TAXONOMYTo fix Nature - we must have a functioning Taxonomy of Biodiversity. <div align="left"><b>"</b>Revitalizing taxonomy is the greatest scientific challenge of our time. Knowledge of our world's species can help us and all future generations expand our understanding of the living world and solve environmental and human welfare challenges. Revitalizing taxonomy is the noblest contribution that our generation can make to humankind. No future generation will ever have access to the number and diversity of species that we have. For comparatively modest costs we can provide a legacy of specimens, data, information and knowledge that will inspire and inform all humans that follow us.<b>"</b> Wheeler (2008: p.13)(See full reference below.)
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<hr> <p> SKIS can list all known Species. It's for Grass-roots data capture to serve local and global Conservation.</h5>
<hr><hr> <h5><strong>Note:</strong> The following information is based on the fully functional SKI-System (v. 5.6) at October 1995. The forthcoming online version is intended to repeat the same functions with additional advanced features as specified in 1995.</h5>
<strong> Care to HELP SKIS get moving?</strong> Soon everybody will be able to help themselves - by making SKI-Lists; by helping other - by sharing SKI-Lists; by getting in at the deep end with Read Only Files for general use; for making local SKI-Lists to add to science projects,</p> ... BUT for now: HELP IS NEEDED TO - - - - - -
<strong>+ One Problem:</strong><em> "... within this century we stand at risk of exterminating up to six out of every ten living species."</em> (Flannery, 2010 "Hope": p.199.) Such loss of Biodiversity would end our Civilisation, devastate all of Nature, and diminish the future for Life for millions of years - - -
<strong>7. One System:</strong> The full Biological Classification is used by SKIS as an hierarchical Index for sequencing species records; this unifies data recordings from all sources. With just one sequence for all species, records annotated against species names have unique addresses. This makes for straight forward data management, such as merging of records, and easy preliminary analysis - - -
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<h3><b>Conservation is management.</b> Management requires an up to date stock inventory and good Communications. SKIS is a means of assisting Taxonomy in serving Conservation and Ecology by providing it with such tools in an easy-to-use format suitable for Citizen Scientists and Parataxonomists.</h3>
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(Expanded from: "More than just a Name", Otago Daily Times, 25-Nov-2010: p.19.) People have always hunted and gathered food, and more recently farmed and traded co-operatively; typically, we still prepare and eat food socially. These acts need cooperation served by communication of the names and relationships (classification) of living things. Taxonomy has long been part of human nature. Mental checklists would have been among the first tools used by Humans. Communities everywhere have always had their own taxonomies of living things for talking about foods and medicinal plants, as well as for alerting others to harmful and interesting creatures. Our memories of fauna, flora and ecosystems are built to cope spontaneously with information about the life around us. Today we use this inbuilt skill to navigate supermarket isles as if we were in familiar, luxuriant, multi-national rainforests. It's perverse that we do so with more concerns for penny-pinching than for Nature's dwindling suppliers of the goods and services without which we would not be pushing any shopping trolleys. Biodiversity gives us more than just food for a day - it affords us ongoing well-being and it recycles itself and us as never-ending life. If only we would let it... To what greater purpose can we put this skill of naming things? Conservation of Nature and natural resources! People, and therefore politics, are at the heart of all environmental problems, and people everywhere are certainly the main cause of our main problem - loss of biodiversity and thus of ecosystem services. This problem is not only huge but even if less imminent it is even more certain to damage society than climate change. The biodiversity problem, as measured by the extinction of species, the local extinction and reduction of species, dysfunctional ecosystems due to these reductions and invasions by misfit species from elsewhere, is now stress from climate change, is so acute almost everywhere that recovery is now highly problematical. What are the various possible scenarios? - 1/ Leave nature to fix itself: Imagine the Earth if most people just disappeared and the remainder just lived locally, totally conforming to nature's ways. Then imagine the Earth's biosphere returning to the state in which Alfred Russell Wallace found it in the 1850s - that is, species-rich ecosystems full of fundamentally cooperative populations. The necessary changes in biodiversity to return it to this holistic paradise could take a few million years of rapid remedial evolution. By then Homo sapiens would have morphed, so we would not be around to witness the outcome. So, no use trying to anticipate it – it would be different. - 2/ Listen to