SAVING NATURE, BUT ONLY FOR MAN.docVIP

SAVING NATURE, BUT ONLY FOR MAN Charles Krauthammer Protecting nature certainly has benefits, but it has costs as well. How are we to balance the two when deciding how far we should go in caring for the environment? 1.Environmental sensitivity is now as required an attitude in polite society as is, belief in democracy or aversion(厌恶) to nylon. But now that everyone has claims to love Mother Earth, how are we to choose among the dozens of conflicting proposals, restrictions, projects, regulations and laws advanced in the name of（以……名义） the environment? Clearly not everything with an environmental claim is worth doing. How to choose? 2.There is a simple way. First, distinguish（区分） between environmental luxuries and environmental necessities. Luxuries are those things it would be nice to have if costless. Necessities are those things we must have regardless（无论如何）. Then apply a rule. Call it the fundamental principle of sensible environmentalism: Combating ecological change that directly threatens the health and safety of people is an environmental necessity. All else is luxury. 3.For example: preserving the atmosphere, by both protecting the ozone layer(臭氧层) and halting the greenhouse effect, is an environmental necessity. In April scientists reported that ozone damage is far worse than previously thought. Ozone reduction not only causes skin cancer and eye cataracts（白内障）, it also destroys plankton（浮游生物）, the beginning of the food chain on top of which we humans sit. 4.The reality of the greenhouse effect is more speculative, though its possible consequences are far deadlier: melting ice caps, flooded coastlines, disturbed climate, dried up plains and, ultimately, empty breadbaskets. The American Midwest feeds the world. Are we prepared to see Iowa acquire Albuquerques climate? And Siberia（西伯利亚） acquire Iowas (美国最南部城市)? 5.Ozone reduction and the greenhouse(温室) effect are human disasters. They happen to occur in the envir