Life on Planet Earth: Easy Come, Easy Go

Life is a great deal more fragile than we give it credit for. Many, many species go extinct each year. Regrettably or not. But this does not mean that we humans should feel guilty about the many extinctions that happen on the planet; nor does it mean we should necessarily take drastic measures to stop life forms from disappearing by offering special protection for them. Species were coming and going long before we started to impact the world, and will continue to do so - with or without us.

Our planet is a silent cemetery of species that we forget have come and gone before us, some leaving a fossil record, some not. The earth's biodiversity over time is far greater than we may imagine. It is estimated that of all the living species that have called earth home at some point, close to 99.5% of them are extinct. They are gone, hardly any of which was the result of humans messing up the environment. Caring about other living species and our potential impact upon them is considerate, but there is no need as a species to feel morally responsible for every single organism on the endangered species list. That's nothing more than posturing for political correctness.