What we need in these times of economic meltdown (quote: pretty much any UK newspaper this week) is something to cheer us up, something to remind us that there’s more to life than interest rates and liquidity and interbank lending. Something which will make us sit back and say: “You know what, we’re not such a bad race, us humans. Look at the wonderful things we’ve done to help our furry friends”, or some such. Unfortunately, this week we discovered that at least 25% of the planet’s land mammals and a third of those at sea are at risk of extinction. Never mind the future of Gordon Gecko, the actual gecko (or to be more precise, the Paraguanan Ground Gecko – now critically endangered) and thousands of other species are facing an unprecedented threat, according to a report issued by International Union for the Conservation of Nature and its IUCN Red List.
You can read the full report for yourself here and so I won’t go into the genuinely depressing detail of those beautiful, important and iconic species which future generations may never see, but there is a serious link here between the financial crisis and the preservation of the natural world. When times get tough, people – perhaps naturally – get selfish. Their primary concerns become making ends meet and ensuring they can maintain their standard of living. However, there has been much talk recently of breaking down the greedy societal infrastructure which has spawned this crisis. Maybe we can use this as a spur to increase our sense of fairness beyond our own species. If there is a real sense that the “me” culture of excess has hit the wall and the hangover is kicking in, then maybe as we wallow on the soon–to-be-repossessed sofa and look back with that morning after sense of regret, we can start to consider the wider world as well as the City.
There is no doubt that our futures are increasingly linked to the ecosystems which are under threat. It might not be immediately obvious, but we need diversity to ensure the planet is on our side as we battle climate change in the coming years. Destruction of habitat and species upsets the balance we desperately need to preserve. So, we can be selfish if we must, but we need to realise that protection of our environment is, if nothing else, vital for our own interests. So, even if we are inclined to let the former banking “masters of the universe” be hoist by their own petards, let’s not use this financial crisis (see the BBC for the full logo version of this phrase - lots of red and downward pointing arrows) to retreat into our own lives to the exclusion of the wider world. In the environment, as in finance and commerce, a practical, regulated and co-operative world view, not self-pitying navel gazing, will bring us out of our current troubles and towards a brighter, fairer and more caring future.
(By the way, if you really need a piece of good news, take some comfort in the fact that the IUCN report discovered that 5% of currently threatened species have a stable or rising population. See, we can make a difference if we try!)
Gecko (brighter future?)
Gecko (endangered species?)