My point of view is easy, though I am positive that I am in the minority.
The only things that should be taken into account are
non-human welfare issues. Humans have corrupted the planet and its environment long enough, and I would be very happy to see the human race removed from the planet (peacefully, so nothing else gets messed up).
The reason I know that this is a minority stance is that there are still things like animal testing and worse, vivisection happening in our world. We still hunt species to extinction, often for no reason. (Rhino horn is an alleged
aphrodisiac and for that we will demolish their species?!) I find it abhorrent that humans decimate temperate rain forests to be replaced with cattle farms.
I am a radical animal rights thinker, but not an activist. I frown upon the methods sanctioned by groups such as PETA, even though I agree with their underlying beliefs. But freeing a whole lab full of animals into the street will only result in a lot of animals dying outside of their natural habitats. Not to mention the fact that it gives the rest of us a bad name.
Once, I had an economics course. The teacher was trying to get us to understand that sometimes it is better to create a little pollution because the alternative is too expensive. My feeling on that is that the plant should be shut down if it cannot be run without producing pollution. Keep in mind that the scenario we were talking about was that there were feasible techniques that could be put into place to remove the pollution. It was expensive, but not impossible. About three quarters of the class agreed with me -- the teacher was speaking
better in the sense of economics, I was speaking
better in the overall sense of the environment.
I'm vegetarian, but not vegan (I'm still working on that). For those of you who do eat meat, my version of vegetarian means that I do not eat meat. Fish is meat. Poultry is meat. Shrimp? Yep, that's meat. I eat plants. (Sorry -- this is a sore point when I say I'm vegetarian. "Well you still eat fish, right?" NO!
)
So forgive me if I have misinterpreted you, bighairydog. When people say that they believe humans to be above all others, I see only arrogance. And I believe that taking only human benefits into account proclaims that humans are above all others. This does not mean that I regard human life to be worthless. I'm not about to start killing others so that they reduce the world burden. But I would dearly love for more people to curb their desires for large families. Truth be told, I feel that licensing to have children would be pure blessing. But that's a whole 'nother post to go...
Whew! That was a charged post. I'd better go find my flame retardant underwear.
NOTE: This post is not intended to start a flame war, jihad, or any other unpleasant forms of debate. It is merely a response to a lot of built up issues, with no place to release those issues. Very few people will listen to this whole thing -- but now I have a captive audience (at least for as long as I am typing
).