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E. O. Wilson's Great Idea [1]

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Date: 2023-04-10  

Hunting spiders in the Northern Range, Trinidad, American Arachnological Society International Meeting, 1999.

I have been reading E. O. Wilson’s book Half Earth which I picked up in a used book section of a local bookstore. To be totally honest, I have not always agreed with Wilson, especially in his writings about humans, but I find myself in total agreement with this book. Wilson has come to conclusions that I can wholeheartedly endorse and he did so very eloquently! He has also had the same problems that I have had with a certain environmental organization and their allies who believe that there is nothing we can do and we just have to adapt to the changing circumstances caused by the dawn of the Anthropocene. That may be what really happens, but unless we fight these tendencies, we might as well throw in the towel and accept the extinction of much of the life on this planet, including possibly ourselves.

Unfortunately I have never met him, and as he died in 2021 at 92, I never will. I did make the acquaintance of a few of his students at a meeting years ago and was at a meeting where he was given an award, but he did not attend. I have never doubted his vast knowledge on his chosen subject- ants! He was certainly one of the greatest myrmecologists that we have seen over the last century.

As Wilson states in his book we are in a a very bad way on this planet. Ask just about any field biologist and they will tell you that is true. It is literally heartbreaking to see the mess we are making in our ignorance. I include myself in that mess because I occasionally have flown on airplanes, I drive a car (a Prius, but it still uses gas), I buy products that I know are endangering earth, and I waste food. We are all to blame, although the polluting industry and governments on the take make it much worse. But now it is finally becoming real. Weather is becoming more violent, species are disappearing, temperatures in some parts of the world are making certain locals unlivable, drinking water is becoming more difficult to obtain and many people face malnutrition and even starvation, we are encountering nasty diseases like COVID-19 from destroyed or damaged ecosystems, and in some areas of the planet, agriculture is dying. We are preparing a living hell for our descendants. There is hope, if it is a bit of a longshot, and Wilson’s thinking may be our last chance. Even so we will lose a lot in the process — we have already gone too far to keep the earth as it was.

So what is Wilson’s solution? Giving up half of the earth to the environment. Ah, you may say, but that may take away some of the pleasures and perhaps necessities of our life and no one will agree to such a plan. However, if we don’t do this, we may well not have many pleasures at all and what we think of as necessities may well disappear anyway, and we could eventually add our species to the extinction list. This will not happen immediately, but painfully and slowly. We know that our species has already undergone at least two bottlenecks (See: www.science.org/...,) when we nearly died out, so don’t say impossible.

Along Sierra Vista Trail, Organ Mountains, New Mexico.

As a retired field biologist I have seen quite a few changes. I also know that a decline in species can be cyclic in nature and mask long-term declines. The Fourth of July Butterfly count under the auspices of the North American Butterfly Association that several of us took part in for 19 years in the Organ Mountains demonstrated that quite well. Species sometimes dwindle or disappear during periods of drought or from other causes, and then return. We did not run the count long enough to see if some of the missing species returned (19 years is not long enough for some hypotheses to be tested enough!). But it seems that lately in other data collections that are older, some species never recover (See:www.treehugger.com/....) It is hard to ascribe local declines to global climate change, but as evidence keeps piling up, that is becoming the most likely explanation.

Item: Marine Phytoplankton produces at least 40% of our oxygen. The heating and acidification of the oceans may well change that.

Item: The Tongass National Forest sequesters more than 40% of the Carbon Dioxide of the United States forests (See: www.ktoo.org/...) Yet there have been calls to cut some of it down for immediate profit!

Item: Locally and nationally we are having a perennial struggle with development vrs green space. Many developers like their parks nice and tame and don’t see the point of keeping tree-covered areas or public beaches. They only see tree-covered areas as potential development sites. The current housing crisis only exacerbates this problem (See: mahb.stanford.edu.) Obviously the competing needs caused by population growth and resulting environmental degradation are very complicated and will take much planning and ingenuity to resolve. In this case we need to listen closely to both sides and develop a plan that deals with both issues.

It is unlikely that Wilson’s vision will materialize and that is tragic. For one thing we would have to curtail the pollution that we cause because it will not stay in one place. For another, many humans see wild spaces as areas to exploit for their short-term gain, A hundred years from now, if not sooner, the people then living may well curse us for our lack of foresight.

However, despite all this, we could come to our senses. It depends on us. We have had some successes despite all- Bald Eagles are more common than they have been in years, there are more Bengal Tigers in India and the Cheetah has been reintroduced to the subcontinent. There has been some progress in the rehabilitation of Black-footed Ferret in the wild and recent Democratic administrations have added significantly to protected areas within the United States. These successes have unfortunately been overbalanced by loses in habitats worldwide. A good example is what Bolsonaro has done to the Amazon. Also recent studies imply that the local Orca population in Puget Sound may be doomed by inbreeding (See: www.pugetsoundinstitute.org/...) and lack of their main food item (www.seattletimes.com/….)

Time is short and we have already lost much and will lose more even if we stop adding pollutants to the air and water tomorrow. The 30x30 plan of the Biden administration for the United States is a start (See: www.nrdc.org/...) but it will probably not be enough even for the U. S., and has predictably been attacked as a government land grab putting wildlife over human needs by the GOP (See: nebraskaexaminer.com/....) The Biden Administration has not been totally consistent in its environmental policies either, supporting oil drilling which will add to global climate change (See: www.pbs.org/....) To be fair they may have been forced to comply with agreements made late in the Clinton Presidency, but this leads us to another problem in that such agreements continue to erode our abilities to mitigate climate change.

Like many other scientists, especially those working in climate science and ecology, I am tired of many politicians literally working against the scientific data. With over 11,00 scientists I signed the World Scientists’ warning to humanity in 2017 (originally published in 1992 — See: en.wikipedia.org/...'%20Warning%20to,Notice%22%20written%20by%20William%20J.) The warning stands, and indeed has become more critical. The water is rising literally! The house is burning literally! What will we do to stop it before it consumes us?

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/10/2160388/-E-O-Wilson-s-Great-Idea

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