Given that we are just another animal species we have no right to wipe out other species.
The only thing that separates us from other animal species is the fact that we are the only species destroying our own environment for our personal gratification.
It would be wonderful if we could change and limit ourselves in our passage towards destroying this planet, our only home.

“And - the crucial question - can an entire species learn to shape its behavior, to its own cost, for the good of other species? I ask because we need to know now. “

If “we need” to know now, then we would be doing it for our own need, not for the good of other species. Thus no problem arises in terms of inter-specific altruism or evolutionary theory.

“Nor did we - whoever we are - choose to swell our own numbers from some 3.7 billion to roughly 7.2 billion.”

If you define “we” to mean Verlyn and I, then obviously “we” didn’t choose to swell our own numbers to 7.2. billion. “The species” as a whole is not a decision-making entity.

“And I began to wonder: In what index of human motives or emotions - the forces that shape our behavior - will we find the one that truly binds us to the other species on this planet? Is there anything inside us that might allow us to behave altruistically - and consciously so - toward the rest of life on earth?”

Yes, and it’s both obvious and Darwinian. You need to knowingly and willingly and accept your own death, and that of your descendants, for the sake of other species.

There’s a very simple test you can do, to see whether you are talking sense or luxurious nonsense. According to your own thesis, our own species’ use of resources impacts other species negatively. Remember most are microscopic. And both in biology and in economics, the critical decisions as to viability are always made at the margins, in other words, as concerns each additional unit under consideration, not the whole class. That’s why it’s nonsense to talk about who we are “as a species”.

Now. Ask yourself this. Let’s suppose you have a choose between preserving your life and your family's, or that of the last member of a species of microscopic bug, or for that matter any other member of any other species.

Which do you choose?

Half the number of species since? Who does this guy think he's kidding? Just try listing the number of identified species that have gone extinct in that period, and compare that to the number of identified species.. its nothing like half..
claim relies on dodgy land clearance stats..

This website provides an interesting perspective on the non-human inhabitants of this mostly non-human world.
http://animalliberty.com
As does this essay (and zoo):
http://sacredcamelgardens.com/wordpress/wisdom/observe-non-humans-and-learn

It may surprise you, Jardine, but there is a big difference between killing people who are already here (or allowing them to die) and not having that 5th or 6th child, especially since a great many of the world's pregnancies aren't wanted in the first place (see the Guttmacher Institute website). Why do you assume that anyone pointing out the problem favours the first alternative? That said, the author could have mentioned that wasteful consumption and unnecessarily dirty technology are also part of the problem, although if the population is big enough, it doesn't matter if per capita consumption is low: I = PAT (Impact on the environment is a product of the population, average affluence of that population, and a factor representing the "dirtiness" of the technology used to achieve that level of affluence).

Curmudgeon, the author of this article gives a link that leads to the full report, in which the authors give their methodology. Have you read it? The Zoological Society of London was one of the partners in the WWF report, and it is hard to see why this organisation would put its name to something based on "dodgy land clearing statistics" or how such statistics could be used to calculate losses of fish populations in the oceans, for example.

Another point that Verlyn Klinkenborg could have brought up is the effect on humans of loss of biodiversity. As just one example, there was an article in this month's Scientific American on threats to coffee production from some very serious pests and diseases that are busily spreading around the world, facilitated by the low diversity in the coffee genome.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-science-avert-a-coffee-crisis/

The scientists working on this problem would dearly love to investigate the wild relatives of coffee for genes that might help, but they are rapidly disappearing with land clearing.

No!
Rhrosty.