There are more senses, which also get mixed in. There are also aesthetic or mystical meanings. So it’s usually more a case of natural forests being more beautiful than a sterile lawn, or not harming the lunar goddess.
Improving on nature depends on your point of view. Fertilizing allowed for the massive population boom of the last 100 years, but it also harms the ecosystems where it is used, leaving monocultural deserts. Irrigation allows for growing in places previously unavailable, but in the long term it raises the salinity. Canals and levees change the structure of the waterway they’re applied to, causing mayhem in the local ecosystems. River control causes rivers to flow a lot faster, resulting in flash floods and erosion, and also kills of fish species etc. that can’t survive in the changed environment.
Which is simply to say that everything has tradeoffs, and improvements have costs, which might not be obvious. Chesterton’s fence and all. Technology is wonderful. Landsailor is moving every time. But so are wild forests. The spread of humanity is continuously further encroaching on the few remaining wildernesses. In this sense, championing nature is to try to preserve the few remaining places that are untouched by humans, because that in itself is valuable. It’s not against humanity, other than incidentally—it’s about wild beauty.
Though to be fair, there aren’t really any pristine places left—everywhere has signs of human activity. For example the Amazonian rain forest structure was extensively managed to have more edible species. And there’s no reason in principle for human activity to be worse for diversity etc. than natural ecosystems. Solarpunk is a good example of a compromise between the two.
Mainly aesthetics, to be honest. I could wax lyrical about reserves of biodiversity, about the intricate interactions of myriad species, invent evo-psych stories etc., but it comes down to my personal preferences, where I find that my appreciation of nature is proportional to its wildness. There’s also a lot of the illusion of freedom and self sufficiency mixed in. Footsteps on the moon are breathtaking in what they symbolize, but at the same time I get the feeling that they somehow taint it.
There are more senses, which also get mixed in. There are also aesthetic or mystical meanings. So it’s usually more a case of natural forests being more beautiful than a sterile lawn, or not harming the lunar goddess.
Improving on nature depends on your point of view. Fertilizing allowed for the massive population boom of the last 100 years, but it also harms the ecosystems where it is used, leaving monocultural deserts. Irrigation allows for growing in places previously unavailable, but in the long term it raises the salinity. Canals and levees change the structure of the waterway they’re applied to, causing mayhem in the local ecosystems. River control causes rivers to flow a lot faster, resulting in flash floods and erosion, and also kills of fish species etc. that can’t survive in the changed environment.
Which is simply to say that everything has tradeoffs, and improvements have costs, which might not be obvious. Chesterton’s fence and all. Technology is wonderful. Landsailor is moving every time. But so are wild forests. The spread of humanity is continuously further encroaching on the few remaining wildernesses. In this sense, championing nature is to try to preserve the few remaining places that are untouched by humans, because that in itself is valuable. It’s not against humanity, other than incidentally—it’s about wild beauty.
Though to be fair, there aren’t really any pristine places left—everywhere has signs of human activity. For example the Amazonian rain forest structure was extensively managed to have more edible species. And there’s no reason in principle for human activity to be worse for diversity etc. than natural ecosystems. Solarpunk is a good example of a compromise between the two.
Agree about tradeoffs.
Why do you think that “untouched” nature is a value “in itself”?
Mainly aesthetics, to be honest. I could wax lyrical about reserves of biodiversity, about the intricate interactions of myriad species, invent evo-psych stories etc., but it comes down to my personal preferences, where I find that my appreciation of nature is proportional to its wildness. There’s also a lot of the illusion of freedom and self sufficiency mixed in. Footsteps on the moon are breathtaking in what they symbolize, but at the same time I get the feeling that they somehow taint it.