Biodiversity seen to be in deep trouble

Biodiversity seen to be in deep trouble

uk.reuters.com
(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 24/4/08 by Quantum_Squirrel]

30,000 edible plants and western society is based on 12 of them ... speaks volumes really.

My greatest worry is the cure for cancer is in one of these plants that we may lose. ( or any other serious ilness cure).

And why does this guy say we only have a few decades to do this ..what does he know that we don't.. what is gonna happen in the next 20-30 years .. is it projected all 30,000 will dissapear by then ? and if so why didn't we lose 30,000 species between 1970 and 2000 ??!?? or did we?

also i would be interested to know the actual cycle of natural plant slelection.. is this normal do species dissapear all the time? and new ones appear? or do new species of plants only appear when we modify them? basically could this also be a natural process and man is just accelerating them at the moment?.

i am still out on the global warming issue effecting this both sides of argument have gaping holes. and it go's to figure that when plants cover most of the planet (excluding water) is this not natural ..

And eventually when humans cover most of the planet we may have to rely on just a dozen or so species that yield the best gains to feed a massive worldwide population..

Also it says many beliecve this is the start of the 6th species wipe out on the planet??

6th??!! er what ere the other 5? were they all plant related or are we talking dinosaurs here? .. if so how could man , GW etc etc possibly have effected the mass species wipe outs centuries ago... maybe its a natural planetary cycle as i believe many 'weird' things we are seeing now days actually are.

just a few thoughts...

[edit:add additional thoughts on 6th great species wipe out)

uk.reuters.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 24/4/08 by Quantum_Squirrel]

Without worrying about whether or not species die-out is a natural thing, common sense will tell you that it's better to have thousands of species of edible plants to choose from (or fall back on) than just a few. The old adage of putting all your eggs in one basket applies.
I would rather have the naturally occurring plants than the artificially bio-engineered ones because the latter are unknown in terms of long term health and viability.
The same argument applies to animals an insects. What a shame that in future kids will only read about lions and tigers the way we read about dinosaurs now. There was a PBS special on the other night that showed how already in one African park all the elephants lions and hippos have been replaced with a plethora of baboons! How nice.