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23 March

Cheery news of the week: yet more evidence of a catastrophic decline in Britain's wildlife. Stories like this get into the papers once every few months (they're usually about songbirds - this time, for a change, the focus is on butterflies). I suspect people have seen them so often they're now becoming blasé about it all. Best not to: similar declines across the world point to the increasingly clear fact that we are on the verge of - if not already plunging into - the sixth mass extinction in Earth's history. If so, this will be the first one precipitated by the actions of just one species - in this case a highly specialised, aggressive and territorial species of ape, known as homo sapiens. You can read more about that here

I'd also really recommend a brilliant piece by Colin Tudge in this week's New Statesman, which focuses on the follies of industrial farming; a major contributor to this and many other problems. He also has a long-overdue go at mouthy charidy tosser Bob Geldof, who, along with that wrinkly, leather-clad old fraud Bono, appears to have taken it upon himself to solve the problems of Africa, with a little help from major multinational corporations and the US treasury. See it here

Posted by paul at March 23, 2004 06:20 PM

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