July 11, 2008
Edward Wilson vs. George Carlin
BY: efrost
I read a piece over at Dot Earth that discussed two very different takes on the issue of threatened, endangered or extinct species. Wilson’s Law, coined by Edward Wilson, a writer and biologist, says, in essence, “If you save the living environment and the biodiversity that we have left, you will also automatically save the physical environment, too.” In other words, we must work to save the Earth’s physical environment, as well as its many species. Another take on the subject comes from the late comedian George Carlin. He says (in much more colorful language than I can write here) that animal species have been dying for as long as the Earth has existed and that we, as humans, are far too self-important about our “save this species” and “save the planet” antics. Although Carlin makes a good point that we shouldn’t be attempting to manage Earth when we can’t even manage our own species, I personally I think it’s worth a try as I would like to have species like the endangered leatherback turtle around for a long, long time. Don’t you?I’ll stick with Carlin on other issues, though, like the importance of…stuff. (For the uninitiated, see YouTube.)