August 23, 2002, CNN: The complex web of life on Earth, what scientists call "biodiversity," is in serious trouble.
"Biodiversity includes all living things that we depend on for our economies and our lives," explained Brooks Yeager, vice president of global programs at the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C. "It's the forests, the oceans, the coral reefs, the marine fish, the algae, the insects that make up the living world around us and which we couldn't do without," he said.
Nearly 2 million species of plants and animals are known to science and experts say 50 times as many may not yet be discovered.
Yet most scientists agree that human activity is causing rapid deterioration in biodiversity. Expanding human settlements, logging, mining, agriculture and pollution are destroying ecosystems, upsetting nature's balance and driving many species to extinction.
There is virtual unanimity among scientists that we have entered a period of mass extinction not seen since the age of the dinosaurs, an emerging global crisis that could have disastrous effects on our future food supplies, our search for new medicines, and on the water we drink and the air we breathe. Estimates vary, but extinction is figured by experts to be taking place between 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural "background" extinction.
At the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro 10 years ago, world leaders signed a treaty to confront this crisis. But its results have been disappointing. According to Yeager, "It hasn't been a direct kind of impact that some of us had hoped for." [End article.]
National Geographic, February 1999: [S]ome 50 percent of the world’s flora and fauna could be on a path to extinction within a hundred years. And everything is affected: fish, birds, insects, plants, and mammals. By Pimm’s count [Stuart Pimm, University of Tennessee conservation biologist] 11 percent of birds, or 1,100 species out of the world’s nearly 10,000, are on the edge of extinction; it’s doubtful that the majority of these 1,100 will live much beyond the end of the next century. The picture is not pretty for plants either. A team of respected botanists recently reported that one in eight plants is at risk of becoming extinct. “It’s not just species on islands or in rain forests or just birds or big charismatic mammals,” says Pimm. “It’s everything and it’s everywhere. It’s here in this national park. It is a worldwide epidemic of extinctions.”
Such a rate of extinction has occurred only five times since complex life emerged, and each time it was caused by a catastrophic natural disaster. For instance, geologists have found evidence that a meteorite crashed into Earth 65 million years ago, leading to the demise of the dinosaurs. That was the most recent major extinction. Today the Earth is again in extinction’s grip—but the cause has changed. The sixth extinction is not happening because of some external force. It is happening because of us, Homo sapiens, an “exterminator species,” as one scientist has characterized humankind.
The collective actions of humans—developing and paving over the landscape, clear-cutting forests, polluting rivers and streams, altering the atmosphere’s protective ozone layer, and populating nearly every place imaginable—are bringing an end to the lives of creatures across the Earth. “I think we must ask ourselves if this is really what we want to do to God’s creation,” says Pimm. “To drive it to extinction? Because extinction really is irreversible; species that go extinct are lost forever. This is not like Jurassic Park. We can’t bring them back.” [End article.]
If there is some reason to conclude that as the loss of biodiversity on this planet escalates, we will somehow do better in saving our ecosystems and the species in them, including ourselves, I am at a loss to see that reason. Every time there is more conflict over limited resources, the human reaction is to fight more violently over those resources, be those resources marbles, ice cream, dollars, food, or water. Thus the genes for self-destruction appear to be built into our very DNA.
Stated another way, we are on a downward spiral that shows every sign of spinning faster and faster, and more and more out of control, as the population continues to explode and the resources of the planet—food, water, minerals, fuel—become more and more scarce. It is as if we are looking down the barrel of a loaded gun, being wielded by madmen, and the average person doesn’t know it, let alone have a clue what to do about it.
You’d think the scientific community might be of some help. Yet here’s a typical limp noodle from that department, this one from the Scientific American, October 30, 2000: The phrase mass extinction usually brings to mind events sparked by dramatic environmental change, such as the asteroid impact that led to the demise of the dinosaurs and many other species 65 million years ago. In fact, five such large-scale extinctions have been identified in the fossil record, and according to findings presented… another is under way. This time the cause is nothing so dramatic as a giant asteroid or a radical shift in climate. Rather, it appears, human pressure is to blame.
Like the other mass extinctions, says University of Michigan paleontologist Catherine Badgely, the current crisis is worldwide, affecting a broad range of species. Certain species of vertebrates (animals with backbones) are particularly vulnerable, she reports, especially those with small geographic ranges or narrow subsistence requirements. The numbers are alarming. One quarter of all mammals are endangered or extinct, as are 15 percent of birds. In both groups the larger species are in the most trouble.
The human pressures threatening these creatures include habitat destruction and modification, overhunting, introduction of foreign species, and the increase in carbon dioxide concentrations. Still, extinction of the animals currently designated as endangered is not inevitable, Badgely says. But in order to preserve them, there needs to be a massive change in human actions. [End article, thank you very much.]
The requisite change, of course, has not yet begun, nor even been defined in what might be called the mind’s eye of industrial societies.
I could go on, but I feel I’ve cheered myself up enough for one day. And hopefully clarified why I think “the DNA frame” is worthy of contemplation, at least on our Starbuck’s coffee breaks. If you’d like more reasons for optimism, or more clues on why “the DNA frame” gives a more meaningful context to all others, here’s a link to a slew of bona fide articles on the subject: http://www.well.com/user/davidu/extinction.html.
Geery lived off the grid for 15 years in an earth-sheltered, solar heated home, while his kids learned in school that solar energy isn't feasible. NAPTA hosts a page on Geery's foibles in education, and explains how he got his butt fired from a tenured teaching position. Here's a short clip of his most recent solar contraption; for more on that project, and Geery's contention that the Wright Brothers took a wrong turn, please visit his airship page (hyperblimp.com). Apparently, Geery is the only one in the world to respond to Osama bin Laden, call bullshit on him and George together, and expose them for the pansy ass rich kids that they are. Unfortunately, bin Laden has been too scared to write back and explain himsself; and George is still working hard to finish his goat book.
My comment,all things considered the last thing i need today is a Jehovah's Witness ranting on my doorstep about God.They are just an insufferable bogus cult of bull.Cheers everyone,Danny Haszard www.dannyhaszard.com
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Danny Haszard (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 52 comments)
on Tuesday, June 6, 2006 at 8:53:58 AM
