I am an ecologist, this is not the same as an environmentalist. I believe in the balance of nature and that given the inactivity or activity of humans interfering, nature will find a balance. Sometimes we need to butt the hell out. Environmentalist often want to save the environment at all costs and don’t think that their interfering is bad. Often interference causes a worse problem. Example: if you disallow hunting and you have no higher predators but man, you will have a population control problem among your prey species. Then what do you do? You have to cull the prey animals because they overpopulate and start dying of diseases that can be passed to other animals and sometimes humans. That is nature trying to equal itself out.
It also ignores the bigger issue. What is often endangered is not a species but human-not-so-kind. The planet would be just fine if there were no humans. If we blasted ourselves to kingdom come tomorrow the planet would come back just fine. It might be different but it would come back given time, not human time necessarily but in geologic time.
No, we shouldn’t use bad pesticides and we shouldn’t go willy nilly into nuclear power. Those are human caused and created ills. But some things we do happen naturally sometimes such as there were oil spills way before oil derricks and there was smog before men created fire. Humans take things to extremes and cause really big oil spills and smog BUT nature does know how to heal if we let her.
I’ve been reading a bunch of posts leading to Earth Day, don’t get me wrong, I love Earth Day but having a background as a naturalist and minors in Botany and Horticulture I’ve learned you ignore Mother Nature ability to fix things at your peril. She will take her revenge and as we learn more about plants I think some vegans and vegetarians had better change how they think about sentient beings.
A. New research says that some plants. Particularly vines and plants/trees with deep roots have decision making capabilities. If it can make decisions then some sort of thinking process is going on. It may be rudimentary but it’s there.
B. Plants warn their neighbors of the same species of danger by several methods, pheromone, high pitched noises are 2 methods trees use. Jeffrey pines make high pitched noises to warn of bark beetle attack and they respond with increased sap production. Lima beans when attacked by a certain spider mite emit an attractant for mites who prey on that attacker.
C. US Dept of Agriculture in Florida found that plants timed their release of defensive chemicals to when animals are most active.
D. There are many plants that react to touch. The simplest being a wild geranium seed and easiest to demonstrate.
Yes, there are some things that plants do that are instinct like heliotropism but humans and animals do that too. For more on a woman’s adventure learning to live with plants read, Judith Handelsman’s book, Growing Myself – a Spiritual Journey”.
The answer is to live with ALL beings with respect. Saying you don’t eat things with faces ignores that plants have faces, ever seen a pansy? Saying that it’s better for the environment to only eat plants isn’t necessarily true since production of almost anything even organically does some damage to the environment even if you rationalize you are only killing pests, those pests have a place in the food chain too. Saying man wasn’t meant to eat meat is unscientific at best and stupid at the least. Humans evolved as omnivores not herbivores. Why do you think we have meat tearing incisors not teeth like cows? We have the eye placement of predators, binocular in front, not on the side, like herd animals. Your brain is a predators brain not an herbivore’s brain. We know how to think the hunt and succeed. Our ability to strategize and plan is a hunter’s instinct. We do not simply react as a prey animal tends to do. And there are other numerous adaptations we humans have to eat anything that even mildly looks like food within reason.
Isn’t it better to eat all things in moderation and with respect for the life that was in them? Humans take lives to live theirs, period, accept that. It’s being part of the grand chain and it’s time we acted like part of the chain, all things in balance.
Adventures and Musings of an Arch Druidess 
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