How is it possible to know what the impact of human behavior is on other organisms when...?

Question

90% of life forms on earth are unknown to scientists?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20071113/sc_livescience/after250yearsofclassifyinglife90percentremainsunknown

global warming involves mans impact on climate which is already well known. my question is not about global warming. and it is not an argument at all.

heres my point: is it prudent for a species to behave wantonly when the consequences of risky actions are unknown?

Answer 1

Most of the unknown biota is microbial...

But, given that we can and do observe the macroscopic biotic world, and we are plainly consuming resources in competition to those organisms, we can indeed see we have a deleterious effect on most species.

Answer 2

Well then that means that all of my friends who are "Scientists" are saying that Global Warming is a normal climate cycle created by nature, not man.

Answer 3

We can still get a pretty good idea of what the impact will be on an ecosystem if we pollute or otherwise disturb it.

Answer 4

Scientists? We don't need no stinkin' scientists.

They may be unknown to scientists but Al Gore has it all figured out.

Just ask him, he'll tell you.

Answer 5

well lets do a little test.

lets expose you to powerfully radioactive spent fuel rods from a nuclear power plant.

if you are right, then we shouldn't really be able to figure anything out, right?

Answer 6

are you arguing against global warming?

Answer 7

Don't worry about it just guess it worked for Al Gore.

Answer 8

Its not. But Gore will tell you its scientific consensus.

Answer 9

that was a sexy fish