Like the cries for help from a victim getting ignored, most of us share in the collective disregard for the current all-out assault on Earth’s species.
Here are the opening paragraphs of the Catherine Genovese murder story that was published in the New York Times in March of 1964:
“For more than half an hour thirty-eight respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.
Twice the sound of their voices and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. Each time he returned, sought her out, and stabbed her again. Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead.”
How could thirty-eight respectable citizens stand by and do nothing to help this poor woman? Many explained that it had to do with big-city apathy and our modern society’s slide into selfishness and indifference.
Two New York-based psychology professors Bibb Latane and John Darley posited that the thirty-eight people all failed to call the police because of social proof reasons. They argued that each person probably thought someone else must have surely made the call already.
They also suggested pluralistic ignorance may have been part of the cause too. This simply means that in distressful times, we often look around at how others are acting and key off their behavior. So if we’re unsure if something really is an emergency, we look for clues in the people around us, and if they’re not panicking or doing anything, we conclude that it must not be an emergency. They looked out the window and saw others ignoring the pleas, so they may have surmised there was nothing to worry about.
The way most of the world’s population today is overlooking the ongoing and unprecedented destruction of our world’s species and habitats seems eerily similar to the way those thirty-eight bystanders ignored Catherine Genovese’s screams back in 1964.
The Earth’s entire ecosystem is under attack and the vast majority of people are doing nothing. Why? Maybe it’s apathy, greed, selfishness or pluralistic ignorance. Maybe everyone thinks someone else will take care of the problem. Maybe people think they’ll be dead long before it affects them. Maybe it’s a combination of all of these reasons.
Thankfully there are some scientists, ecologists, professors and environmentalists who are fighting to save our world, but they represent a tiny and sad fraction of us all.
I am writing this to try and enlist many more people to first realize the emergency we’re presently facing and next to be moved to take some kind of action. This means you.
The World Conservation Union and its Red List
A study recently released by the World Conservation Union, a coalition of leading conservation groups, says that more than 11,000 plants and animals could be extinct within the first few decades of the 21st century. It says one of every four mammals and one of every eight birds could face extinction. Although the extinction of various species is an ongoing natural phenomenon and has happened at accelerated rates in Earth’s past, the rate of extinction occurring in today’s world is exceptional — as many as 100 to1,000 times greater than natural rates found in the fossil record, Dr. Donald A. Levin said in the January-February issue of American Scientist magazine.
In 2004 the World Conservation Union issued its “Red List”, an annual report on the conservation status of species. They called the 2004 report “the most comprehensive evaluation ever undertaken of the status of the world’s biodiversity.”
The following is taken from the 2004 Red List’s Executive Summary:
- 15,589 species (7,266 animal species and 8,323 plant and lichen species) are now considered at risk of extinction — an increase of 3,330 species since the 2003 Red List. The increase is largely due to the fact that scientists have finally been able to assess all of the world’s amphibians.
- Among major species groups, the percentage of threatened species ranges between 12% and 52%.
- 12% of birds are threatened, 23% of mammals, and 32% of amphibians.
- The numbers of threatened species are increasing across almost all major taxonomic groups.
- Most threatened species occur in the tropics, especially on mountains and on islands.
- Countries that have the most threatened species tend to be those that are least able to invest significant resources into conservation.
Scientists believe that the Earth has experienced five other mass extinctions in its history, often called the “Big Five”. They all agree that we are now in the Sixth Extinction called the Holocene extinction event. The previous extinction periods were triggered by physical causes, such as impact events like meteors, large movements by tectonic plates or high volcanic activity. These natural events all led to climate change which then caused mass extinction.
The observed rate of extinction has accelerated dramatically in the last 50 years however, to a pace far greater than the rate seen during each of the Big Five.
Humanity is Causing this Mass Extinction
This current extinction period is being caused by humans. By entering new ecosystems which had never before experienced the human presence, people have disrupted the ecological balance by hunting, transmitting diseases and most significantly, habitat destruction.
We now routinely breech the “carrying-capacity” of many ecosystems and environments today. Because of mass human population growth we’re putting more and more stress on natural environments with various devastating activities. The top activities humans engage in that are responsible for the destruction of the world’s environments are:
- Habitat destruction
- Tropical deforestation
- Coral destruction
- Excessive fishing
- Overexploitation of species
- The introduction of alien species
- Soil contamination
- Air, water and land pollution
- The release of greenhouse gases causing global warming
The debate about global warming is silly. When I hear people say they don’t believe in global warming or say not to worry because the Earth has gone through it before, I am reminded of 13th Century people arrogantly still bellowing that the world is flat. Usually, a person disregards global warming because they are either blindly repeating American conservative Republican talking points or have a hidden agenda that gives them some kind of financial benefit by conveniently ignoring human-caused climate change.
When someone says that the Earth has experienced this in the past so we should not be alarmed, I get frustrated because they seem to be ignorant of this fact:
Though natural amounts of CO2 have varied from 180 to 300 parts per million (ppm), today’s CO2 levels are around 380 ppm. That’s 25% more than the highest natural levels over the past 650,000 years. Today’s abnormally high temperatures and CO2 concentrations come from the burning of fossil fuels.
Even if we leave global warming out of the equation, the exponential population growth the world is experiencing is destroying ecosystems as well. More and more people are being born and living longer. Agriculture, resource exploitation and the increased need for living space all contribute to the systematic destruction of the world’s habitats and species.
Species Extinction Follows Habitat Destruction
When habitats go, species annihilation and extinction follow. Like termites slowly gnawing away at one’s home, humanity’s blind and unchecked advance on the environment will eventually bring the whole house down.
But population growth in itself does not need to be so damaging to habitats and therefore species. Population growth in conjunction with total lack of planning and disregard for its effects on various environments is the real problem. This disregard is sadly the result of short-sightedness, lack of oversight and the greedy desire for short-term financial gains.
Does it matter? I believe it does. There are most likely solutions to many of humanity’s problems in the very natural resources that we’re destroying. For example, we may find new energy solutions and medicines in environments we’re conquering. The biodiversity in the Amazon is considered a potentially excellent source for future medicines and pharmaceutical knowledge.
Humanity is like an ape with a club swinging wildly in a modern day living room. We have no idea what we’re destroying, and we never will unless we stop swinging. Our cleverness in developing technology and creating ways to live longer and better may be our downfall.
And there are most likely consequences that we simply don’t know now. Never mind being a tree-hugging liberal, never mind “going green”, never mind Democrats vs. Republicans, regardless of who you are, causing a global mass extinction, and not trying to stop it, is just wrong.
But there is hope. Many people work every day to educate others and to improve conservation and spread the word. There are technologies that are being developed or on the verge of being invented that could solve many conservation and habitat destruction issues. Long term planning often creates more financial abundance than short-term gains. Globally threatened species require a combination of conservation acts and collective action from large groups of people and nations who are willing to work together for a better future.
Consider this article like a man leaning out the window on that fateful night in 1964 to warn you that Catherine Genovese’s murder could be stopped if you just took some kind of action now.
Share This