Question

Do we have a moral obligation to the non-human biotic network of life and inanimate matter? Sometimes, this vast network is called `the environment`. Human influence upon the environment has been profound, in the last few thousand years, but particularly so in the last 300 years, with the start of the Industrial Revolution that has helped to make our species ubiquitous and dominant among the other species. One a small side-line species, now, human beings are `king of the hill`. The price of this dominance is overdevelopment, pollution on an epic scale. As we survey our natural world and what our species has done to it, often for the worse, what moral obligation have we to change our manner and collective `footprint` on the planet - and other planets, if we include our nascent space programs?