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.

As a race we can't even stop people killing people unless there is an ulterior motive like oil, or resources involved.

Regrettable animals as such do not have a valuable quantifiable value so no humans will not protect them over there own greed.

Humans are not observably different from all other life forms in anything except clever toolmaking. So of course we will not stop until either nature or the planet stops us in some way, just like all the other extinct species. It's no big deal...except for those being extinguished. But we're perfectly happy to coalesce with the USA and the UK and the rest of the wealthy mob and extinguish the lives of millions of humans that get in our way, so it seems a bit churlish to weep and wail that we're going to have our lights put out too.

Well Verlyn didn't get far before the garbage started. Has anyone actually proved sufficient self awareness in bees for one stinging an enemy to know it is about to rip own it's guts out.

Next it is a survey by WWF for gods sake. Everyone on earth knows they are about the most dishonest thing the species has ever done. Taking one of their bits of bumph seriously is on a par with believing in all the Greek gods.

Now Verlyn I knowingly feed & water 2 horses a cow, 2 dogs, 3 cats, 4 magpies, [7 actually with the last hatchings], 5 butcher birds, half a dozen rosellas, 4 topknot pigeons, & quite a few other seed & nectar eating birds. I usually have about 30 kangaroos here each day.

I supply 2 native bee hives with pollen with my all year flowering plants, as well as many butterflies & moths with nectar & leaves to chew. I also supply a home for fish turtles & eels in a couple of dams, & goldfish in my pond. I also supply breeding sights for all these, plus wrens & sunbirds.

I feed some millions of ants, mice, rats & flies, although I am fighting back against the rats & fruit flies.

I cause the breeding of hundreds of livestock & poultry a year to supply my table.

I will guarantee it is only my existence on this 20 acres that allows so much wildlife to prosper here, & this is only what I see daily. There are many more prospering here, that I rarely see. When I wander in the native bush across the river, there is much less wildlife, as it provides much less year round food.

I know it might be hard residents of a New York high rise to have any real idea of the world, & what happens in it. I suggest you come out & join us real people some time. You just may learn which way is up.

"According to a new study from the World Wildlife Fund, the population of aquatic and terrestrial animals on this planet has dropped by half since 1970."

And since this is clearly nonsense on stilts, the rest of the article can be safely disregarded.

'We've always insisted on our specialness. '

And the idiotic belief in evolution reduces us to behaving like animals. Wake up, most have to the gw scam which attempted to use the same methods 'scientist' do to brainwash people with the idiotic evolution theory/religion.

Given that we live in a world that is polluted, poisoned, suffering from climate change, radiated by nuclear waste and depleted uranium, struggling to survive the killing of the trees, suffering from obesity or starvation, encountering over-fishing and the effects of herbicides and toxic chemicals and living in constant fear because of nuclear weapons, etc, etc, the question posed in the title seems rather ridiculous.

Humans are a black plague, the worst one the Earth has ever seen. Their greatest achievement is destroying much of our beautiful planet in a couple of centuries and washing it in the blood of the meek!

It's time for another Great Flood and a New Start!

Well said, David G

runner,

"And the idiotic belief in evolution reduces us to behaving like animals..."

Animals don't run around the landscape massacring their own kind indiscriminately - that's a human specialty (save for a few varieties of ants - maybe rats)

In his book "Hegemony or Survival" Noam Chomsky cites the opinion of biologist Ernst Mayr. Chomsky says that Mayr speculated that the human form of intellectual organization may not be favoured by selection.Mayr wrote,:

"The history of life on earth refutes the claim that it is better to be smart than stupid, at least judging from the success of beetles and bacteria." Mayr also pointed out that the average life expectancy of a species was 100,000 years.
Chomsky continues on the theme: "We are entering a period of human history that may provide an answer to the question of whether it is better to be smart than stupid. The most hopeful prospect is that the question will not be answered: if It receives a definite answer, the answer can only be that humans were a kind of "biological error," using their allotted 100,000 years to destroy themselves and, in the process, much else...Humans have demonstrated that capacity throughout their history, dramatically in the past few hundred years, with an assault on the environment that sustains life, on the diversity of more complex organisms, and with cold and calculated savagery, on each other as well."

You're right - Humans are in a class of their own.

Divergence
"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?"

Why do you assume that the author was directing his remarks only at people who are having a 5th or 6th child, more like it?

As you can see from the remarks, the human-haters are legion. Not willing to practise what they preach - too much of everyone else, but just enough of them - but certainly willing to use their anti-human liturgy as a pretext for a bit (a lot) of *non-altruistic* action of their own.

