War on Terra: Lonely on the Planet

For decades now we have been living through the most massive species extinction since the dinosaur era. Update: The World Conservation Union annual Red List came out this morning: "the extinction crisis had escalated in the last year with 16,306 species now at the highest levels of extinction threat, equivalent to almost 40% of all species in the survey. A quarter of all mammals, a third of all amphibians and one in eight birds on the 2007 IUCN Red List are in jeopardy." Some 180 species have been added in just the past year.

Until now the species that have disappeared were mostly those we'd scarcely noticed, if at all. But that's changing. Even the apparent disappearance of an obscure species of freshwater dolphin-- the first dolphin species to be eradicated as a result of human activity--is likely to be but a preview. Next to go could be the largest of the sea turtles.

But perhaps the most disturbing news is the study this week that confirms that up to two-thirds of all the polar bears in the world will likely be gone by 2050, due to the rapidly melting ice and warming in the Arctic. Photos and videos of polar bears are appealing, but it's more than cuddly imagery. The relationship between humans and bears goes back to our beginnings, and has been among the most important we've had. Bears are the creatures that look the most like us, apart from the highly endangered great apes. Unlike the apes, bears were once just about everywhere human beings were. They were important to our cultures and religions, and to our languages. As Paul Shepard points out, we get our bearings from bears; they're related to such words as "brightness" and perhaps even "dance." The plight of the polar bear may touch something deep and profound, and not merely sentimental.

The new study was related to the consideration of declaring polar bears an endangered species, and so some scientists spoke of hope. "The grim news about polar bears and sea ice decline is horrifying, but it is a call to action, not despair," said Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Our hope lies in a rapid response, including both deep and immediate carbon dioxide reductions and a full-court press on other greenhouse pollutants." But that's not going to happen without a profound committment that transcends this one problem. Especially since actually declaring polar bears endangered would then require efforts to save them, which would mean halting greenhouse gases to a meaningful extent--which the U.S. government and its corporate sponsors, and indeed pretty much all governments, have resisted.

One of the first iconic creatures to awaken the world's awareness and inspire concern were the whales. The "Save the Whales" campaign beginning in the 1970s has now become a default position--something everyone believes in. But efforts to halt international whaling, never complete and recently breached, was an easy but incomplete answer. Today as in the 1970s the Blue Whale is still very much endangered, there aren't that many more Humpback whales, and the apparent success story, the gray whale comeback, may have been wishful thinking.

Perhaps most directly threatening are the bees, without whom even we are unlikely to survive for long. They pollinate plants that are responsible for more than a third of our food, but that's just the most direct link in the chain. Beyond the headlines about specific diseases affecting or not affecting certain bee populations, there's this recent blanket statement from an international expert: " I think that today the likelihood of a significant decline in bee populations, even the complete disappearance of certain species, is real." There appear to be many factors involved, including warmer winters, but many of the possibilities point to human causes.

Human impact on the planet has become massive, and life on earth as we know it cannot sustain this, and therefore it cannot sustain us. That's what the loss of our fellow creatures, including those closest to us in profound ways, is telling us. We may find ourselves lonely on this planet...but not for long. To truly stand for life will take an understanding, a consciousness and a renewal of heart that at the moment we can only imagine. Yet we must imagine it.