fruit flies and even 50% of our DNA is the same as found in a banana! 11 It is a profound truism that we share a common ancestry (and a current Earth environment) with a fantastically large array of other living things. TaaL: I realize it’s hard for a human to take it seriously, but you really are brothers and sisters to the trees, insects, elephants, flowers and fish. To a huge extent, it’s true that their story is your story, and their fate will be your fate. It is not surprising you are human-centric in your perceptions: squirrels are squirrel-centric, turtles think other turtles are sexy, and mynah birds fixate on things of mynah importance. Yet you have taken control of your world’s ecosystems, which makes anthropocentrism a dangerous self - indulgence. Treating other species as adversaries, resources, or worthless irrelevancies has led to what may become only the 6 th planetary mass extinction since the evolution of complex life on Earth, and that’s before the effects of CO2 and methane and other greenhouse gases have had a chance to do their damage. Trust me: you’ll miss your siblings when they’re gone.
The Bottom Line: We are related to all living creatures on planet Earth.
Mass and Minor Extinctions
Summary: Complex life is a fragile thing, and despite its best efforts it can
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