Some thoughts on Biodiversity and Sustainability

Abstract

Life began on this planet some four billion years ago. Since that time the planet has experienced many changes in climate and biodiversity. In the view of Vladimir Vernadsky [1] we live in a thin film of biologically processed matter on the surface of the planet. At the present time our planet is changing more rapidly than in any of the previous cycles and this rapidity is primarily due to human activities. Of course in the past there have been many extreme events like meteorite impacts, but in general the natural changes are slow. With the beginning of agriculture after the last ice age the pace of change accelerated. Although organisms have come and gone in the history of our planet our biodiversity is now under a threat of decline that is unprecedented.