Our Lemming Side
Becoming as a species ever better-informed and lesser-educated, our increasing similarity to those furry-footed rodents is apparent and Darwin be damned. My Thursday Washington Post carries an article by Julia Eilperin “Worldwide Report Says Amphibians Are in Peril,” ecological stresses may be taking toll.
Ho hum, those old ecological stresses again. 32 percent of all amphibian species face extinction, compared with 12 percent birds and 23 percent mammals. “Canaries in the coal mine” scientists call amphibians because their permeable skin makes them particularly sensitive to environmental changes. Well, coal mining has always been a nasty business. The article goes on to say that “this has taken the scientific world completely by surprise.”
Oh, come on. Pissed them off, made them frown perhaps, in some rare cases made them collectively tap their fingers, but hardly took them by surprise.
There are no surprises left.
There are merely consequences and on our collective headlong rush-for-the…