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In some ways we are, but unlike every other animal we can choose to destroy or create a new ecosystem. For an extreme example, how much do astronauts participate in any natural ecosystem, and what is the ecosystem of thousands of square miles of farmland.

With the effort of millions of people not dying and struggling we develop new farming tools and tech, produce more food on less land (as has been the trend for the past 50 years) and could plant 10s of millions of trees and reclaim lost jungles lost to subsistence farming.




> For an extreme example, how much do astronauts participate in any natural ecosystem

Well, what do you think how long astronauts on the ISS will survive if we stop all flights to the ISS?

> and what is the ecosystem of thousands of square miles of farmland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_biology ?

Overall, I don't really understand what you are trying to say?! That there is no damage we could possibly be doing to ecosystems that couldn't trivially be undone? That we don't really need any ecosystems, but could just trivially transition to completely artificial food production? That planting 10s of millions of trees will bring back extinct life forms that had yet-undiscovered secrets in them that we could have used to derive new materials or drugs?




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