"Anthropocentrism" has negative connotations, and probably cannot be redeemed.  "Hard green" has a not bad ring to it, but it is rather too neologistic a combination of adjectives to make much sense yet.  By "humanist green," I do not mean so much that the chief moral responsibility of human beings is to other human beings, which "anthropocentrism" implies; rather, I mean that it is a principal part of human virtue, and therefore of true human happiness, to acknowledge and live up to our obligations toward all life on this planet (for starters!), above all all the sentient beings with whom we share it.

From the Wikipedia article: "Other hypotheses [on the causes of mass extinctions], such as the spread of a new disease or simple out-competition following an especially successful biological innovation are also considered; however, it is often thought that the major mass extinctions in Earth's history are too sudden and too extensive to have resulted solely from biological events."  In a sense, though, cannot the expansion and technology of Homo sapiens be said to look much more like "biological events" than like any kind of gamma-ray burst or asteroid collision?  Indeed, it is observed earlier in the article that the late-Pleistocene extinction of megafauna is sometimes considered the first wave of the current mass extinction -- and of course it has been famously suggested that H. sapiens had a hand in that, to say nothing of a lot of Clovis points.  

On another matter, it is not quite clear where Dave is going with the bit about "shedding tears."  No, of course we do not weep for trilobites and phytosaurs and ceratopians as we do for deceased friends and neighbors.  Still, paleoecologists, and all people who are interested in long-extinct animals and plants, inevitably consider what they must have looked like, and how they must have behaved, with a feeling of odd but real regret that we will never be able to observe them, at least not in this world.  Just one example: the environment of the well-studied Chinle Formation, late Triassic of northern Arizona and New Mexico, including the so-called Petrified Forest, must have been spectacularly beautiful, a fascinating combination of redwood forests and Everglades.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

"Plunge into the Wilderness," Atlantic Monthly, December  1912, Muir

Love that "had a good time." It's not just life and death; it's what we do with it, and the ever-observant Muir never failed to point out that our fellow mortals enjoyed (and enjoy) their lives just as much as we did, and do.

He also has a wonderful quote about "saurians" (the 19th-century word for dinosaurs) and the life they happily led before the extinction event...but I can't find it.

If you're interested in a spiritual connection to the planet, and in valuing our "fellow mortals" (as he liked to say) for their own lives, and not just for their usefulness to us, you have to pay attention to Muir.

I also wonder if part of the hardness-of-heart you observe is the fact that it's done. There's no getting the trilobites back; they're fossils now. We have all these present concerns and living animals to worry about (the argument could go), so why worry ourselves with long-dead animals? I'm asking here whether a person's lack of sorrow over dead dinos is really a good indicator of his/her motivation for trying to save the environment. It may not be totally anthropocentric, just biocentric towards living creatures as opposed to long-dead ones.

---
Katie
@ RainyDay Communications http://kf.rainydaycommunications.net/

"Having a good time" might mean either of two things: existing for a decent period of time (somewhat archaic), or taking pleasure in one's existence (our contemporary usage).  If Muir meant the latter -- and I suspect he did -- , then his assertion is of importance in animal-rights ethics.  That is, it would mean that animal existence cannot be characterized simply as the mindless, instinctual, obsessive, really mechanical attempt to stay alive just long enough to generate at least one promising replacement; there is (often at least) more to it than that.

And thanks, Stentor, for justifying the tears of the deep ecologist.  Myself, I have a soft spot in my heart for iguanodonts and hadrosaurs; but trilobites have surely won the affections of very many workers over the years.  And Stephen Jay Gould, who used to mock us dinosaurophiles (just about the only thing I hold against him), wrote rapturously, even lovingly, in describing the Cambrian Burgess Shale fauna, in "Wonderful Life," perhaps his most beautiful book.

