LC speaker: Cooperation can save world By Andrea Lovejoy Editor

The 21st century will be known as the “Century of the Environmental Bottleneck,” and its theme should be “Leave No Child Indoors,” famed scientist Edward O. Wilson said here Thursday.

A two-time Pulitizer Prize winner for his books “The Ants” and “On Human Nature,” Wilson has received 75 awards in international recognition for his contributions to science and humanity. He was guest speaker at the dinner meeting of the Friends of the LaGrange College Library at Lafayette Garden Inn.

An Alabama native turned Harvard scholar, Wilson read from his latest book, “The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth,” which calls on leaders of religion and science to “set aside their differences” and work together to “save the Creation, capital C.”

“Living nature” is in deep trouble, Wilson said, and if present trends continue, half the species on earth could be gone by the end of the century.

“Surely we can agree that each species is a masterpiece of biology and work together to save them,” Wilson said.

The 21st century represents a critical “bottleneck” in the history of the biosphere, and what actions are taken in coming decades will determine what type world emerges from the “bottleneck,” Wilson said.

Citing example after example of the earth's amazing biodiversity, Wilson said a single tree in the tropicial rainforests can contain up to 42 species of ants – as many as will be found in all of the British Isles combined.

The human mouth can contain up to 700 species of bacteria and a scientist could spend a lifetime studying nothing but roundworms and still not complete the task.

“That's how little we know,” about the incredible diversity of nature, he said.

The loss of habitat, as in the disappearing rainforests, has led to the extinction or near extinction of many of the species, Wilson said, but the good news is that the world has the resources and ability to save itself.

Next week, a massive project to catalog all the earth's species – more than 1.8 million of them – will be announced.

“We can do it in a generation if we make a scientific moonshot of it,” he said.

He expressed his strong conviction that the problems facing the environment can be solved. The central challenge, he said, is to maintain an “endurable quality of life while preserving as much of the natural world as possible.”

Wilson closed his presentation by reminding the audience of naturalist Rachel Carson's famous call to take a child to the seashore and let them explore a tide pool. A naturalist will emerge.

“Instead of Leave No Child Behind, our message should be Leave No Child Indoors,” he said.

 

Courtesy: The LaGrange Daily News, April 13, 2001.