Panel Discussion, continued...
Q: What is the likely significance of this rapid change in the rate of extinction?
A1: We as a society, our crops, we tend to do things rather slowly, a couple of thousand years, three thousands years. The kind of change that we're seeing now, we're talking tens of years or hundreds of years. How are we as a society going to adapt to the change and how will organisms which have a life span of a thousand years or 200 years, how will they respond? You can sort of see, without much imagination, how a lot of fabric of some of these systems is going to be ripped apart. As the forests become weakened by climate change and the major species are getting old, we're going to have to think pretty hard about how we're going to adapt to this. I think we could do fairly well with crops because they are all annuals. We can quickly adjust to change, but other aspects of our society are going to be a little bit harder. We all strive, I think, as humans, to have a constant background. We like a wage that we know is going to be the same next year, maybe a little more, who knows. And we build houses and we have thermostats. We do everything we can to keep things relatively constant. Then when you're faced with a potential change in the whole background, that's something that gives one pause.
A2: Regarding the nice argument that things are going to come back, I think that the interesting thing is maybe that's the message that we would like to hear. Then we wouldn't have the dubious honor of having wiped out nature from this planet. Obviously, this has to do with responsibility. I think our generation has the moral responsibility to allow the evolution of natural communities to proceed without significant losses cause by the human species. I think the people who have to take action are not only the presidents, but every one of us.
A3: Can we pinpoint where mass extinctions have occurred, but no reasonable scenario for one of these past extinctions would suggest that it was the result of biological activity? In other words, there's no species of the past that caused the mass extinctions of any species. So in a sense, this will be, if it goes unchecked, a mass extinction that has no precedent, regardless of whether we're sentient, we're aware or we have morality or ethics. So, as a consequence, it will be an experience in the history of life that has never happened before. It would be hard to predict what the final consequences would be. I'm frightened with the notion that as the pressures on biodiversity increase and our resource requirements increase, that we might do something remarkably stupid that will intentionally exterminate ourselves.
A3: I grew up under the threat of thermonuclear extinction. I think we forget that it is not completely eliminated. The realities now are that we could have a biological mechanism of mass extinction, mass extirpation. And we leave behind all these nuclear reactors and other arsenals of civilization that if unattended by us can wreak additional havoc. So it's a very serious concern, regardless of whether we're aware of what we're doing or we have a sense of destiny.
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