As a child, the Natural History Museum was an important part of my life. There I saw what before only books had held: living animals.
No, I know the difference between a zoo and a museum, but while there was in our city an excuse for the former, the museum held not only a great variety of animals but also presented them as if alive: a thin rope separated me from the massive eland, the buffalo’s boss of horns glowered over me and the fangs of the leopard were at my throat. And though my mother had told me, when I wanted to run, that they were “stuffed”, nothing could reduce the impact of these beasts. Pointing to a papier-mâché model of the peninsula, she also showed me that these animals had once roamed where we now lived. “Even elephants?” I asked, when the behemoth confronted us as we rounded a corner. “Yes, even elephants.”
But there was another animal which held my attention: the blue deer. Nowhere near a kudu in height, with horns no more threatening than a cow’s and “blue” being a trial of the imagination, it was labelled “Extinct”. I knew what that word meant… but never before had I felt it: the blue deer had gone to nothingness and left a word of lament for a creature which would never live again.
Over the six decades since my encounter with that word, it has gained much traction. Now it is seen with a capital letter, courtesy of Extinction Rebellion, the movement which aims to change what it sees as the present trajectory of humanity: extinction. Using ourselves as the top card in the pack of life, its members aim to disrupt the current lifestyle of the world at large, purportedly to save ourselves and, perhaps, the rest of the planet. Its tactics are not pretty and aim at shocking people into seeing that their use of resources is gravely deleterious to the continuance of both themselves and the planet as a whole. But Extinction Rebellion are not the only people talking of extinction.
Some scientists in the field of natural organisms believe that the sixth mass extinction is currently occurring. According Yale Environment 360, the studies of a thousand researchers show that between 24 and 150 species are disappearing from the planet each day, climate change and loss of habitat being the predominant causes. There are counter-arguments: a principle of evolution is the resilience of creatures in adapting to their environment, as seen in Puerto Rico where though 99% of its tropical forests have been felled, only 7% of what has been recorded there has been lost. This pattern of loss is found generally: where habitats have been diminished, many of their organisms manage a transition to other areas.
There are matters, however, which cannot be disputed: human beings are not growing fewer and, for the great majority, whether it is 24 or 150 species which are no longer living at the stroke of each midnight, it makes no difference to them.
Horror! How can that be true? Firstly, because, though some ecologists believe there have been far more species becoming extinct than records show, not to mention those creatures (mainly invertebrates) which came and went without our even knowing it, life goes on according to the circumstances and choices which individuals make with the world as it is known to them. The extinction of the blue deer had an effect on my life, as is recorded here, but for someone who is not even aware that such a creature once grazed where he might now live, its extinction has made no difference.
Oh, but what about the Butterfly Effect, I hear. That a tiny change may shift onwards and lead to a massive outcome: Ray Bradbury’s short story A Sound of Thunder in which a time traveller to the age of dinosaurs tramples a butterfly and finds, upon his return, that the rabid right-wing President has been elected provides an example. Do I not then know that succeeding generations are being placed in jeopardy by my flying to London, eating meat and buying GMO foods? What those who subscribe to such a theory need to bear in mind is that the flight to London, the steak I enjoy and the drought-resistant GMO food also have effects, some of which are measurably beneficial.
Extinction is a loaded word. My first experience of it was an emotional one; now a knee-jerk one is being called for. Where human hubris is being cited as the reason for the planet apparently being in a state of peril, my contention is that hubris is at the root of Extinction Rebellion’s call for drastic intervention to prevent our current lifestyles. To think that human beings are the sole drivers of climate change, that it is humanity’s actions which make all the difference to the world in which we live is not seeing the wood for the trees. The world is a much bigger place than our footprint can occupy: its natural processes, its vast areas of sea, air and land are influenced by factors other than those we generate. Thinking that our actions are the driving cause of “extreme weather incidents”, overlooks the extreme natural disasters which occurred in the past. Those may seem less destructive, but that can be attributed to there being fewer people, living less densely and in fewer structures. What we do here and now does have effect, of course, but not to the extent which those who advocate a Luddite approach to progress are preaching.
The prophets of doom, of which Extinction Rebellion is the latest example, do not accept that necessity is the mother of invention. The only mother they see is Mother Earth and it is back to suckling we must go. But human beings have the capacity to adapt and come up with ways to counteract human behaviours which have dangerous outcomes. An example has been the closing of the hole in the ozone layer which aerosols were once creating. Satellite technology has led to improved agricultural yields, but such would not have happened had not the possibilities of flight been made real. To call for people to forgo flying to other parts of the globe, one of humans’ greatest achievements, is to move backwards. And how dangerous might that be? Has it been considered by those who advocate this where the trajectory of their actions may lead?
Israeli scientists recently succeeded in germinating the seeds of a date palm, said to be extinct, after they were found in a vase from nearly two thousand years ago. A highly complex, protracted method resulted in the palms growing from the seeds and bearing fruit. A gap in nature, left by the extinction of that palm, seemed to have been closed. But was there really a gap? What of those who never knew it had even existed? Did they find themselves deprived? Was life the poorer for it and is now the richer for its resurrection? The researchers who now have better CVs, the journalists a good story and merchants a sure seller, yes, they’re better off. But that might have happened anyway: researchers do aim for better jobs, journalists for a good story and merchants for what sells. That’s the business of life, using things at hand, in this case something that has come back to life. Regardless of those seeds being revitalised, life would have carried on.
Extinction has a dimension that does not sweetly fit the circle of life: its end is nothingness. An extinction also says more about what caused it than what is lost. It is due to humans shooting first and not asking questions afterwards that the blue deer is no more with us. But not all extinctions are ascribable to our presence here, something which advocates of Extinction Rebellion need to recognise. Our presence and progress can and do add value to life when we take responsibility for our actions and exercise our ability to solve our problems.
- According to Wikipedia, four taxidermic models of a blue deer exist, none of which is found in Cape Town’s natural history museum. I strongly recollect one there, but the decades may have decayed my memory.
A thoughtful essay, Roger. I began as a supporter of Extinction Rebellion, but over time their increasingly ludicrous and self regarding antics alienated my support. (What the deuce does a pink yacht have to do with the issue of extinction? What in the name of all that is relevant do those Handmaiden groupies dressed in scarlet robes think they’re telling us?) And, like yourself, I would opine that Man – while certainly a major cause of changing global weather and temperature phenomena – is not the sole cause of these changes. However, this is not a get-out clause for Mankind: we ought to be looking at ways to substantially reduce our capacity to out-breed the Planet’s ability to support both ourselves and the many other species in Creation, and we ought (if only for our spirits’ sake) to substantially reduce our consumption of natural resources. But such a move would of course require a revolutionary reset of our present economic system, with its lust for eternal growth and an ever rising consumption of resources
I have been fortunate enough to have lived and worked in one of the last of the great wilderness regions south of the Congo, I know that when such an option is no longer open to your grandchildren (due to the pressure of ever rising Human population numbers having destroyed the last few pockets of wilderness on the Planet), then your grandchildren in particular, and Humankind at large, will have experienced a spiritual loss so profound that we will no longer be recognisably Human.
At least, not by my terms.