Environmentalists erroneously assign human values and concern to an amoral material sphere. When environmentalists talk about the nonhuman natural world, they commonly attribute human values to it, which, of course, are completely irrelevant to the nonhuman realm. For example, “nature” is incapable of being concerned with the possible extinction of any particular ephemeral species. Over 99 percent of all species of life that have ever existed on earth have been estimated to be extinct with the great majority of these perishing because of nonhuman factors. Nature cannot care about “biodiversity.” Humans happen to value biodiversity because it reflects the state of the natural world in which they currently live. Without humans, the beauty and spectacle of nature would not exist – such ideas can only exist in the mind of a rational valuer. 
  
          These environmentalists fail to realize that value means having value to some valuer. To be a value some aspect of nature must be a value to some human being. People have the capacity to assign and to create value with respect to nonhuman existents. Nature, in the form of natural resources, does not exist independently of man. Men, choosing to act on their ideas, transform nature for human purposes. All resources are man-made. It is the application of human valuation to natural substances that makes them resources. Resources thus can be viewed as a function of human knowledge and action. By using their rationality and ingenuity, men affect nature, thereby enabling them to achieve progress. 
  
          Man’s survival and flourishing depend upon the study of nature that includes all things, even man himself. Human beings are the highest level of nature in the known universe. Men are a distinct natural phenomenon as are fish, birds, rocks, etc. Their proper place in the hierarchical order of nature needs to be recognized. Unlike plants and animals, human beings have a conceptual faculty, free will, and a moral nature. Because morality involves the ability to choose, it follows that moral worth is related to human choice and action and that the agents of moral worth can also be said to have moral value. By rationally using his conceptual faculty, man can create values as judged by the standard of enhancing human life. The highest priority must be assigned to actions that enhance the lives of individual human beings. It is therefore morally fitting to make use of nature. 
  

“'Nature' is incapable of being concerned with the possible extinction of any particular ephemeral species. Over 99 percent of all species of life that have ever existed on earth have been estimated to be extinct with the great majority of these perishing because of nonhuman factors. Nature cannot care about 'biodiversity'.”

 
          Man’s environment includes all of his surroundings. When he creatively arranges his external material conditions, he is improving his environment to make it more useful to himself. Neither fixed nor finite, resources are, in essence, a product of the human mind through the application of science and technology. Our resources have been expanding over time as a result of our ever-increasing knowledge. 
  
          Unlike plants and animals, human beings do much more than simply respond to environmental stimuli. Humans are free from nature’s determinism and thus are capable of choosing. Whereas plants and animals survive by adapting to nature, men sustain their lives by employing reason to adapt nature to them. People make valuations and judgments. Of all the created order, only the human person is capable of developing other resources, thereby enriching creation. The earth is a dynamic and developing system that we are not obliged to preserve forever as we have found it. Human inventiveness, a natural dimension of the world, has enabled us to do more with less. 
  
          Those who proclaim the intrinsic value of nature view man as a destroyer of the intrinsically good. Because it is man’s rationality in the form of science and technology that permits him to transform nature, he is despised for his ability to reason that is portrayed as a corrupting influence. The power of reason offends radical environmentalists because it leads to abstract knowledge, science, technology, wealth, and capitalism. This antipathy for human achievements and aspirations involves the negation of human values and betrays an underlying nihilism of the environmental movement. 
  
          Many environmentalists and scientists do not believe in free will or the possibility of knowledge (i.e., that there is such a thing as objectivity). If forces beyond his power of choice determine man’s actions, and if man’s mind is unable to apprehend truth, it follows that there are no grounds for recognizing a profound difference between man and animals. 
 
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