What is the rationale behind environmentalism? First, we should clarify what we we're talking about. What is environmentalism? Many people think that the environmental movement is concerned with clean air, cleaning drinking water, so that to protect the health and safety of the population. You don't want pollution getting into tap water, and causing people to sick. That falls under the domain of public health, public safety, and environmental health. It has absolutely nothing to do with the environmental movement. Environmentalists couldn't possibly care less if people get sick. Nothing could be farther removed from their interest. Other people think environmentalists are concerned with protecting areas where people go camping, so they can enjoy the natural beauty of the great outdoors. Actually, places where people go on vacation, such as National Parks, could not possibly be more protected than they are right now, and environmentalists are not actually concerned about that. They are mostly obsessed with preventing species from going extinct. Many people hearing that, assume that they are interested in protecting species from going extinct that would otherwise benefit humanity. For instance, let's say a plant contained a chemical that could be used to make a pharmaceutical. However, that is not what environmentalists are concerned with. They are obsessed with preventing the extinction of species that could not theoretically benefit humanity in any way.
Environmentalists are obsessed with preventing the extinction of the spotted owl and kangaroo rat. In fact, they demand that large numbers of people lose their jobs just to minimize the likelihood of these species going extinct. Why? They are not used as a source of food. No pharmaceutical is extracted from their bodies. They don't keep pests under control. Outdoorsmen would not be profoundly disappointed if they saw no spotted owls while on a camping trip. Even environmentalists don't sit around admiring the natural beauty of kangaroo rats. This begs the question as to why the environmentalists CARE if these species go extinct. This isn't just the idle ramblings of mad men because for some reason, these people wield enormous political influence. They actually managed to get laws passed to prevent the extinction of these species. Politicians actually knuckled under and passed these laws despite the fact the laws would cause massive unemployment in the lumber industry. What's really amazing is that they passed these laws despite the fact that not a single person, racking their brain, could come up with a single reason why anyone, even an idiot, would give a rat's ass whether the kangaroo rat went extinct.
When trying to figure out why environmentalists care if a species goes extinct, you can't help but notice a connection to the animal rights movement. The animal rights activists are another group of irrational people. They suffer the delusion that all animals have human intelligence, and therefore should be afforded the same rights as people under the constitution. Many environmentalists suffer a similar delusion, and there's obviously overlap between these two groups. However, that all by itself doesn't explain the irrational views of environmentalists. The environmental movement is also motivated by protecting plants, and even the most irrational environmentalists don't pretend that plants have human intelligence.
However, this is not to say that environmentalists consider all life to be equal. There do exist species where even the environmentalists don't care if they go extinct. I noticed a deafening silence from the environmentalist community regarding plans to destroy the world's last smallpox virus. Where's the outcry? Why is it worth it to save the spotted owl and kangaroo rat, and not worth it to save the smallpox virus?
However, this isn't to say that some strange views aren't held by some environmentalists. There exists a group of radical fringe environmentalists who are actually against manned spaceflight. They are totally opposed to a manned flight to Mars. They are somehow trying to "protect" Mars from human impact.
Since the environmentalists are left wing liberals, and the pro-choice advocates are also left-wing liberals, these are often the same people. Therefore you have people who are against killing spotted owls, and not against killing human fetuses. Would they be against killing spotted owl fetuses? They probably would be against that. Therefore, it's not the characteristic of "fetus" that causes them to not mind killing human fetuses. It's the characteristic of "human" that causes them to not mind killing human fetuses. At its fundamental core, the environmentalist movement is anti-human. They believe that human footprints on Mars would deface the surface of Mars. An example of an extreme environmentalist is the Unabomber, who is so anti-human that he killed three people.
None of this answers the question as to what is the rationale behind not wanting species to go extinct. If they are deeply anti-human, and an extinction is causes by humans, they would be against that just because it's something caused by humans. However, they also seem to be obsessed with preventing naturally occurring extinction. They actually got passed legislation to try to prevent the natural extinction of some insect. You can't explain that by their anti-human hysteria. There are about five billion living species, and five trillion extinct species, so for every species alive today, there were 1000 species that went extinct naturally. Are the environmentalists against this? It doesn't make any sense.
I have no idea why environmentalists are against species going extinct. However, aside from that, they are doomed to fail in their task of trying to prevent. Few people alive today realize how much genetic engineering will alter civilization. All life, including humans, will be genetically altered beyond recognition. In future centuries, there will be no naturally occurring species anywhere. The sentient beings, which won't physically resemble us, that will comprise our civilization 1000 years from now, will look upon a civilization so primitive that the original biosphere still exists on their home planet, the way we would look upon a stone age tribe of hunter gatherers. From that point of view, the environmentalists clinging to their lost hopeless of preventing the extinction of species really seems irrational. Of course, why anyone would want to do this anyway is beyond my comprehension.
If environmentalists want to preserve the Earth's biosphere, they're fighting a lost cause, and not one anyone should cry over. Today, we don't need the natural environment as a source of food, clothing, building materials, and in the future we won't need it for oxygen either, just as astronauts will use artificial biospherics. Through genetic engineering we'll be able to create any organism whatsoever, and we won't be limited to things similar to life that once existed naturally on Earth. A few centuries from now, which is a fraction of an instant in the history of this planet, we would have genetically altered ourselves beyond recognition. Every inch of the solar system will be as developed as Manhattan is today. Through genetic engineering, there won't be a definite boundary between living and nonliving objects. There will be no trace of naturally occurring ecosystem or biosphere anywhere. At that time, people will view a civilization so primitive there actually exist traces of original naturally occurring biosphere on the home planet of the species, the same way that we today view a stone age tribe of hunter gatherers. It would never cross anyone's mind that some one might think that this is a bad thing, in the same way that today nobody cries about the fact that Manhattan is no longer covered with dense forests. Therefore what is the purpose of environmentalism? Not to preserve naturally occurring ecosystems, since they will be gone in a fraction of an instant in geologic time, and why would someone think that wasn't a bad thing? Historians at that time will be unable to figure out what 20th Century "environmentalism" was since the concept would be so alien to them.
Usually, if there is a group of people I disagree with, I understand their point of view. However, with environmentalists, I've never figured out what their point of view is. You can understand the position of advocating public health which has to do with helping people, such as wanting clean drinking water. However, environmentalists usually advocate things that help no one at all. For instance, they feverishly advocate the government trying to prevent the extinction of the spotted owl and the kangaroo rat. However, that would help no one whatsoever. In fact it would hurt people, since it would cause people in the logging industry to lose their jobs. If there was something that hurt some people, and helped others, you'd have a debate. However here, it hurts some people, and doesn't help anyone at all. Yet they advocate it anyway. Why? Some people say that environmentalists do this so they can enjoy the physical beauty of the natural world. If that's want they want, they could preserve pockets of "beauty" such as national parks, and not worry about places that no one ever goes to anyway. Besides, that doesn't explain why they care if the spotted owl or kangaroo rat goes extinct. How often do even environmentalists sit around, staring at wild kangaroo rats, enjoying their physical beauty?
Therefore what motivates environmentalists? What is the purpose of this movement? I find it utterly baffling.