For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Uncounted Extinctions and the (Missed?) Opportunities to Prevent Them

Abstract

John Donne did not pen his immortal lines in the face of climate change and biodiversity loss and yet his meditation on ‘For whom the bell tolls’ can all too easily be applied to the situation facing humanity in the Anthropocene. ‘No man is an island’ – indeed we are not, acutely aware as we now are of the life support systems that ‘spaceship Earth’ provides us and the impact that our actions have on them. As for ‘never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee’ – with each passing extinction (some noted, most not) we diminish ourselves and increase the likelihood of the bell tolling for us as we undermine the ecosystem services which support us and risk triggering extinction cascades. A much more recent piece of art and one created in response to this situation is Luke Jerram’s Extinction Bell, currently on display in the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh (see Figures 1 and 2). The bell tolls at random intervals between 150 and 200 times a day with each toll sounding the death knell for a species. Jerram designed Extinction Bell in response to a message released by the United Nations Environment