science – that will fix it. The best alternative to leaving recovery to Nature, and for a quicker recovery with our civilisation staying fully functional, is for science to be respected more than money and politics. In this utopia, scientists would be influential, including being responsible for overall leadership. This would need a revolution, in education above all else. When it succeeded in stabilising the biosphere, the Earth would be missing many iconic and other species. Science would need to restore ecosystems by testing and then translocating sister or functionally compatible species into vacant ecological niches. This work would be ongoing for millennia, even as a much reduced human population learned to appreciate, respect and enjoy nature without damaging it. Why did we not do this earlier? Let’s start soon: every day we remain destructive will extend the recovery. - 3/ A muddled half-way situation. In this scenario, Nature remains broken, but all attempts to fix it are piecemeal, half-hearted and mostly ineffective. Governments battle to promote the demands of money-men, even when scientists are pressing for other options, and so on. Problems mount; we adapt to suffering the consequences. The public, those with ready access to information and freedom to think and act, continue to “try”, but choose the easy, selfish, blinkered options. Other people, an ever increasing majority, most living in a state of starvation, poverty and/or ignorance, have no voice and no choices as they turn their lands into desert. In other words, at all levels this is business-as-usual. The longer this continues, the more certain it becomes that we, and all our descendants, will not only lose civilisation but have an undignified future – for ever. I’m among those who still say there is a ray of hope: Science and good people know enough if only it can be applied. Forget the no-hope, politicised, monitorised, climate-change charade variety of “science“ with its impoverished, bureaucroticised minions. Rescue and retrain keen, informed and keen-to-be-useful scientists. Let them take humanity on a journey of hope. Idealism and pragmatism will be at a premium. Yet today's world and today's problems demand quick, global action that must involve people everywhere in monitoring, learning about and being active in reshaping their living areas and beyond. Key questions with scientific research are: a) what to measure, b) what to record, c) what to analyse; d) what to report. Some answers that have been well worked are, in turn: a) ice cores, b) Giant Pandas, c) air-port temperatures and d) funding awards. Starting soon, I recommend getting answers such as: a) local biodiversity well-being, b) local biodiversity species; c) local biodiversity changes, and d) everything notable about local biodiversity. The biggest spin-offs would be environmental awareness and biodiversity education with the analyses being helpful in formulating global strategies. The first need is to foster massive public participation for concerted local action everywhere. Projects must be simple yet sophisticated, and be able to add up to worthwhile results. Turn on the “hope” button on the “do this” machine and get any interested persons constructively involved. I'm writing this because with this website I have such a project to offer. It could have been in use earlier, but the time for action has only just arrived. Only now will the public be receptive to the work needed, along with enough other people from necessary support agencies including scientists, academics and the media to make it happen. Whatever is done now could, technically and scientifically, have been started 20 years ago, except that the “times” were not right. Enough was understood in the early 1970s to outline today’s looming problems, but this understanding generated a backlash of more misinformation than positive attitudes could turn on. Back then, even the great edifice called science would not have accepted or supported what I’m suggesting now. It’s too simple; the grant system would not have coped. THE SKI-SYSTEM ANSWER: Conservation of Nature is needed to protect and restore ecosystems and farmlands everywhere. As things stand, there are not enough informed people sharing enough information to even begin to do the conservation that is needed: a thousand time more would be a hopeful start. The biggest weakness is with communications - the ability for people to name living things and for the names to register exactly with other people anywhere. That is, to talk sensibly about Nature and conservation, everyone should know what everyone else is talking about. Only then, can understanding carry the day. Scientific taxonomy and biological classification are intended to be universal - one Latin name in one Family for each species wherever it is found. Nearly two million species have formal scientific names; this is about 5-25% of the possible living total. extinct / / / Vernacular v Sci... A written taxonomy of universal biodiversity has been growing, fitfully, for the past 400 years. The earliest known herbals are from 5000 years ago in China, and 2300 years ago in Europe where Aristotle helped establish a fashion for naming both Animals and Plants. Starting relatively recently, science has now named almost all of Earth's larger living organisms, but