• Visit the ever growing Extinction Map
• Spend some time with the Red List

OMINOUS ARCHIVES

• If you didn’t say goodbye to the Yangtze River dolphin, it’s now too late

The numbers according to IUCN: 17,291 species out of the 47,677 assessed species are threatened with extinction. The study estimates that 21 percent of all known mammals, 30 percent of all known amphibians, 12 percent of all known birds, and 28 percent of reptiles, 37 percent of freshwater fishes, 70 percent of plants, 35 percent of invertebrates assessed so far are at risk. The IUCN believes that it’s numbers underestimate the extent of the disaster. In fact, we just lost another large mammal, the Yangtze river dolphin, for good. Tigers are next. Won’t that be a shame?

For environmental hipsters such as the entire Catastrophe Map Editorial Board, this is known as the Sixth Great Extinction.

On the rare occasion that developers, oil companies or other plunder pimps are thwarted when attempting to exploit public assets for private profit, listen for the following comment: “who cares about a [spotted southern newt]?” or variation thereof. The message is clear that the targeted species inside the [ ] is not important enough to warrant loss of whatever economic windfall has been temporarily forestalled. Multiply this situation by every greedy ignorant corporation on the planet, aided by their respective governments, and you can appreciate the scale of the problem.

Missing from the worldview, of course, is the interrelationships among all species, including humammals. When you add or subtract any component of any ecosystem, top, bottom or middle, the Law of Unintended Consequences kicks in hard. This law is an addendum to Murphy’s Law.

If you subtract over 17,000 species in a short period of time, the fun will surely begin. What will the giant mosquitoes eat?

This contradictory humammal attitude toward the other species that share the planet has been around for eons. As early as Genesis 8, we citizens of the Christian West have been told the inspiring story of how Noah saved all of the animals from the flood. But almost no one reads the text of the actual Bible (Genesis , in which Noah sacrifices “every clean animal” when the Ark comes to rest. (That’s right…go find your Bible. That’s what it says). Noah kind of established the trend right there, and authority figure Jahweh was the enabler (It’s not clear when or how we acquired replacement animals.)

When the waters recede this time, will it be just us and the rats?