Skunky wrote in message ...
Unfortunately Chuck, my memory doesn't go that far back! As you
pointed out 'these are some of the recent ones' I should have been more
specific, the past few hundred years! We have no hard evidence of what
went on 460 million years ago to give a clear picture, just fossils and
a lot of 'maybe's from our guessing scientists.

All I know, of the 33 years I've been around, species declines and
habitat loss have been as a direct result of human interference and are
continuing right now.

Stuart


--
Skunky

'Peace On Earth.....And In The Water'
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Ah, but Chuck's research demonstrates a respect for nature's
complexity that alarmists pointing to recent "trends" don't share
because it wouldn't yield the sort of hyperbole that keeps such groups
afloat with dollars and impressionable "activists." If you must look
to "recent" history, remember "global cooling"? In the 1970's
activist science was up in arms about the "man-made" cooling trend
that was engulfing the planet. Now fast forward to today and global
warming and the shrill voices that say we've sealed our doom by not
signing the Kyoto treaty. According to James Schlesinger "We cannot
tell how much of the recent warming trend can be attributed to the
greenhouse effect and how much to other factors. In climate change,
we have only a limited grasp of the overall forces at work.
Uncertainties have continued to abound--and must be reduced. Any
approach to policy formation under conditions of such uncertainty
should be taken only on an exploratory and sequential basis. A
premature commitment to a fixed policy can only proceed with fear and
trembling." Now compare climate modeling to modeling the biological
health of the planet, to include sustainability, evolution and species
extinction. Wow. If we need to be humble about climate change, then
uproar over a glowing fishie or "species decline and habitat loss"
really does need to be put in context. The point is, ethical
stewardship of the environment demands that we, have sufficient
humility regarding our own ability to understand and model something
as complex as evolution, and accept that we are part of the process
and not an alien interloper.
Granted, this position doesn't fit well on a protest sign and won't
let you sound earnest enough when chatting up that Radford undergrad
at the antiglobalization rally, but maybe the world would be better
off without another puppet-filled parade of upper middle class angst.

off topic, but now off my soap box and for the record, I probably
wouldn't buy one of the glowing fishes unless I was going for a "mod"
tank filled with castles and air bubbling divers and skeletons with
treasure chests.