Edward O. Wilson - Biodiversity and Species Extinction

The 21st century is the century of the environment. This is the time where we will either settle down or completely rack the planet. We have to evolve a better world order than the one we have now.

The following three pillars of our current civilization explain why we are constantly in trouble:

• We have stone age emotions (which evolved in pre-history over millions of years)
• We have medieval institutions (especially religions and ideologies)
• We have god-like technology (where we are seeing things going almost beyond our imagination)

The base of the problem lies in the three still mostly unanswered questions of religion, philosophy and science:

• Where do we come from?
• What are we?
• Where are we going?

A french writer during the 1930's put it in the following way: "All of mankinds problems are due to the fact that we do not know what we are and can not agree on what we wish to become."

Particular with regard to the environment mankind has to decide quickly what we are and where we are going!

Whilst it is good to witness the world gradually turing green, there is still a dangerous imbalance: The emphasis today is on the physical environment (e.g. climate change, pollution, the decline of fresh water and fertile land, depletion of irreplaceable natural resources). Proportionally much less attention is paid to the living environment, especially to the diversity of life.

Biodiversity is the totality of...

1. the ecosystems (e.g. plants, rivers, coral reefs)
2. the species of plants, animals, microorganisms that compose the ecosystem
3. the genes that discribe the traits of the species that compose the ecosystem

...all in parallel.

This great biodiversity has taken 3,5 billion years to emerge. Our lives depend upon it, because we are first and above a biological species living in a very special biological world.

Scientists have found the biosphere to be richer than ever before - but due to human activity it is beeing eroded away at an excellarating rate. The estimated rate of species extinction is now about a 1.000 times higher than before humanity entered the scene. And furthermore, if species extinction is left unabated at that rate, half of the species on earth will be gone by the end of the century.

That loss of so much of the rest of life, if allowed to continue, is going to inflict a heavy price on future generations in wealth, security and spirit. If on the other hand the problem is solved, the benefits in wealth, security and spirit will become beyond measure.

Go forth, think and save the world!!!

(See American biologist Edward O. Wilson speak about the importance of bio diversity and the challenges of species extinction)