[Taxacom] Gulf oil, biodiversity, and human greed

[Kenneth Kinman]

Dear All.
      I got one private e-mail a few days ago criticizing me for
"ranting" against BP (and how it is affecting biodiversity in the Gulf
of Mexico), as inappropriate for a Taxacom posting.  I disagree, as it
affects the health and even continued existence of many taxa in the Gulf
of  Mexico.       
      The current Taxacom debate over whether one species in Africa is
actually a superspecies of several species that recently diverged (or
not) is comparably minor, and Code compliance of those new species is
actually even less of a concern compared to the life or death concerns
of species just trying to live and reproduce in the toxic disaster
unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico.  Even PhyloCode, which I clearly
oppose, is comparably a minor irritant in view of the physical disaster
unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico.         
      If there is an ultimate enemy of biodiversity, whether it be among
threatened species, or even more concerning to some of us, genera or
families of species, it is the greed of many global corporations in
particular.  BP is the present poster child of such irresponsibility,
but who knows what large corporations will unlease the next
environmental disaster upon both humans and the biodiversity upon which
their livelihoods depend.       
         No doubt Wall Street is somehow betting and hedging those bets
so that they can benefit either way.  They are the world's (at least
most visible) parasites who benefit when others are just struggling to
survive from day to day.  The brightest and best of our universities
continue to be attracted to Wall Street (etc.) playing the markets with
computers that play in games of nanoseconds of future commodity values.
Those few benefit, and the world at large is left frustrated and
bewildered day after day, year after year, as the rich get richer and
most of them don't seem to give a damn as long as their bank accounts
benefit, even if it is at the expense of biodiversity and even the vast
majority of humans just trying to get by when the cards are stacked
against them.  Wall Street is not much safer than Las Vegas, so it is
not surprising that the irresponsible few continue to gamble their often
ill-gotten gains in those venues in particular.