Death of the Planet: "every year, natural habitats and dependent vertebrate populations decrease by an average of 1.1 percent".

The source for the quote in the title is an article I read on CNN this morning, discussing the possibility that anywhere between ten and a quarter of the world's bird species are likely to be extinct by the end of the century (year 2100).

The article ends with this summary from another recent report on extinction probabilities:

"In November the World Conservation Union reported that it found 12 percent of all bird species were threatened with extinction, along with nearly one-fourth of the world's mammals, a third of amphibians and 42 percent of all turtles and tortoises."

This is the world we are leaving to our children. I would bet that most citizens of the United States and other countries would rather these extinctions be averted, and yet this is not a prominent topic of discussion in our public dialogue, among our leaders, or in the media... it is likely that the Scott/Laci Petersen murder case generated more coverage and bigger headlines than every report on this topic in the last decade, combined. Very sad.

This needs to change - and the only way to do it, is to take action yourself... talk about this to your friends, demand your local media cover these stories, demand your elected representatives at every level address these issues, and raise them in every public forum (such as this) that you can.

--Thomas Leavitt