by James Hills

Created on: June 11, 2010

The argument over whether the planet needs saving is a complex one. Various species may be lost as the climate fluctuates, but this has happened throughout the existence of the planet and is arguably something that doesn’t need to be altered. If species die out due to changes in their environment, then should they be saved, or should we just stand by and allow natural selection to occur? Who are we as a race to decide which species lives or dies?

Personally I believe we should protect bio-diversity, as ecology as a science is very young, and we do not yet know how the loss of a certain species might adversely affect other species within its environment, with many mutualisms and commensalisms yet to be properly observed, we simply cannot gamble and allow species to become extinct if we are able to prevent such an event occurring.

These losses may be put down to human influence, some species have been hunted into extinction or close to it. And others have been adversely affected, for instance on Mauritius after the Dodo birds were hunted to extinction, the Calvaria tree lost it's method of germination. The Dodo's would ingest the large seeds of the Calvaria tree, and their rough gullets would abrade the seed, which enabled germination. This was noticed as on the island a recent study found that there were no Calvaria trees under around 200 years old. While this loss for the Calvaria tree of its mutual partner the Dodo could have meant a double extinction, humanity was able to stop it with very simple means. Turkeys. These large birds were introduced and could ingest the Calvaria seeds and abrade them, and young Calvaria trees are now growing.

That is an act of extremely simple scientific observation leading to the saviour of a plant species, enabling the biodiversity of Mauritius to be maintained, especially important as it is an isolated island.

Moving onto the factors influencing the world other than direct human manipulation, there is the popular modern fear of global warming.

The idea that humanity has caused, or at least attributed to global warming is based on sound science, but the effect we as a species has had is no greater than that of what may have been caused on a relatively regular scale due to volcanic eruptions or even just weather cycles on their own.

There are many ways that science can offset the changes it has already caused, with the technology in place to actually mimic photosynthesis to capture carbon from the air, with the added benefit

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