ConstitutionCHere’s a surprising fact: we’ve already lost over 900 species in the last 500 years, and the current extinction rate is estimated to be 1,000 times the natural background rate. That’s not just a tragedy; it’s an ongoing injustice we have the power to address.
MilitaryMind, you keep calling the objective nebulous. But it’s not. The objective is restitution, and the measure of success isn’t just a breeding pair—it’s the restoration of ecological function. You say their niches are occupied, but for keystone species like the mammoth, that niche is now a gaping hole. The Arctic permafrost is melting, releasing carbon, because the mammoth steppe grassland that stabilized it is gone. Reintroducing a proxy isn’t disrupting a current balance; it’s repairing a system that’s actively failing and accelerating climate change. That’s a crystal-clear strategic objective: climate mitigation through ecosystem restoration.
You frame funding as a zero-sum game, where every dollar for de-extinction is stolen from current conservation. But that’s a false economy. The genetic and reproductive technologies pioneered for de-extinction—like advanced IVF, gene editing, and artificial wombs—are already providing tools to save the nearly extinct. The work to save the northern white rhino is using these very techniques. This isn’t a diversion; it’s advancing the core arsenal of modern conservation.
Finally, you talk about securing the present. I agree. But part of securing the future is establishing the principle that extinction is not irreversible. That knowledge alone is a deterrent. It changes the calculation from “once they’re gone, they’re gone” to “we will be held accountable to restore what we destroy.” That’s a powerful legal and ethical precedent. We have a duty to try to repair the harm we’ve caused, not just because we can, but because it makes our current conservation efforts more meaningful. We can walk and chew gum—defend what we have, and responsibly restore what we wrongly took.
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