Ok, I admit it. When I first read
this article, I thought, "Um... is my life going to really be devastated by the loss of some little beetle thing in the middle of nowhere that I never knew about?" Survival of the fittest, what? You can't survive, go extinct, that's the way it is! I'm not reading this, crazy hippy journalist! The truth is, this affects us all, especially because organisms are going extinct hundreds of times faster than in the "background levels" seen in various fossil records. Oops.
I'm not going to bog down this one with "90% of the whatever are in danger of being extinct," because, quite frankly, that would be boring, and I have to continue to study for finals. The
various links have all that info.
Extinction of various species (which does include plants, remember!) affects people living in rural areas, or in developing nations the most. Why? These are the people who are most dependant on the biodiversity of the ecosystem they live in. If a particular plant goes extinct, or a certain type of animal is hunted to the point of extinction, oftentimes, the entire livelihood of a group of people is lost. People like these who depend on the world around them , quite literally, to eke out some sort of living.
But, the skeptic says, there have been other extinctions in the past- 5 to be precise. Yeah, I know. I took two geology courses this semester- trust me, I know full well all about those extinctions. Oy vey. This is still a crisis though- those extinctions took millions of years. The Permian extinction, which was the worse, took about seven million years to do all of its damage. In contrast, researchers estimate that by 2020 less than 5% of it will remain in pristine condition. Within 15 years, about a fifth of central Africa's forests will have gone, by one estimate. And the forests of Indonesia are in headlong retreat. Ouch.
Reason number two- healthcare. A cause near and dear to the hearts of Kossacks everywhere, right? 80%, according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, rely on plants and herbs for medicines. Even if this number is inflated, it's still something to consider- think about the number of people in developing countries. They don't just walk down to the CVS for Advil.
And what about plants? Mmm, plants. Good for vegetarians and um, gardeners, right? No! Well, I mean, yes, but more than that. See, photosynthesis is pretty cool- quite literally. Right now, the Earth's atmosphere is kept in a delicate equilibrium by all life. Plants emit oxygen, we breathe out carbon dioxide, everyone's happy. But what if a lot of plants die out, like these people think?There's going to be a lot more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, that's what. And more carbon dioxide leads to a warmer atmosphere. Warmer atmosphere means more global warming. Global warming means the ice caps melt. Sea levels rise. Ocean currents slow. We all DIE. (Ok, maybe not so much of this drama, but I couldn't resist!)
I'm not sure we need to go into this much further- we all know that extinction is bad, right? Even if it's a beetle we've never heard of- that beetle may actually be worth something, medicinally, socially to a group of people, or ecologically in terms of maintaining biodiversic equilibrium, which isn't really a phrase, but y'all know what I mean. The Earth depends on creepy crawlies.
The important thing right now is, what can you do? There are a lot of websites devoted to this- http://www.ecovolunteer.com is a good one, generally. It's a bit out of date in terms of legislation a lot, but they have some interesting ideas. If you have a lot of time, you can volunteer to monitor a species. Or, you can join up with groups that are working to increase hunting quotas in areas with endangered species, as is mentioned here.
Of course, there are some common sense things we all can do. You know, like not consuming more than we need to, recycling, or supporting organizations and companies that work with developing nations to help them make money without depleting their natural resources. Well, I don't think I have much more to add to this- on to the poll!