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openspace4life"No one knows how many other species are this close to extinction. We don't even know how many species of animals and plants there are altogether in the world. A staggering 1.4 million have been found and identified so far, but some experts believe that there are another 30 million yet to be discovered.
. . .
Many animals and plants are disappearing before we are aware of their existence, perhaps hidden away somewhere in the depths of an unexplored sea or in a quiet corner of a tropical rainforest.
. . .
As zoologists and botanists explore new areas, scrabbling to record the mere existence of species before they become extinct, it is like someone hurrying through a burning library desperately trying to jot down some of the titles of books that will now never be read.
. . .
For millions of years, on average, one species became extinct every century. But most of the extinctions since prehistoric times have occurred in the last three hundred years.
. . .
It is the sheer rate of acceleration that is as terrifying as anything else. There are now [in 1990] more than a thousand different species of animals and plants becoming extinct every year.*
. . .
Even so, the loss of a few species may seem almost irrelevant compared to major environmental problems such as global warming or the destruction of the ozone layer. But while nature has considerable resilience, there is a limit to how far that resilience can be stretched. No one knows how close to the limit we are getting. The darker it gets, the faster we're driving."
-Mark Carwardine, Last Chance to See
* Keep in mind that today, the estimate is well over 20,000 species per year. I still don't know how that estimate is arrived at, i.e. whether they only count known extinctions or whether they try to factor in the ones we didn't observe directly.
(originally posted December 27, 2003)
. . .
Many animals and plants are disappearing before we are aware of their existence, perhaps hidden away somewhere in the depths of an unexplored sea or in a quiet corner of a tropical rainforest.
. . .
As zoologists and botanists explore new areas, scrabbling to record the mere existence of species before they become extinct, it is like someone hurrying through a burning library desperately trying to jot down some of the titles of books that will now never be read.
. . .
For millions of years, on average, one species became extinct every century. But most of the extinctions since prehistoric times have occurred in the last three hundred years.
. . .
It is the sheer rate of acceleration that is as terrifying as anything else. There are now [in 1990] more than a thousand different species of animals and plants becoming extinct every year.*
. . .
Even so, the loss of a few species may seem almost irrelevant compared to major environmental problems such as global warming or the destruction of the ozone layer. But while nature has considerable resilience, there is a limit to how far that resilience can be stretched. No one knows how close to the limit we are getting. The darker it gets, the faster we're driving."
-Mark Carwardine, Last Chance to See
* Keep in mind that today, the estimate is well over 20,000 species per year. I still don't know how that estimate is arrived at, i.e. whether they only count known extinctions or whether they try to factor in the ones we didn't observe directly.
(originally posted December 27, 2003)
