Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
All of this should be enough to convince the most hard-headed amongst us that it is
very much in our own interest to maintain as much of our planet's native biodiversity
as possible; but these utilitarian arguments for protecting biodiversity may not prevent
it from being seriously degraded, for ultimately, in the words of Stephen Jay Gould, we
may not be able to save what we do not love. If we are ever to develop a worldview
that has any chance of bringing about genuine ecological sustainability, we will need to
move away from valuing everything around us only in terms of what we can get out of it,
recognising instead that all life has intrinsic value irrespective of its use to us. Scientif-
ic and economic arguments such as those we have been exploring for protecting biod-
iversity can help a great deal, but on their own they are not enough. We need, as a matter
of the utmost urgency, to recover the ancient view of Gaia as a fully integrated, living
being consisting of all her life-forms, air, rocks, oceans, lakes and rivers, if we are ever
to halt the latest, and possibly greatest, mass extinction.
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