What is the atmosphere? The basic necessity of life, or simply a conglomeration of random gaseous chemicals that all are mixed up on the surface of this planet by coincidence and a complicated series of chain reactions?

You seem to be reasserting the fallacy that oxygen (or any particular element or molecule or chemical reaction) is vital for the development of life. Without a clear sense of the nature of "life" itself, how can we distinguish the requisites for it's development? There is no satisfying definitive explanation for what life is, beyond no-meaning dictionary phrases such as "the principle or force considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings."

So yes, for any area to be considered an ecosystem, there must be life interacting with non-life, but since we have no way of knowing what matter is in fact "alive" and what is not (except for how it aesthetically appeals to us), not only is every existing ecosystem fully replaceable, but areas that are obviously not ecosystems must always be considered potential ecosystems. After all, life developed from non-life at some point, another thing we don't understand that could easily be happening constantly across the universe in a multitude of different (and mostly unrecognizable to us) ways.

I think that when people talk about "the environment" or "hurting the environment" they are talking about the rich, diverse, balanced natural environments that we have known in the past. We are talking about the environments that we value, not some kind of accademic definition of what the word "environment" means.

It's true that any given place in the universe at any givien time represents some kind of "environment," regardless of whether it is conducive to life or not. The surface of the moon, the center of the sun, a meadow, a city, a diverse forest full of life, a productive farmland that was once a diverse forest full of life, a poisoned wasteland that was once a productive farmland --- these are all "environments." But there are some that we human beings value more than others.

So it is true that human beings are part of the environments that humans inhabit. And it is humans, not nature, that place value on one environment over another.

When we talk about hurting an environment, we are talking about degrading an environment that we value into one that we don't value. In the end we are talking about hurting ourselves by losing something we like or need. Most people can easily recognize an enviornment that has been "hurt" and have no need of an academic definition that quibbles over whether or not an environment that we subjectively feel is degraded is still technically an "environment" or not. I mean, come on!

I have no fear that human beings will completely wipe ourselves out --- we are too resourceful for that. But I do fear that we could degrade our environment to the point were a lot of us do die, and the survivors have to live in a world that is a LOT less appealing than the one we live in now.

Even if we do wipe ourselves out, I don't fear that we will wipe out ALL life --- the life phenomenon is too resilient for that. But the rich diversity of life could be lost --- it is already being hugely diminished.

And even if we did manage to wipe out all life on our planet, it is technically true that we would not completely destroy "the environment."

But I think almost anyone can easily see the differences between living in the rich and diverse environment that we live in today, versus a diminished environment in which most of us are dead and the survivors have to struggle, versus an environment in which we are all dead and only bacteria fungus and insects remain, versus a sterile radioactive wasteland environment.

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More of the same: Renger's Rantings

Fallacy? For someone did not offer any cognitive proof that life can exist without factors facilitating the bonding of elements, you sure got a lot of reassurance from abstract concepts that have no scientific foundation. You reject centuries of studies for an idea that based on the rejection of all science since they have not yet offer proof beyond a doubt explaining every single concept of life.

The nature of life fully can't be explained fully yet. However, there is enough information that can be determined that all living things on the planet earth from simple prokayotes, to plants, to complex creatures such as human all produce DNA. In order for DNA to be replicated, all living creatures must acquire the necessary minerals in order to replicate. What is requires varies and years of evidence has shown that could change. What do you think the concept of evolution is all about? Genetic mutation? For all creatures on earth, they is plenty of evidence that organic elements, notably carbon and hydrogen are necessary to reproduce life. There is an entire field based on the study of these reactions, called organic chemistry.

On your point that any potential areas could become ecosystem, yes there is a possibility. Like there's a possibility God exists. It's very abstract and vague. Have we found anything different at this point?

We might never know the answer of how life was created from non-life, or even other possibilities. To suggest that organic elements are not necessary for life is simply wrong. There is plenty of proof available that was carried over eras.

__________________
I am a pharmacist
prescriptions i will fill you
potions, pills and medicines
to ease your painful lives
I am a lost soul
I shoot myself with rock & roll
the hole I dig is bottomless
but nothing else can set me free

In my opinion, you're using adjectives that carry a negative connotation for a phenomenon that is a neutral occurrence. How can something that is an "environment," with all the multitude of different meanings that word has, ever be "hurt?" It can only be changed. It could be changed to consist of less living things (usually by other living things), it could be changed in color or atmospheric composition, or it could be changed in such a way that life (as we know it, obviously) is extinguished, and thus it would cease to be an ecosystem.

This is a thoroughly natural process that has always gone on. Dinosaurs may have been killed by a vast geological event, or a particular bacterium, or maybe they all tripped and hit their head. Whatever happened, they're all dead and no one wastes tears over them. All things are transitory, and I firmly believe that the human race will eventually (or momentarily) cause our environment to be so altered that the physical bodies of humans and other life-forms on earth can no longer live. I don't view this as the "destruction" of the environment, merely as our species naturally running it's course. Our planet running it's natural course.

Even if the earth became a burned-out shell where no earthly life could live for 100 trillion years, that would be no better or worse than the way it is now. Thinking of it, I can't think of anything that carries connotation of "good" or "bad" that actually persists through time but the concept of "beauty." I believe that beauty can be found in anything, and so as long as know that beauty will persist SOMEWHERE even if I'm not around to gawk at it, that's good enough for me.

An also, the "possibility" of life arising from non-life is more of a "certainty." God is something that has never been empirically observed or proven. The VERY observable presence of life ALL around us and the logical assumption that it developed from non-life (since both are composed of the same thing) pretty much proves that not only has life spawned from non-life, but that there's no reason it couldn't happen again, maybe in a way that is utterly unrecognizable to our eyes as life.

I know what you are saying, but I think you are being a bit philosophical about something that is also a very practical matter, and taking an objective point of view about something that also has a subjective point of view.

On a geologic scale, it may not matter whether overpopulation and pollution make a world in which we all die or wish we were dead. But since most of us are neither rocks nor glaciers, we don't take that perspective. For most of us, if the ecosystem that supports us collapsed and we started to die of starvation or disease, and everything we knew and loved in life started to collapse, we would say that is "bad." It's great for you that you can step outside of that and say, "all things are transitory," but for most people, if they had to go through that, they would think it was "bad."

For me, the question is whether we are making a world we want to have or not. When I worry about overpopulation and pollution, I don't think so much about whether our existence really matters in the long run. I think more about whether I'll be able to enjoy good food for the rest of my life and whether future generations will be able to do the same. It might not matter to the universe as a whole, or to you, but it does matter to most people.

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More of the same: Renger's Rantings

I am being philosophical because we're talking in a Philosophy forum, of course

I don't litter, even though I feel that in the long run it won't matter at all. I'll pick up trash if it's in such a spot that I feel motivated to. I mean, I definitely wouldn't enjoy it personally if there was a nuclear armageddon or something but... I know we're all going to die eventually, and if it has to happen, then why worry about the particulars of how?

Okay 1: we are way more complex than bacteria
2: just because you can draw vague similarities between humans and bacteria, does not at all mean that we're very similar; it just means that a few aspects of human and bacteria life are similar. That's all.
3: science isn't real? Ok I'll leave that to you..

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greed is the killer
and green is the colour you desire
aggression at cost
you fill up your pocket
then your hatred fuels the fire

dont be so cold