Lost and Gone Forever
6th February 2011
More hand-wringing from the New York Times.
Species die. It has become a catastrophic fact of modern life. On our present course, by E.O. Wilson’s estimate, half of all plant and animal species could be extinct by 2100 — that is, within the lifetime of a child born today. Kenya stands to lose its lions within 20 years. India is finishing off its tigers. Deforestation everywhere means that thousands of species too small or obscure to be kept on life support in a zoo simply vanish each year.
The only species whose extinction I am not prepared to tolerate is my own. In that I suspect I am differ from most environmentalists.