I'd like to take a contrary position. Surprise. Some of you will not like it. I'm going to ascribe most of this to science fiction, which I 'read out' in my public library when I was a kid, and also to Muchio Kaku, who popularized the Kardashev Scale of civilizations: Type 1 Civilizations are able to harness ALL the power of a single planet. Type 2 civilizations are able to harness ALL the power from a single star. Type 3: all the power of a galaxy. According to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale we are a type .72 civilization unable to even harness the power strewn down by the Sun on a square mile of earth. But let's assume for the sake of argument that we're 'on the path' to a Type 1 Civilization and that despite the doom & gloom, we will be able to achieve it.
Now, to continue with this line we have to stop thinking of ourselves as small and insignificant and also stop thinking of ourselves as a disease or a parasite. Instead, for better or worse, we are a product of this planet and also its most sentient offspring. Not that dolphins, Orcas, and elephants are not sentient, but we've been to the Moon and they haven't. We are the means for their survival, but they are not the means to ours. But what is entailed when we talk about harnessing ALL the power of the planet? It means using the earth like a chicken uses the yolk sack of an egg before it hatches. I’m not in favor of ‘pollution’ any more than anyone else is, but I’m also against putting every other species above us in terms of allowing progress and the utilization of resources.
In the USA, at least, right now, environmental regulations are driven by people who have an agenda. I happen to know the guy who figured out you could stop logging in the Pacific Northwest by using the Endangered Species Act to ‘protect’ the spotted owl’s habitat, and acres of forest that otherwise would have been logged—and re-planted. The unfortunate fact that they found spotted owls in Bellingham, WA, far away from their alleged only habitat, was hushed up, otherwise the ruse would be shown for what it was, a complete sham. Thus here is a renewable resource that has been placed off-limits because a group thinks old-growth is ‘better than’ a re-planted forest. (There are plenty of second and third growth forests around here that are every bit as equal in beauty and function to an old growth forest.) We live in an era where you can’t build a dock into the water because it ‘might’ hurt something and you can’t take out pilings because that would disturb the delicate barnacle eco-system. You can’t build a house if someone finds a skunk cabbage on it (Ah ha! Wetlands!) and you can’t disturb a man made culvert under a driveway allowing a man-made drainage ditch to function because suddenly, inexplicably, it has become a salmon habitat. (Note: said drainage ditch is NOT connected to a stream; it’s for rainwater runoff from a road.)
This is the madness we live under. This Earth ought to be able to hold 10 billion people comfortably without undue strain. There’s plenty of food to do that, no matter where on the food chain you decide to stake your claim. If you want more food, the easiest and most effective way to ensure it is to throw some CO2 into the atmosphere to provide fertilizer for plants to grow bigger than they do today. Then you can have ferns as large as houses just like the Jurassic Era. In my view we should be as good stewards of the earth as we can be. It only makes sense because we’re going to use all of it eventually.
I agree with many here that it is necessary for our species to get off this planet eventually and to another solar system, and to keep repeating the process. We’re never going to get out of here until the environmental extremism we are being subjected to does an about face and starts treating our species better than that of a snail darter. We are our own best salvation and the salvation of every other species on this planet we can take along. Yes, this is a very long-term view. That’s the point. It’s not myopic and seeing the earth as it never was with ourselves mired in a stone age from which we can never escape, instead of an earth surrounded by artificial rings with a civilization beginning to tap the resources of an entire star even as it branches out into the galaxy to ensure its survival.
The difference, really, is the difference between optimism and pessimism. If we take the pessimistic point of view, there’s no good reason to even stick around. What’s the point? We’re doomed by being constrained. To save a species we will wind up killing all of them, including ourselves. If we take the optimistic approach, then there is a future to look forward to, one that will sweep us out into the galaxy and the untold wonders that await us.