Tag Archives: driving-species

“As E.O. Wilson accepts his 2007 TED Prize, he makes a plea on behalf of all creatures that we learn more about our biosphere — and build a networked encyclopedia of all the world's knowledge about life.” The first excerpt: “This vast domain of hidden biodiversity is increased still further by the dark matter of the biological world of bacteria, which within just the last several years still were known from only about 6,000 species of bacteria worldwide. But that number of bacteria But that number of bacteria species can be found in one gram of soil, just a little handful of soil, in the 10 billion bacteria that would be there. It's been estimated that a single ton of soil — fertile soil — contains approximately four million species of bacteria, all unknown. So the question is: what are they all doing? ” Second excerpt: “The human juggernaut is permanently eroding Earth's ancient biosphere by a combination of forces that can be summarized by the acronym “HIPPO,” the animal hippo. H is for habitat destruction, including climate change forced by greenhouse gases. I is for the invasive species like the fire ants, zebra mussels, broom grasses and pathogenic bacteria and viruses that are flooding every country at an exponential rate — that's the I. The P, the first one in “HIPPO,” is for pollution. The second is for continued population, human population expansion. And the final letter is O, for over-harvesting — driving species into extinction by excessive hunting and fishing The HIPPO juggernaut we have created, if unabated, is destined — according to the best estimates of ongoing biodiversity research — to reduce half of Earth's still surviving animal and plant species to extinction or critical endangerment by the end of the century. Human-forced climate change alone — again, if unabated — could eliminate a quarter of surviving species during the next five decades What will we and all future generations lose if much of the living environment is thus degraded?” http://www.ted.com/talks/e_o_wilson_on_saving_life_on_earth.html Our ignorance and greed is bringing this world to an end. We need to change this, we need to stand up and protect our environment and our health. We need to fight against the ones that put profit above people. No more! Join the Organic Movement: http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/ added by: lookatmypix