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Just When You Thought it Was Safe To... |
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Wednesday, 26 September 2007 |
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You read an article like this....
Two hundred fifty million years ago, a monumental catastrophe devastated life on Earth. We don't know the cause - perhaps glaciers, volcanoes, or even the impact of a giant meteorite - but whatever happened drove more than 90 percent of the planet's species to extinction. After the Great Dying, as the end-Permian extinction is called, Earth's biodiversity - its panoply of species - didn't bounce back for more than ten million years.
Aside from the Great Dying, there have been four other mass extinctions, all of which severely pruned life's diversity. Scientists agree that we're now in the midst of a sixth such episode. This new one, however, is different - and, in many ways, much worse. For, unlike earlier extinctions, this one results from the work of a single species, Homo sapiens. We are relentlessly taking over the planet, laying it to waste and eliminating most of our fellow species. Moreover, we're doing it much faster than the mass extinctions that came before. Every year, up to 30,000 species disappear due to human activity alone. At this rate, we could lose half of Earth's species in this century. And, unlike with previous extinctions, there's no hope that biodiversity will ever recover, since the cause of the decimation - us - is here to stay.
Read the rest
I'm reminded of a quote of Baha'u'llah's:
"Ever since the seeking of preference and distinction came into play, the world has been laid waste. It has become desolate.... Indeed, man is noble, inasmuch as each one is a repository of the sign of God. Nevertheless, to regard oneself as superior in knowledge, learning or virtue, or to exalt oneself or seek preference is a grievous transgression."
This desolation of the planet that we're facing right now is indeed a direct result of individuals seeking preference over others. Some want more wealth, power and glory. They carve out swaths of land for development, they rip hillsides apart for minerals, they dump toxic waste into rivers to save expenses on the bottom line.
Probably the most depressing part of this tragedy is how we're all complicit. That's certainly a topic of unlimited discussion... for now I'll just say a prayer that we evolve out of this mess we're in...
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