Stezza,
SPOT ON !

Stezza,

> I am sure the extinction of the human race would bring a mass extinction of species that would dwarf any detrimental effects of our current existence.<

Horse feathers - unless you mean human extinction by nuclear holocaust, and even then, 'nature' would bounce back, but without the encumbrance of human 'ingenuity' forever 'manipulating' the environment in pursuit of narrow self-interest.

Wow Stezza, you may view nature and environment as only existing to serve mankind's 'pleasure', at mankind's whim (and I'm sure you're far from alone in that view), but thankfully there are people who care about more than 'the bottom line'.
You need to get out a bit more, and immerse yourself in the intricate web that is the 'natural world' before rushing to rash judgements about what is really important about humankind's existence.

So, the loss of bees is important because it threatens our food supply, threatens 'us', but the loss of elephants, rhinos or the Orang, Koala or Tassie Devil would be 'nothing' - because our existence does not depend on theirs?
What a terribly 'sad' attitude.

Nature here to serve Man? How very biblical, how narrow, how self-serving, and how utterly loathsome.

I can only repeat: 'In the end result, the most potentially hazardous 'weed' is homo sapiens, warranting detailed and cautious monitoring.'

You know it is a funny thing Saltpetre, but in my experience those "who care about more than the bottom line", are all too often, those busy spending someone elses bottom line, rather than those who have to generate it themselves.

It is always easy to care, when someone else is paying the bills. Nimbin is a prime example of a place where people have time to care, because someone else is paying their way for them. The same goes for a whole host of publicly funded carers.

Saltpetre, I understand where you're coming from, but you are making emotional arguments based on your own personal values. I was simply stating how things are, not how I wish them to be. I'm not saying what is right and wrong, I am saying there is no such thing!

Your arguments are not only emotional, they are contradictory. How can you say humans have such a major detrimental impact on nature with our existence, but that nature will easily "bounce back" following the major environmental changes that would accompany our extinction. Think about it, if all humans were wiped out tomorrow, we would see an insect plague consuming the new found meat, followed by booms in the populations of insect consuming animals. Probably not sustainable right? Billions of farm animals harvested by humans would be consumed by wild animals, and those that have developed cooperative or parasitic relationships with humans may also become extinct. New opportunistic plants would re-take the cities, and crop plants adapted over millennia would become extinct. Species that could adapt would flourish, and those that can't will perish.

It is interesting that you chose to list elephants, rhinos, Orang, Koala or Tassie Devil, rather than Acacia veronica, Acizzia veski or Variola major/minor. Perhaps you value the former species greater than the latter? I'm not saying you're wrong, but again these judgements are still made within the "human interests" framework.

The thing that confuses me about misanthropes, is that they seem to talk about humanity as if they are personally separate from the species. I am really interested whether they believe they share the same flaws they hate about the rest of us, and if so, why they take the effort to criticise humanity without first dealing with their own personal flaws

Stezza, you have spiked my interest with your reference to Acacia veronica. Endemic to the Stirling Range, WA. At least three of the early collections of this species are mine, from 1980 - http://avh.ala.org.au/occurrences/search?taxa=Acacia+veronica#map

I knew at the time that it was an unnamed species, as I was very familiar with WA Acacias. It was officially named and described in 1989.

Hasbeen, I am interested in your magically disappearing weeds!

It has always seemed to me that once a weed appears in some quantity, it is there to stay, unless there is a big change in the environment.

Sure, some weeds can appear as odd plants and then not come back…. if you kill them before they set seed!

And many species can pull back a bit and established themselves at a much lower rate of prevalence than with their first colonisation of a new area.

But disappearing altogether?? ( :>/