Unfortunately, this is incredibly hard to do. It’s much easier to notice patterns than identify the relevant property.
Noticing patterns is all that there is to do. There is no magic word that means exactly what you want to say. But some patterns are better at identifying the relevant properties than others. And I believe that pushing people to use more accurate words has some value.
Nearly all ecosystems have been heavily modified by human presence since 10 thousand years ago.
Yes, they have. And those modifications could be said to be unnatural. E.g. the fact that there aren’t as many forests is unnatural, and there were more 10k years ago. But also many things stayed the same. E.g. the fact that squirrels still live in those forests is natural, and there were also squirrels 10k years ago.
Do you have a specific example where you could say “X is natural”, but not “X was common 10k years ago”?
Of course, ideally we’d say something is natural if it would have happened anyway if humans had never had any influence on it, but that’s hard to say, and looking at 10k years ago is a good-enough approximation.
Also, there is the issue of what is natural for humans. I don’t think the common usage of “natural” says anything about that, and I guess the 10k year rule doesn’t work here.
Noticing patterns is all that there is to do. There is no magic word that means exactly what you want to say. But some patterns are better at identifying the relevant properties than others. And I believe that pushing people to use more accurate words has some value.
Yes, they have. And those modifications could be said to be unnatural. E.g. the fact that there aren’t as many forests is unnatural, and there were more 10k years ago. But also many things stayed the same. E.g. the fact that squirrels still live in those forests is natural, and there were also squirrels 10k years ago.
Do you have a specific example where you could say “X is natural”, but not “X was common 10k years ago”?
Of course, ideally we’d say something is natural if it would have happened anyway if humans had never had any influence on it, but that’s hard to say, and looking at 10k years ago is a good-enough approximation.
Also, there is the issue of what is natural for humans. I don’t think the common usage of “natural” says anything about that, and I guess the 10k year rule doesn’t work here.