A recent report by the Zoological Society of London, stated that 'humans are wiping out about 1% of all other species every year, and that one of the "great extinction episodes" in the Earth's history is under way, at a level unprecedented since the extinction of the dinosaurs'. One wonders if these extinctions are making way for other species, in the way that as the dinosaurs' dominance ended human beings ascended.
It seems as if we are in a period of great flux - it's ironic that as we move into what physicist Michio Kaku calls the Age of Mastery - where we are becoming masters of genetics and robotics - we are also in an Age of Extinction. Time will tell how much these two themes might be related.
Species fade out, global warming changes the face of the planet - what will the world look like in 25, 50, 100 years time - drowned, frozen or scorched by a blazing sun? The new novel Exilium explores in some depth the world we might find in 2032 - flooded cities, frequent hurricanes, disappearing icecaps and species - these all might have seemed alarmist, worst-case scenarios when I started the book two and a half years ago. Sadly, with the accelerated fragmentation of the ice caps brought on by global warming, I haven't had to make any changes to the bleak environmental future predicted in the book.
(originally published 16th May 2008)
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