ThirstyFish

I don't go out to photograph wildlfe any more. I want to, but I don't. It pains me.

Wildlife news is not pretty. Giraffes lost forty percent of their population in just the last 15 years. Sea Lions are experiencing an "unusual mortality event". Frog, Toad and Salamander populations are plummeting at an alarming rate. These are just some of the recent wildlife news. In fact, the world has lost half of its wildlife in the past 40 years. And, plants do not fare better; One in five plant species faces extinction.

The most wicked thing parents can do is to make their children pay for their mistakes. And that is exactly what we are doing - ensuring that future generations pay for our mistakes. We take for granted that progress, jobs, growth, science, technology, industry are "good pursuits", without having any real sense of our dependence to the land, air and water, and to other species. We put our faith in science and technology and hope that they will solve our problems in the future. This is analogous to chain smoking while pregnant, with the hope that medicine will come up with a cure for lung cancer before we develop it.

To avoid "unusual mortality events" such as omnicide, we first have to be conservative. The best way to cure cancer it to do everything to prevent it, where we can. Similarly, the best way to safeguard life on earth, including that of the human species, is to be very conservative. The preservation of life and the environment has to be primary to economic growth, technological progress, profits and the personal pursuit of happiness - not the other way around. You would think all those experts, politicians and scientist can apprehend this self-evident "fact", but very few actually do. Instead, they put profit, progress and jubilation ahead of life itself.