Life on our planet has suffered a series of devastating mass extinction events. These have killed off uncountable species, and even threatened to end life on Earth altogether. Survivors: Nature’s Indestructible Creatures I: The Great Dying, Richard Fortey, BBC 2013
Amidst the vicissitudes of the earth’s surface, species cannot be immortal, but must perish, one after another, like the individuals which compose them. There is no possibility of escaping from this conclusion. Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology
In evolutionary perspective of our place in the history of the earth reminds us that Homo sapiens has occupied the planet for the tiniest fraction of that planet’s four and a half thousand million years of existence. In many ways we are a biological accident, the product of countless propitious circumstances. As we peer back through the fossil record, through layer upon layer of long-extinct species, many of which thrived far longer than the human species is ever likely to do, we are reminded of our mortality as a species. There is no law that declares the human animal to be different, as seen in this broad biological perspective, from any other animal. There is no law that declares the human species to be immortal. Richard E Leakey
My heart is broken in the face of the stupidity of my species. Joni Mitchell
We all have a responsibility to protect endangered species, both for their sake and for the sake of our own future generations. Loretta Lynch
Just as we reject racism, sexism, ageism, and heterosexism, we reject speciesism. The species of a sentient being is no more reason to deny the protection of this basic right than race, sex, age, or sexual orientation is a reason to deny membership in the human moral community to other humans. Gary L Francione
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. Rudyard Kipling
We’ll lose more species of plants and animals between 2000 and 2065 than we’ve lost in the last 65 million years. If we don’t find answers to these problems, we’re gonna be victims of this extinction event that we’re at fault for. Paul Watson
The rate of species destruction right now is about the level of sixty-five million years ago. Noam Chomsky, lecture Durham University May 2014, ‘Will We Survive the 21st Century?’
Polling studies that show that concern about global warming in the United States is well below the global norm. ibid.
While indigenous people are trying to avert the disaster, in sharp contrast the race to the cliff is led by the most advanced, educated, wealthy, privileged societies in the world. ibid.
For the first time in human history we are facing realistic questions of species survival, at least in any decent form. Noam Chomsky, lecture 7th June 2011, ‘The Evolving Global Order: Prospects and Opportunities’
The ancient rain forests of Borneo ... I’m travelling in the footsteps of one of the great forgotten heroes of natural philosophy – Alfred Russel Wallace. Bill Bailey’s Jungle Hero I, BBC 2013
This geeky Victorian collector changed our understanding of life on Earth. Along with Charles Darwin he came up with one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time – the theory of evolution by natural selection. ibid.
He is an unlikely hero. ibid.
Freelance collecting was how Wallace funded his far-flung expeditions. ibid.
Wallace discovered about five thousand new species. ibid.
His adventure would last eight long years. ibid.
In January 1856 he left Borneo and sailed more than three thousand kilometres via Singapore, Bali and Lombok to the island of Sulawesi. Bill Bailey’s Jungle Hero II: Wallace in the Spice Islands
This dramatic boundary would become known as The Wallace Line. ibid.
When he wasn’t eating potential specimens Wallace was sending them home to sell to museums and private enthusiasts. ibid.
Isolated animals became new and distinct species. Islands are natural laboratories for evolution. ibid.
Seeing these birds of paradise – these entirely new birds of paradise – must have been an extraordinary culmination of his quest. ibid.
Vicious bouts of malarial fever kept him confined to his hut for weeks. ibid.
In this struggle for existence tiny variations matter. ibid.
Wallace knew immediately he had cracked it ... He just popped it in the post ... When Darwin read him it sent him into meltdown. ibid.
The Darwin/Wallace Theory of Natural Selection was announced to the world in London in July 1858. Wallace was still away searching for birds of paradise. ibid.
Wallace was robbed. ibid.
Each individual is a species unto himself. Rudolf Steiner
Whether we like it or not we are animals and should be studied as such. But this doesn’t mean we are the same as other animals. Every species is as unique. Desmond Morris, author The Naked Ape
The Permian Extinction: in which 95% of the species in the oceans died, and about 80% of those on land. Kim Stanley Robinson, author Sixty Days and Counting
We survived. 99% of all the species that ever existed didn’t. They were wiped out in a series of global catastrophes; disasters brought life to the verge of extinction. Four and a half billion years ago the Earth collided with another planet; the impact nearly destroyed our world, but instead it made it a home. This is the story of our planet’s difficult birth. Tony Robinson, Catastrophe I: Birth of the Planet, Channel 4 2008
The world has suffered from a series of global catastrophes. Disasters that have wiped out 99% of all the species that have ever lived. But the forces that wiped out many of our ancestors are still at work today. All we have to protect us is a wisp of atmosphere, and all we have to stand on is a thin crust. Mankind could be the next dominant species to face extinction. This is the story of how vulnerable we really are. Tony Robinson, Catastrophe V: Survival Earth