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule."
Mencken

These people are fakes. The author's pretended concern for altruism is fake, as is that of the environmental movement in general. They are every bit as selfish, greedy and grasping as their fellow man. Here they are, tapping away on their computers made of rare earths and depletable resources and fossil fuels, and moaning about how dreadful human life is. Only they are more selfish, greedy and grasping than the plebs they complain about, who only want to be able to get on with their life, because these nauseating fakes want to use the State to benefit their own values at others' expense, backed up by force, else no question of policy arises.

Poirot

reread your post. You could not possibly believe such fantasy.

Jardine,

I am saddened when someone expresses a real hatred of people, but that doesn't mean that we should chuckle indulgently when people do really stupid things and maybe drag us down with them. People have always been able to damage their local environment, but until now we haven't had the numbers or the technology to seriously destabilise our global life support systems. Warnings about losses of biodiversity along with a host of other environmental problems are coming thick and fast from the scientists in the relevant fields. These are mainstream scientists who publish in top peer-reviewed journals such as "Science" and "Nature", not fringe greenies.

You are a lawyer. If a biologist started to make pronouncements on how the law should be interpreted, you would most likely proclaim him to be an idiot. Why then do you people believe that you understand the biologist's field better than he does? What we are doing to the planet is becoming very obvious from satellite images, and it is hard to believe that there won't be some very negative consequences, including massive losses of populations of other species. See, for example, this time-lapse video of Amazon deforestation from Landsat images since the 1970s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBIA0lqfcN4

Here is the destruction of the Aral Sea by the Soviet Union

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbSkRS8Ih7o

I don't feel at all guilty about using a computer, although I will take it for recycling at the end of its life. If you read economic historian Gregory Clark's "A Farewell to Alms", he has a lot to say about the Malthusian trap societies of early modern Europe. He makes the point that the palace at Versailles and other extravagances of the French aristocracy actually cost the peasants nothing. The peasants were breeding up to the carrying capacity allowed by their environment and technology, so without the aristocrats, there would have just been more peasants, every bit as hungry and every bit as miserable. Unfortunately, the only dysfunctional culture that you have any hope of changing is your own.

David G as you feel that way, do feel free to top yourself to start the trend.

Such an action would definitely do some good for the gene pool of the human species, although I doubt it would do much for the rest of the fauna. Only those who understand English are actually likely to be depressed by your constant stream of misery, & even then, only those as foolish as you.

Runner, I've never read a single thing that you've ever said that would be worth repeating.

Your brain, such as it is, has been in neutral for decades and is completely unused.

I hope that mankind, one day, will become intelligent. People who believe in gods and angels will never be!

Them's the breaks!

Divergence
Biologists do not comment on human values in their capacity as biologists, because biology no more qualifies them so to comment than anyone else.

Positive scientists too often falsely assume that the all-important human values are just mere technical details to be solved unproblematically after enough power has been centralised in the hands of government. Their assumptions are wrong.

Those who trumpet that human use of natural resources is immoral should show some moral leadership and stop using them. Until they do, the rest of us can be excused for dismissing their blandishments as so much pious nonsense.

Jardine,

"Human values" might change if people understood the long-term implications of what they are doing. A lot of them care about their children and grandchildren. Biologists can certainly comment on that.

Yes, there are kleptocratic governments that do dreadful things, but you can't blame all the world's problems on government. It doesn't matter whether the stupidity is being driven by the government or by the people themselves. For example, the Rwandan government has introduced programs that have greatly improved child survival. They also have also made efforts to give everyone access to family planning. Unfortunately, many people have refused to take advantage of it, so the same inadequate amount of food has to be shared among more siblings.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/19/rwanda-malnutrition-children

Apart from senseless waste, whether consumption of material resources is a problem depends on how many people are doing it. It is hard to feel guilty if you aren't responsible for the overpopulation.

Divergence,
Thanks for your post, but I can't help feeling you're in the wrong site if you're looking for rational discussion. This is the place where freethinkers meet bigots mired in the morass of their dogmatism and childhood indoctrination. And that's the problem with the internet. instead of promulgating ideas, insight, wisdom and debate, it has provided enclaves for people with similar views to reinforce their beliefs and prejudices, without ever meeting different ideas. That's the tragedy of the death of a free press. there is now no mass medium whatever that provides all readers/viewers/listeners with a wide variety of factual, unbiased information. Endless war, overpopulation, pollution and the destruction of the natural world in which we evolved is the inevitable consequence.

Around here the only wildlife that is in decline is native wildlife.
The foxes are thriving (although not the ones I shot last night), the feral cats are multiplying, the bunnies are on the increase as are the feral pigs and the deer, in fact last Friday I had to brake heavily to avoid a very healthy looking doe that decided to run in front of the car. She was in a place, on the Gwydir Highway, where I've never seen deer before.