Quote Originally Posted by birdgirl73
If we're heating our plant up w/ greenhouse gases, polluting our air, hastening the extinction of certain animal species, melting the polar ice caps, and changing the sea levels, we're hurting our environment and those that other living organisms depend on. It's just happening in slow mo in comparison to, say, throwing trash out of the car window or spewing exhaust into someone's face.

Not sure why the OP didn't use the term "organisms" in place of "bacteria." Bacteria are fairly simple organisms. We're a lot more complex.
i have to agree with Jouryokujin, we are not "hurting" the environment because an environment is not an entity to be hurt

an environment is simply a state of being, and our actions change the current state of being on earth.

is the environment on venus (totally hostile to earth-life) "hurt"? is it "dead"? No, of course not, it's just an environment and thats the way it is.

Whether we like it or not, someday the human race will be extinct along with all other species on earth and there will be new environments, maybe new life-forms, maybe not. Maybe new intelligences (as we know them), maybe not. Whatever happens, it will be no more or less valuable and beautiful than the current situation.

"Actually we are destroying our environment, and quite quickly I might add. Most people don't realize just how delicate the ecosystems of the world really are. For example, you take the Wolves out of their ecosystem, its prey, Caribou and Elk's population skyrocket without a predator to keep it in check. As time goes by, without the Wolve to purge the Elk population of the weak and old, these less than perfect genes spread its way through the population and weaken."

Au contraire, Genghis Chron. You fail to realize just how durable, indeed, indestructible the ecosystem is. The ecosystem as a whole, I mean. The ecosystem of ecosystems. For every depleted ecosystem there will be one to replace it.