-gazing, but this IS a moral issue, unavoidably. Science never offers up “ought”’s. It can tell us “this species causes this”, if it is good science. It cannot ever tell us “and that is bad and therefore we should do something.”
I think SLFs again are a bad example for ecological destruction, as other posts in this thread can illuminate on. But I suppose I can take the argument to just be about any confirmed, unambiguously destructive, unambiguously non-native species.
I understand and appreciate that you do not agree with the argument, but I don’t know if you provide justification. You essentially simply declare that species concerns are on a higher level than individual concerns. But species do not suffer, they don’t think, they don’t live.
They are not even “really” real, in an ultimate sense, one can argue quite easily. What is real is an individual living being. I think these arguments would also apply badly to humans; we would never justify human rights violations in the name of biodiversity, but I’ve seen that humans are usually the exceptions in these kinds of arguments.
I think you shared some very eloquent thoughts and I loved reading what you had to say. I don’t, again, disagree an ounce with the sentiment. But I do disagree when you say this is additional to anthropocentric concerns, or that it constitutes a moral wrong. The fact that a bloodline is ended is precisely undesirable to us, not necessarily to the species that goes extinct. Species extinction can only be really wrong, unless ecosystem collapse would have caused more suffering than conservation efforts on whatever time scale, if it is just innately wrong, ipso facto. I think this needs some justification. We need to explain why species extinction/biodiversity loss is wrong even where it does not cause more overall suffering.
But again, I feel like this is saying “we need to preserve biodiversity because we need to preserve biodiversity”. It is not just that people enjoy nature, it is that people are asserting subjective goals as though they are innate and objective obligations. We lose many species, but that is not necessarily inherently bad or “bad for the species”; “species” are, in some way, convenient fictions. Things can only be bad for individuals. The only reason we feel it is bad, is, again, because we personally, as humans, dislike the idea.
We are not sure that ecosystem disruption actually produces more harm than good in the long run for individuals. It feels almost sinful to say that species extinction is not strictly morally wrong in itself, I understand the reaction to some extent, but we have to not take these things for granted and we have to be able to question the underlying assumptions which way too often receive literally no thought whatsoever. That is what philosophy and science are about, in my view
No, it’s because biodiversity is a base of stability of ecosystem, lesser the species, lesser chances the whole thing can survive through any disaster event, every species is part of many trophic chains and we can’t be ok with extinction which affects not only indiviuals of that taxon being dead.
Species that are on bring of extinction now in 90%+ cases are in that position because of anthropogenic means that sometimes are plused to environmental. They’re not dying out with great speed because new species evolved to be more adapted, no, they’re in that state because our species affects everything possible, you don’t have to be anxious about it 24/7, but that’s the fact, as invasive species with ability to think about our actions it’s in our hands to make it easier for ecosystems that weren’t ready for humans to come to survive that as full as possible. If you took ecology classes you know there’re litterally many thoughts about the subject and they rarely include “we just like it”.
On a platform about biodiversity it’s weird to discuss why we should admire it.
which world are you living in ? we are in trumpian dystopia curated straight from the orwellian playbook. Facts should not come in the way of popular news that sells .
And welcome to the forums - for a first post you are spot on and hopefully more such to follow.
PS - in case my language is not proper the first comment is firmly rought tongue in cheek and the second is a genuine and warm welcome.
I agree that the desire to preserve biodiversity is a value not an objective necessity. I personally value biodiversity for three reasons: 1) I think humans are more reliant on biodiversity and functional ecosystem services than we realize. Long term, I think humans are dependent on biodiversity not vice versa. As we loose diversity, our quality of life is decreased. If we loose too much of it, our ability to exist is potentially threatened. 2) I think diversity benefits individuals as much as it benefits the species as a whole. I value individuals, but I think a more diverse world benefits more individuals than a less diverse world. I think fewer individuals suffer when imbalances are created gradually allowing for species to coevolve. “One health” is seeing more light in recent days. This is the concept that human health, individual animal health, and environmental health are all dependent on each other. 3) Personal spiritual reasons. I think life is sacred. I think species continuation is sacred. I think natural processes including death, consumption, and background extinction rates are sacred.
It’s important to note that species richness is not the only metric of diversity, though it is the one most commonly used to illustrate diversity. Genetic diversity, functional diversity, ecological diversity. I think invasives (in general, not necessarily the SLF in particular) represent a threat to all of these.
Side note: I prefer the term “functional ecosystem”. I think on a species level, evolution works to create imbalances (competitive edge). On a ecosystem scale, evolution works to create balance (coevolution). Naturally, ecosystems cycle through periods of stability and instability.
