Nagoya

Chilling reality of globe's biodiversity

• I have begun an experiment of sorts. Having devoted the past month to learning about the loss of the world's biodiversity (and frankly chilled by the prospects), I set out to gauge public opinion on the matter.

The lab work was carried out in various restaurants, with family and friends, the test subjects. Talking about the issue, as I quickly learned, almost always requires a quick briefer. 

Despite the fact the UN has designated 2010 as the international year of biodiversity, most people only have a rough inkling as to what exactly it means. 

And so, over appetizers, I begin with the typical yarn about the huge variety of animals and plants, how we are all co-dependent in this "web of life", and how that web is unravelling.

What alarms virtually every person is when I start rattling off the figures:
That there are now some 17,291 life forms threatened with extinction - more than one-third of the total 47,677 recognised.