"On Creation"

In his recent book... E.O. Wilson (Harvard research professor "the father of sociobiology and biophilia" - "the most acute student of ants among contemporary scholars")...

Hopes Christians Will Join in Preserving All God's Creation



...He'll reach out to anyone if he thinks they can help the natural world -- that many-splendored universe that long ago, as he roamed fields and swamps of the Gulf Coast, replaced religion as a focus for his spiritual impulses.

He summons a favorite saying from Camus that evokes a lifetime's quest: "A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."

"Pastor, we need your help," Wilson writes. "The Creation -- living Nature -- is in deep trouble." At the present rate of destructive human activity, "half the species of plants and animals on Earth could be either gone or at least fated for early extinction by the end of the century.

...By 2050, according to estimates Wilson cites, climate change alone could account for "extinction of a quarter of the species of plants and animals on the land." And that's without factoring in other causes of species loss: habitat destruction, invasive species, pollution, human overpopulation and overharvesting.

One consequence of inaction, Wilson notes, is that in less than 20 years, the decline in freshwater ecosystems could leave 40 percent of the world's population facing chronic water scarcity. Peter Seligmann, CEO of Conservation International -- on whose board Wilson sits -- outlines another this way: "Loss of forest means loss of insects; loss of insects means loss of pollinators; loss of pollinators means loss of food, crops . . . "

The good news? Much progress could be made by protecting what conservation biologists call "hot spots," those areas -- covering less than 3 percent of the Earth's surface -- where endangered species are most highly concentrated.

The bad news? As a threat, biodiversity loss is much harder to explain than climate change (though the science behind biodiversity hasn't generated as much controversy). This complexity makes it more difficult to get people's attention.