Should we all commit suicide?

A  colleague of mine posed this question at dinner tonight:

If environmentalism is about use less stuff, make less impact, have less effect, might we all be better if we just committed suicide? Might not that be the easier solution?

My other colleague came up to me after dinner. He said the the first colleague's provocation points to this fundamental question: is the presence of humanity on planet earth a good or a bad thing?

I'd argue that it's up to us which way that goes. The question becomes, given that we're going to make an impact, as much as we may able to reduce it, in service of what are we making that impact?

Because doesn't the question of whether the presence of humanity on the planet is a good or a bad thing depend entirely on what we do with ourselves? What we use our lives for?

For what should we use our lives and our precious time here on this planet in order to justify the resources we use? For what should we use our lives to justify this precious gift?

Because if we're making waste of our lives and all the impact they cause, isn't that even worse than wasting the resources?

Image courtesy of NYNerd.