Earth? Environmentalism is all about humankind.

Biofuel laws, recycling, cleanup acts - presumably, environmentalism is all about saving the environment, yes? However, Jamais Cascio of How Can You Save The World offers a different point of view.

The Earth is a hunk of rock. Humans can do very little in endangering its existence, aside from blowing it in half with all our nukes or letting it get swallowed by a black hole created by the Large Hadron Collider.

The Earth cares very little to what we'll do to the environment. Whatever happens, the planet will go on, it will recover, and it will make new life long after we've messed up the environment so much that we can't live in it ourselves.

From that point of view, we can see how environmentalism isn't about the environment - it's about humans. The point of environmentalism is to preserve the current state of the environment, because once it shifts too much, then it's us that's in danger, and not necessarily the Earth.

Basically, that's the whole gist of Cascio's point, which is a sentiment I've long held for myself. So remember to recycle. You're saving the human race. You can read Cascio's entire view on the matter by following the source link below.

[Via How You Can Save The World]