The extinctions this time are being caused by us, Homo Sapiens. In twenty years there will be nearly eight billion of us and less and less of everything else. In many cases there will be none of some of the most beautiful creatures ever to walk the Earth, swim in Her waters, or course Her skies. In the future our children's children, who are ourselves traveling on in genetic time and space, may look back upon us and curse. We are robbing them of the quality of their future by our inability to take responsibility for our own actions.
Responsibility is the essential criterion of freedom.
Freedom demands not only responsibility for the actions we take but the courage to face the consequences of those actions. Knowledge gives us the tools to use, but only love and courage grant us the wisdom to use them well. We have behaved like greedy children on this planet and now quickly comes the time for us to grow up and accept the responsibility of the freedom we have been granted. For surely if we don't, that freedom will be denied. I'm talking about the freedom to breathe clean air, the freedom to drink clean water, the freedom to eat of the bounty of the Earth that has not been poisoned.