Healing Our World Commentary: Extinctions

By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.

Extinctions - NOT Just a Fact of Life

Out of the earth, I sing for them.
A horse nation, I sing for them.
Out of the earth, I sing for them.
The animals, I sing for them.
-- Teton Sioux Chant

News services across the nation are reporting the release of the World Conservation Union's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. According to the new report, over 11,000 plant and animal species are in danger of disappearing forever in the near future. Every child's textbook speaks of it.

It is part of the common knowledge for most people and considered by many as a necessary consequence of progress. Yet these extinctions should not be considered just more sad statistics. They should be viewed as an indication that life on Earth as we know it is seriously threatened.

Possibly the scariest part of the statistics is the fact that the Earth is home to an estimated 14 million species. But only 1.75 million have been identified and documented. This could mean that the number of plants and animals at risk of being exterminated is more like 88,000.

Lord Howe Swamphen, extinct 1834 (Drawing courtesy American Museum of Natural History)

During the scientific revolution, a period in human history when it was finally proven that Earth was not at the center of the universe, much of today's way of viewing nature was formed. The work of Newton, Galileo, Descartes, Bacon and others created for us a universe that ceased being a dynamic part of our lives. Rather, nature was a machine to be dissected, described, predicted and controlled.

Since the 16th century, the universe ceased to be the enchanted world where, as Morris Berman says, "the cosmos was a place of belonging. A member of this cosmos was not an alienated observer of it but a direct participant in its drama."

For most of us in the urban world, we have ceased to be direct participants in the drama of the natural world outside our doors. We fear the thought of being outside, among the insects and the dirt and the elements.

The move towards an industrial society four hundred years ago made extinctions not only possible, but inevitable. Machines needed fuel. Mass production required immense amounts of raw materials. The decentralization of production required a dramatic increase in transportation needs to deliver goods. The packaging required for all those goods would eventually mean that entire forests would be destroyed so that millions of hamburgers could be packaged each day.

Tasmanian wolf, extinct 1936 (Drawing courtesy American Museum of Natural History)

In our world today, we easily assign value to a piece of land, a necklace, or the astronomy book I just sold on the Ebay online auction service. Those items have a monetary value.

But what about life? It used to be widely believed on this Earth that life had an intrinsic value as well. Intrinsic value is value for its own sake, for moral, spiritual, symbolic, cultural or aesthetic reasons. It is not a value that is assigned or given. It just is.

But the concept of intrinsic value for life doesn't fit in a world that defines progress in terms of "units sold" or "shares traded" or "accounts balanced."

But what about the economy? How can we afford to value the smallest creatures or a plant that we may never see in our lifetime? The answer to this question lies in one of the most nebulous concepts in modern science - biodiversity. It cannot be adequately explained in purely scientific terms why it is important to have a large diversity of life forms in our world. But it is, and without that diversity, it is questionable whether we can survive.

The Ho rainforest in Washington state contains diversity that cannot be duplicated. (Photo (c) J.A. Giuliano)

When a forest is destroyed, it is gone for all time. Companies may plant a tree farm in its place, usually containing one type of tree, but this is not a forest. As advanced as our science is, we have no idea how to build a forest. The diversity of life in a forest can hardly be described in words. Each tiny pinch of soil and each breath of air is teeming with thousands of different kinds of organisms, all interacting with each other in a complex dance that cannot be duplicated by all the power of the modern technological world.

Without this diversity, all that remains may be destined to be a wasteland, devoid of life.

How far can we go in the relentless quest for more? When will enough be enough?

Why is it so hard to value another living thing for no other reason than because it is alive?

We had better find a way to answer these questions soon. The Earth may not wait much longer.

RESOURCES

1. The Environment News Service summarized the IUCN report at http://www.ens.lycos.com/ens/sep2000/2000L-09-28-03.asp. See the report itself at http://www.redlist.org/

2. Read about biodiversity in a hypertext book by Peter Bryant at http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/lec01/b65lec01.htm

3. Visit http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook09.asp for a comprehensive list of resources about the scientific revolution.

4. See the World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Report at http://www.panda.org/livingplanet/lpr99/indexthx.asp for details on the human impact on the world.

5. See at website dedicated to mourning the loss of species by the Earth Witness Community at http://www.earthwitness.com/Home.htm

6. The American Museum of Natural History has an online exhibit on extinctions at http://nimidi.amnh.org/gallery/exhibitspace.asp

7. For the endangered and threatened species in the U.S., visit http://eelink.net/EndSpp.old.bak/ES.lists.asp

8. Find out who your Congressional representatives are and e-mail them. Tell them that the time of compromising our very existence for greed must end. If you know your Zip code, you can find them at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.asp or you can search by state at http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.asp. You can also find your representatives at http://congress.nw.dc.us/innovate/index.asp.

[Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and teacher in Seattle. He can be found looking out his office window at the forest across the street, wondering what species he will never know. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at jackie@healingourworld.com and visit his web site at http://www.healingourworld.com]