Sonal Srivastava Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh said in a statement on Climate Change for the United Nations that all civilisations are impermanent and must come to an end one day. “But if we continue on our current course, there’s no doubt that our civilisation will be destroyed sooner than we think. The Earth may need millions of years to heal, to retrieve her balance and restore her beauty.
She will be able to recover, but humans and many other species will disappear until the Earth can generate conditions to bring us forth again in new forms.” According to the World Economic Forum, billions of animals are slaughtered for food every year. One of the reasons for increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is the rearing of livestock for human consumption.
Add to that deforestation, wars, massive fishing and whaling activities in the oceans, and other human activities that impact millions of different species and expedite the extinction of some. The seeds of the Sixth Extinction may have been sown by modern Western philosopher Rene Descartes’ argument that animals lack self-awareness, or emotions. His proposition – Cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am – may have established humans’ perceived superiority over other species and may have even unintentionally contributed to rationalising mechanised meat production as the Industrial Revolution powered the world.
Details of the sixth extinction may be disturbing. In the realm of environmental ethics and ph.