Monday, July 21, 2003

 
Oh man, do I disagree with you guys. The time to which Eckels and company traveled back was near the beginning. What if that WAS the only butterfly? What if all beauty in humankind died with the butterfly in the sole of his shoe?

Here's an interesting essay....

VALUING ENDANGERED SPECIES
By Rodger Schlickeisen
Some opponents of the Endangered Species Act see imperiled life forms as nothing but
metaphors for excessive regulation, lost jobs, and foregone profits. They’d like nothing better
than for them to go extinct and thus get out of the way of “progress.” As the president of the
anti-environmental American Farm Bureau Federation put it recently, “Take endangered species,
please.”
To anyone more slightly tempted by such a self-indulgent perspective, I suggest a simple
exercise. Pick up the list of the more than 1,000 U.S. species now protected by the Endangered
Species Act and run your eyes over the names. Consider America without the grizzly bear, gray
wolf, ocelot, Florida manatee, woodland caribou. The bald eagle, whooping crane, peregrine
falcon, brown pelican, piping plover, spotted owl, wood stork, white-faced ibis, roseate tern,
snail kite, golden-cheeked warbler. The desert tortoise, California red-legged frog and American
crocodile. Four sturgeon and seven trout species and several chinook, coho and sockeye salmon
populations. A lengthening list of clams, snails, beetles, butterflies. Hine’s emerald dragonfly and
the Nashville crayfish. Hundreds of wildflowers and other plants, including more than a dozen
fern species. And so many, many more.
What are endangered species? They are the warmth, joy and glory of being alive amid the
vast diversity of living things - big and small, delicate and mighty. They are the vital ingredients
of landscapes whose resulting harmony is welcome counterpoint to the chaos of modern human
existence. They are the instruments that make the music of nature, producing a symphony
delightful to the ears and soothing to stress-filled minds.
Endangered species are the memories of childhood, that carefree sunny afternoons were made
of. They are the beetles and snails, butterflies and dragonflies endlessly pursued and carefully
captured to be admired in mason jars with freshly picked grass and newly aerated lids.
Endangered species are the rhythm of the seasons. They are the migrating birds whose sweet
songs announce each spring, the wildflowers that scent and color the summer meadow, the earthtoned
leaves that fall on crisp autumn mornings, and the tracks of predator and prey acting out
age-old dramas across the winter snow.
Endangered species are the inspiration for countless books, songs, poems, paintings,
photographs and sculptures that enrich our culture beyond measure. They are Henry David
Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Robert Service, John Muir, A.B.
Guthrie, Emily Dickinson, Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, Wallace Stegner, John James
Audubon, Ansel Adams, Frederick Remington, Charlie Russell, Aaron Copland and many more
whose inspiring works are tribute to a natural world now at risk.
Endangered species are the essence of wild nature. They are the hunter and hunted whose
behavior has determined the characteristics of countless animals, making bison tough, antelope
swift and mountain goats nimble. They are the excitement and adventure that only wildness can
offer.
Endangered species are the frontier challenges that shaped the unique American character.
They are the at-risk survivors of the clash between ever-advancing civilization and constantly
retreating nature, but also the salvation of that civilization which gains perspective, vitality and
balance from a world where nature’s challenges still exist and where ultimate freedom and
independence still prevail.
Endangered species are a warning that the margin between existence and extinction is
narrowing, and that millions of years of evolutionary processes are being forever altered. They
are a signal that the web of life of the future will be much less rich and complex, with uncertain
consequences for all species, including our own.
Endangered species are a reminder that all living things are part of creation and have their
own dignity and intrinsic worth apart from any value that we might bestow. But they are also
species threatened by a fate worse than death, now surviving only precariously in life’s shadows,
midway between being and not being-innocent victims of human actions at odds with true
humanity.
This is what endangered species are today. Their tomorrow depends upon society’s
willingness to adopt a wiser, more compassionate and morally superior view of progress. So does
our own.
Rodger Schlickeisen is the president of Defenders of Wildlife. He will welcome your comments.
Send him an email at Rodger@Defenders.org

More food for thought :-)
posted by RobinK 3:31 PM

Sunday, July 20, 2003

 
"A Sound of Thunder"
I thought that the chain reaction of the death of the butterfly wouldn't really affect such things as language and society. If you think about it from a chain-reaction perspective, then humans most likely wouldn't even be alive (the butterfly's death led to the death of something else, and so on, and eventually to the death of humans).
I would really like to go back to either ancient Egypt or the Victorian times, because those eras interest me :). I love the different ideas the Egyptians had about the world then, and how much their surroundings affected them. I also think the Victorian times were interesting because the new ideas in our society were beginning to come about, like women's rights and help for the poor.
posted by Katie 8:09 PM