Every year dozens of new species of animals, insects and plants are recorded on this small planet. I find that kind of mind blowing. There we are sending rockets into space and yet we don't entirely know what we have down here - in our forests, our mountains, our rivers and our oceans.
It is rather tragic to think that as acres of virgin rain forest are destroyed, we frequently lose species that are gone before we have even discovered them. Collectively, we are meant to be guardians of Earth but evidence suggests that we don't care a fig. We continue to destroy what we have got.
The tiny brookesia nana chameleon shown in the top video was "discovered" just last year though almost certainly it was already known to some inhabitants of northern Madagascar. "Discovered" sometimes means recorded by Science for the first time.
Also "discovered" in 2021 was The Bright Orange Bat (myotis nimbaensis) found only in caves in the Nimba Mountains of West Africa:-
Nature is always surprising us.
ReplyDeleteBut we do not treat her kindly.
DeleteJoni Mitchell was right ... "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone."
ReplyDelete"Big Yellow Taxi" was ahead of its time.
DeleteWe are privileged to share Earth (or Shikasta as Doris Lessing called the world) with such creatures the brookesia nana chameleon and that wee grinning monster, the Bright Orange Bat.
ReplyDeleteWe are like Charles Darwin on the Galapagos Islands, staggered by the sheer fecundity of life.
Every child should be given *An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of A Scientist* by Richard Dawkins; *The Dragonfly Will Be the Messiah* by Masanobu Fukuoka; as well as *Think Like a Mountain* by Aldo Leopold*.
And of course *The Origin of Species* by the great Charles Darwin.
The destruction of rain forests and eco-systems, the pollution of oceans and rivers continues because there is money in it for developed and undeveloped countries.
This is especially worrying now that we are in what The Economist calls the post-American moment.
China will be the dominant force in the 21st Century even as the USA suffers more internal conflict, anger, division and social decay.
Yet for all its economic power China is mostly poor, unequal and polluted.
The COP26 Summit on Climate was only a couple of months ago.
The day after it ended I was asked for street directions by one of the delegates or administrators.
*Where do you come from?* I asked him.
*I am from France,* this courteous man replied, *but I emigrated to France from Brazil.*
How small the world now is, and as you say Neil, we are still discovering new species, insects and plants.
We are all citizens of Planet Earth or Shikasta.
The name Shikasta comes from the Persian word meaning *broken*.
A thoughtful response as usual and heartfelt too. Thank you John.
DeleteIsn't it absolutely mind blowing that there is still so much about this earth we live on that we not only don't know, but probably can't fathom. And the deeps of the ocean are as mysterious as the surface of Mars.
ReplyDeleteAnd so many of those mysteries will be gone before we even knew they existed.
Human beings are not nearly as brilliant as we like to think we are.
Native Americans like Australian aboriginals had far more intelligent and wholesome attitudes to the natural world. They could have reminded us how to live in Nature.
DeleteIt is mind-boggling to think how much we still don't know about our planet. I suppose the fact that we're "discovering" these creatures is actually testament to how far we've pushed into the planet's most secluded corners in recent years.
ReplyDeleteAs a species, part of our problem is that we want to know everything. It's just not natural.
DeleteWhile I agree that it is a shame that we lose species without even knowing they exist, I do temper it with thoughts of evolution. Long before humans were a thing, our planet was shedding other species too. Had it not been doing so, our anatomies might look quite a bit different or in the very least, we might be more like the ant in that we were just an insignificant species that dinosaurs eat to survive.
ReplyDeleteWhat have we evolved into? I dread to define it.
DeleteIs it too much to hope that these beautiful creatures will stay safe and multiply?
ReplyDeleteI have been watching the TV series about the threatened wildlife of Madagascar, Borneo, Hawaii and other remote islands. One of the most tragic sights is the acres of Palm Oil trees planted on land previously covered by rain forest. Why is man so intent on destroying all that is good around him?
I once flew into Kuala Lumpur and was appalled by the hectares of palm oil plantations below. I cannot answer your last question Carol.
DeleteI wonder if the world's tiniest Chameleon answers to the name Tiny?
ReplyDeleteNo. Because tiny chameleons cannot talk English.
DeleteIt distresses me when I think about our environment and all the things we do to endanger it. Even when we think we're doing thing right, if often ends up being wrong in the long run. I wish I knew the answers.
ReplyDeleteIt could easily depress the hell out of us but we turn a blind eye and carry on.
DeleteWe can only hope nature resists our extermination efforts. I believe wealth extractors refer to it as collateral damage.
ReplyDeleteThe quest for personal riches has a got a lot to do with our maltreatment of this wonderful planet.
DeleteOne can only wonder how great our planet was even 50 years ago. I can live with not knowing some species exist but I find it difficult to watch the earth's destruction now.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to say I was a destroyer of habitat once. When I first moved into my current home the patch I now call "my" garden was filled with clumping grasses. They had spines and the seed heads had prickles and I got stabbed everytime I walked past to get to the mailbox. So I had them ripped out and planted things that didn't have thorn or prickles. The blue-tongue lizards that lived in there had to find new homes, but I didn't realise until years later that they had been there, I'd thought they were living in the drain spaces and tiny hollows under the concrete paths, which is where I'd only ever seen them.
ReplyDeleteTrouble is that we as a species think we are above nature instead of part of it. And whenever something happens that reminds us of our powerlessness in the face of nature's forces, there is a huge outcry at how "hostile" nature is towards our species. Well, nature is neither hostile nor kind, it just IS.
ReplyDeleteAnd overpopulation is the main basic reason for how we exploit and destroy what we have.
Haggerty reminded me of book read ages ago 'The one straw revolution' by Masanobu Fukuoka. This book was on just allowing the plants to grow and then reseed and become next year's harvest, it was a revolutionary idea. There is no answer to how we as humans exploit the world but nature I think will have the last laugh. Look at Chernobyl turned into a green jungle and learn.
ReplyDelete