The picture above is from an article titled "Humanity is in the existential danger zone." I found the article, which was published in January of this year, on a website called The Conversation, which promotes itself as providing information with "academic rigor and journalistic flair."
Another article published on The Conversation, this one dated June 19, 2015, proclaims that "Earth's sixth mass extinction has begun." That article, discussing the alarming loss of biodiversity that scientists are ever more able to quantify, notes that we are "unpicking the fabric of life."
If we regard the Earth as nothing more than a source of resources and a sink for our pollution, if we value other species only in terms of what they can provide to us, then we we will continue to unpick the fabric of life. Remove further rivets from spaceship earth. This not only increases the risk that it will cease to function in the ways that we and future generations will depend on, but can only reduce the complexity and beauty of our home in the cosmos.
In the human world that we create, human beings truly do have total dominion. The shape and character of everything that pertains to that world is up to us. Our choice!
Because we are so dominant in this human world, in which we most immediately live, we all too easily forget that the World of Nature is the world that ultimately sustains us. That world is not subject to our command. Ultimately, we are "creatures," within the Natural World. We are not its "creators."
If we "unpick the fabric of life," we weaken the strands that support our own lives, too. When we say farewell to the broad-faced potoroo, we are saying goodbye to our grandkids.
Image Credits:
(1) - https://theconversation.com/humanity-is-in-the-existential-danger-zone-study-confirms-36307(2) - https://theconversation.com/earths-sixth-mass-extinction-has-begun-new-study-confirms-43432
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