[Taxacom] Extrapolation

[Richard Pyle]

Fair enough -- "just" belies the magnitude of the task (which I agree is
daunting).

But whatever the root cause (and I agree with you that human population is
pretty fundamental to all the other causes), permanent information loss is
permanent information loss. By the way, another core part of the problem
(which I think you allude to) is the inability for the purse-string holders
to see much beyond the next election cycle, let alone their own lifetimes.

But slowly (painfully slowly), they're starting to pay attention to climate
change.  Unfortunately, the motivator is almost certainly rooted in direct
economics, not in the real damage done (i.e., burned books).  The only path
to changing attitudes that seems even remotely possible is to fall back on
is the "information is power" perspective.  For get the aesthetics and
biophilia and such that lures all of us to biodiverstiy -- I'm not
optimistic about that line of reasoning in persuading the people who need to
be persuaded.  But if we could somehow figure out the *real* economic value
of the information contained within the biodiversity library (hard to do
when we are but toddlers running through the aisles of the Library of
Congress), maybe the purse-string holders would pay closer attention. 

The Library of Alexandria, writ large.

Aloha,
Rich

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Mesibov [mailto:mesibov at southcom.com.au] 
> Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 5:18 PM
> To: Richard Pyle
> Cc: 'TAXACOM'
> Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Extrapolation
> 
> I think I agree with everything you've written except:
> 
> 'It's just a matter of shifting the priorities of the people 
> with the purse strings.'
> 
> 'Just'?
> 
> Also, it's very hard to tease out individual causes in a 
> complex world, but I reckon I can point to human population 
> growth as an ongoing problem underlying the destruction of 
> your library. For 99.99% of our species, if more happy, 
> comfortable, well-fed people means fewer 
> bugs/fish/fungi/whatever, then so be it. The human world 
> expands at the expense of the natural one, and that's 
> progress. More people, too, means more brains and more 
> resources to 'fix' whatever problems are occasioned by the 
> loss of the library. People holding purse-strings have these 
> attitudes in spades. That's why they hold purse-strings.
> --
> Dr Robert Mesibov
> Honorary Research Associate, Queen Victoria Museum and Art 
> Gallery and School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
> Contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
> (03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195
> http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/mesibov.html
> ---
>