I think it’s great that you are asking these questions, and not taking things for granted. I sympathise with much of what you say, even if I disagree with your conclusion and how you get there. I think a weakness in your argument is that you seem to frame things almost entirely in terms of individual suffering: what causes suffering is wrong, and what reduces suffering is good. To frame ethics solely in terms of suffering seems to me, a very anthropocentric and individualistic perspective. Suffering is the worst thing that can happen to us as individuals, ergo, it is the worst thing for everything else too. I don’t want to take this thread too much off track, but perhaps if you consider how you respond to some other questions, it might help to clarify the additional ethical weight of uniqueness, potential, history, relationships and complexity. Why would genocide of an uncontacted tribe be wrong, even if all the members of a social group were to die instantly and painlessly, and there would be no-one present to witness it, and no survivors to carry the trauma? If you could press a button and bring all life, all pain to an end in an instant, why would you not do it, given that it would end an enormous amount of suffering? For yourself, do you ever choose to take a path that involves more suffering than another path, but which ultimately contributes more to the greater good? I’m going to leave it there, not to take this thread too far from the original topic, but I think it’s important to recognise that there are more ethical issues at play with the killing of Spotted Lanternflies than simply their suffering, or the suffering of other species that they have an effect on.
“So, ultimately, to control lanternflies humans may have to restore ecosystems. That could mean getting rid of other invasive species and planting native trees and other plants that attract predatory birds and native bugs, Johnson said. A fully functional, restored ecosystem is likely to be more resistant to infestations of spotted lanternflies.”
Sterile Insect Release Method seems to had success at eradicating Cochliomya homnivorax (screw worms) from a large part of North and Central America:
Ah, but the screwworm wasn’t invasive, it was a native species that was eradicated because it was inconvenient for raising livestock.
It was also a major predator of deer and other animals, since it killed a large proportion of newborn fawns. I imagine that eradicating screwworms from the southern US had an ecological impact similar to eradicating wolves and other large predators, since they preyed on and presumably regulated the populations of the same animals.
Lots of people want to reintroduce wolves or big cats where they’ve been eradicated through persecution, but why doesn’t anyone want to reintroduce screwworms? It’d be a lot easier.
Over 100 replies, and I get to be the first to really invoke Godwin’s Law? Hah!
From what I can tell nobody has brought up the uncomfortable issue that hyped fights against invasive non-native species are an environmentalist application of humanity’s urge for outgroup xenophobia. Ecofascism is a thing, propaganda works, and some people have probed how the language we use to speak about biological conservation has been influenced by the thoughts and policies advocaded by human genocidists (even actual cough Nazis cough) and a corporate media that push apocalypse stories because that’s been a best-seller for thousands of years.
Do I like that the SLF is in North America now? No. I do think there is intrinsic value in localized diversity. But do I think it makes sense for our mass media to spew dozens of articles to teach kids to squish or report SLF on sight? Also no-- the problem is way beyond that being effective and all we’re doing now is actually restaging the Do Your Part scene in “Starship Troopers”.
Each species has value, but I prioritize life itself over individual species.
From my POV, we’re facing a bottleneck. If a niche exists on the other side of it, something’s going to fill it on a long enough timeline. What better way to determine what survives it than the bottleneck itself? Meanwhile, we can make its diameter larger instead of increasing the volume that has to flow through it.
I definitely disagree here.
The species that would thrive in such circumstances; that would thrive in disturbed, foreign, and unpredictable environments; the species of the future, they’re telling us exactly who they are, we just keep calling them “invasive” when they do it.
Otherwise, I’m really not a fan of tech at all because I think it’s a last resort. Not that it should be a last resort, but that it actually is a last resort, and we’re out of meaningful alternatives.
I agree, except for the idea of specialists becoming generalists. Species with a large niche space can occupy any spot within that space, but it doesn’t work in reverse.
A raccoon can switch from a high sugar diet to carrion within 24 hours. Hummingbirds? Not so much.
The species you mention that occupy rare spots on the landscape are what I called reservoirs. They’re not specialists so much as proto-generalists in a cage. It’s the external environment that’s limiting them, not their own intrinsic design.
I’m curious how not artificially supporting declining species in an arbitrary way is “speciesist”, while intentionally targeting specific species because they outcompete their peers isn’t?
Should we start punishing A students because they don’t get Ds?
And I’m not picking and choosing survivors, that’s evolution’s job.