It is precisely our powerful feeling of loss, regarding extinctions of the past, especially mass extinctions, that gives a true sense of depth and horror to our observation of the mass extinction that we are ourselves living through.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

I don't think of the previous six extinction events as tragedies, but simply events that produced catastrophic changes to the community of life--but then life went on, as it does. These mass extinctions demonstrate for me that, if there is any kind of divine force to the universe--and I tend to think there is--it's not at all attached to the specific forms life takes but to the process of life itself. Which would mean the divine isn't attached to humanity, either. While that's still somewhat strange to comprehend because I was acculturated to believe all of this was created for humans to conquer and rule, I'm okay with it. I don't need to be the center of the universe.

I think it's simply nonsensical to describe the causal forces in extinction events as "weapons." I see no reason to think they were employed for the purpose of killing, and they would have to be for this metaphor to ring true. Asteroids and gamma ray bursts and climatic disruptions just happen, they are among the ways the world works.

The reason I am concerned about the seventh mass extinction we may be in the early stages of is not solely because humanity's collective ass is on the line and I want to save it. It's because I don't want us (meaning the humans of civilization, not all human cultures, by any means) to do this thing, in full awareness that we're doing it, as conscious beings. While I wouldn't by any means say it would be wrong for us to cause a 7th mass extinction, it'd be darn stupid and shortsighted.

For me it's not about preserving the community of life that now exists, either. My goal is to put an end to civilization's ongoing, progressive destruction of our neighbor species not so that we can keep what's here but to leave open all those evolutionary possibilities to develop however they may. The community of life will change regardless of what we do, but I'd rather not foreclose the future on so much beauty that the fire of life has brought forth. While evolution will almost surely go on whatever we do, diversity in the community would be impoverished for many millions of years from what I understand.

We're not an asteroid, or a gamma ray burst, or global warming that is "just happening." We are beings with a clearly demonstrated capacity to choose. It's time to prove ourselves worthy of our self-chosen appellation, Homo sapiens, which, for those who don't already know, translates as "wise human."

I don't consider myself to be an environmentalist, either, as that label derives from a mindset that falsely conceives of there being "the human world" and "the environment"--that which surrounds the human world. There is no meaningful separation between humans--and the things we create--and the rest of the living world. We are born of the community of life and inextricably part of it, and everything we make we make from the stuff of the universe. I want to destroy "the environment" because I'm convinced this misapprehension of the world and our place as part of it underlies our growthbound, catastrophic way of life.

Me? I'm a community activist, and the community I'm active on behalf of is the whole community of life.

"You can never get enough of what you do not really want." - Huston Smith

I appreciate your reluctance to use the word "environment."  In other European languages too, there is always the sense of "that which surrounds": Fr. environnement, Ger. Umwelt, It. ambiente, Sp. medio ambiente, Por. meio ambiente, Mod. Gr. perivallon.  But I think it is wrong to imagine that environmentalists are concerned with distinguishing a donut-shaped object from the doughy central plug that has been removed and reserved in a special place.

A better image, truer to the usual sense in all those languages, is a Venn diagram, that beloved old graphic device used to teach set theory.  "The environment" is one of those circles, defining a set.  We individuals are members of that set, within that circle, along with countless other beings.

Or still better: "The environment" is the stage in a theater.  We are all actors, up there in that carefully defined space; our environment includes us, plus all the other performers, plus the stage set, plus the props, plus the lighting, etc.  The play we are performing in is not yet written.  We are creating it as we go along.  We all have a part to play, each one of us.  And it is up to us, whether we play that part well, or we bomb.

I am concerned -- and I suspect Dave is too -- that environmentalists have been wasting too much time on what is historic in the sociology of movements of all sorts: developing a sense of orthodoxy, the "true believers," and categorizing and dismissing those of lesser faith, the heterodox, the heretics, the reactionaries, the counter-revolutionaries.

It does not matter at all, if you are unwilling to join me as I enter my chapel and light a candle before the statue of the Madonna, in memory of the gomphotheres; or even if you make fun of me for doing so.  What matters is that we all "hang together."  (With thanks to Ben Franklin.)

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.