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Only in the last fifty years has it become clear that humanity
is seriously damaging its chances for future survival by forcing living species
into extinction. While it is true that over the several billion years of life
on this planet species have been disappearing, until very recently they were also
being replaced. Now, however, we are faced with a world
in which species are becoming extinct -- through neglect, exploitation, greed
and the never-ending quest for "progress" -- at a far greater rate than
that at which natural processes can replace them. No one can predict the exact
outcome of this situation, but as nature is impoverished, so too is its ability
to provide us with its usual free services: to cleanse air and water, feed us,
recycle wastes, protect crops from pests, replenish soils, and please us with
the beauty of birds and butterflies. When will the crisis
come? No one can predict exactly which species is expendable nor which is the
one whose extinction will put the final strain on an ecological system whose functioning
is so intertwined with and so interdependent on even its most minute parts. In
order to clarify the issue, Paul and Anne Ehrlich, the authors of this lively
and appealing book, have developed the analogy of the rivet popper: imagine that,
just as you are about to board a jet plane, you see a man busily prying rivets
out of its wings. As you rush in a panic back down the gangplank, he calls out,
"Don't worry, I've taken a lot of rivets out already and the wing hasn't
fallen off yet!" Perhaps he's right about this particular flight and a dozen
rivets might not be missed -- just as we might get away with the extinction of
a certain number of species. On the other hand, the thirteenth rivet popped from
a wing flap -- or the extinction of a key species involved in the cycling of nitrogen
-- could lead to disaster. In Extinction, the
Ehrlichs make a strong, reasoned and well-documented case that no more rivets
can safely be popped. The infamous Snail Darter, they convince us, deserves to
survive both for its own intrinsic good and ours. They point out clearly and logically
how we would miss endangered species if they were to become extinct, how we benefit
from them, how we have been endangering them and what we can do to protect both
them and ourselves. Paul Ehrlich is a professor of
Biological Sciences and Bing Professor of population Studies at Stanford University.
An author of more than a hundred scientific papers, a series of textbooks, several
popular books, including The Population Bomb, The End of Affluence,
and The Golden Door, and numerous articles. Professor Ehrlich is well known
for his public statements on the environmental crisis, population control, and
racial justice. He has received many honors, the latest being the highest given
by the Sierra Club, the John Muir Award. he lives in Stanford, California.
Anne Ehrlich is senior research associate in the Department
of Biological Sciences at Stanford. She was a consultant on the government's Global
2000 project, is a member of the U.S. Association for the Club of Rome, and is
on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of Friends of the Earth.
She has co-authored many books with her husband, including Ecoscience:
Population, Resources, Environment. |
