Environmentalism and Habitat Loss

Global wildlife numbers, across nearly every extant species, are recorded over the last 50 years as dropping markedly, so there is both irony and also cause for celebration in construction of ES & SEAS, the new sprawling complex of facilities for environmental research (On the Campus, May issue). The scientific counts for mammal, avian, insect, reptile, amphibious, and ocean species are crashing and plummeting, in many instances by 50 percent or more, and the single largest threat to each (reliably) is habitat loss. 

The reported “acceleration of the commitment to sustainability” of the project, described by University Architect Ron McCoy *80, is laudable but perhaps laughable as well as one begins to wonder if what we are doing is already a day late and a dollar short. But you do what you have to do, and the laughter is good, holding off what might otherwise become crying.