The Outlook section of Sunday’s Washington Post (that’s my local paper) contained an article headlined “Species die. Get over it.”
Don’t need much coffee after that.
It was not April Fool’s Day. I hadn’t picked up The Washington Times by mistake. I was not reading The Onion by mistake, and I was not actually watching Saturday Night Live. This was a real article by a real biologist (a Mr. R Alexander Pyron) suggesting that yes, species disappear from the planet all the time. We don’t need to go to the ends of the earth (literally) to save them. The species we need to worry about saving is us. You know… da humans.
Hidden gem in the Outlook section. Yeah, there’s the usual drivel about climate change and consuming less and all that. But there are some great zingers too about the silly efforts to save some bizarre animal you’ve never heard of.
I mention this all because I actually met Mr. Pyron yesterday afternoon. He seemed very knowledgeable even though his nametag read “trainee.” He said he had just started working at Wendy’s after a long career in academia ended Monday, after the publishing of said article.