as yet we have only named between about 5% and 25% of all living beings: we can't even guess how many tiny species of organisms there might be, especially those in the seas and in that even more mysterious environment called soil. Taxonomy, the science of how we distinguish and comprehend organisms, is much more than just a list of names. [See: Taxonomy is...] In naming organisms, taxonomists investigate and describe them, initially so as to place them into meaningful hierarchies - the Biodiversity Classification. Following the 1858 revelation by Charles Darwin and Arthur Wallace of a mechanism of evolution, this is done by inferring and codifying the likely evolutionary relatedness of species, each to all others. Biodiversity names and their relative position in the Classification embody this coded information; users learn to decode the information and using it, to make further inferences. Evolutionary theory is a core strength of taxonomy: always controversial, and thus political, evolution is also taxonomy's Achilles's heel. Now, just when environmental concerns should be making good use of it, the science of taxonomy is in even more serious disarray than usual due to conflicting processes and theories within and beyond science. Because of this, even what the experts know about named species is even more inaccessible than usual by ordinary people or by science in general. With professional taxonomists mired in a time-honoured culture of territorial infighting, our society has no well-worn access to objective knowledge about even that bit of Nature that is in the scientific record. Allied to this, all but the best, local, vernacular taxonomies have an uneasy relationship with the more academic one. More than ever, taxonomists are too few and too busy to do everything within their purview. Taxonomy is sick. Ferdinando Boero (2010. The Study of Species in the Era of Biodiversity: A Tale of Stupidity. Diversity. 2010 (2): 115-126.) is the first to explain plausible mechanisms by which "Traditional taxonomy was overly neglected and is in serious distress all over the world.". The problems started nearly a century ago with confusion over the roles of Taxonomy and Genetics. Around the 1980s these issues morphed into problems between Taxonomy and molecular biology (Phylogenetics). In particular, DNA analyses revealed relationships between selections of species that were not then interpreted by taxonomists before entering the total Classification. Funding problems prevented this problem being sorted at source. Monies intended for Biodiversity studies (promoted by environmental concerns raised at the 1992 U.N. Rio de Janeiro Convention on Biological Diversity) were allocated to scientists based on their publications record as interpreted by an "Impact Factor" [IF] calculated using citation records. Science managers found this to be a "clinical" method for prioritising the allocation of funds between projects and the salaries of their charges. To continue to cut Boero's story short, due to differences in the nature of the research and the publications produced, the IF shows up taxonomists as poor self-promoters (of typically lengthy studies and large publications with short print runs). In contrast, molecular biologists are slick go-getters. Not sorted, the problem has scrambled the taxonomic Classification since the mid-1990s. As yet, it is not being fixed. Taxonomy needs fixing so as to serve as the communications hub of scientific programs to end the biodiversity crisis, and to then reverse it by educating society in how we might invigorate degraded ecologies, including agricultural lands. At another level in a continuum, I contend that today it's critical for us to refine our ability to communicate about our living environment, person to person. How? By knowing and using one or more of the taxonomic and common names that have been given to common organisms - the plants and creatures we are most likely to see. Formal Latin names are universal and are keys to the scientific literature; Common names, linked to their scientific names, can be educational and should have an important role to play in Conservation and grass-roots Ecology. Species-level names are ideal, but for "flies" and Beetles, for example, we might have to be satisfied initially with using Family-level and Genus-level names. Names that everyone uses for the species around us are an absolute prerequisite for learning about Nature and Ecology and doing Conservation projects. Without gaining information in this way, we will continue to have a few favourites, such as Butterflies, Birds and Daisies, and out of ignorance to have feelings of dread, disgust and suchlike towards others, almost all of which are useful in their place. We should all be able to distinguish House-flies and Hover-flies by name: only then can we come to know their ecological roles. Only with names we can use will our society, city and country folk alike, be able to relate in sufficient detail to Nature to be able to appreciate it and perpetuate it with all its essential benefits. Singaporeans appreciate Nature. Along with several far-flung cities, this tiny nation and tightly-knit metropolis of five million people is sharing in a wave of enthusiasm for the appreciation of wildlife within cities. When I saw Singapore nearly 40 years ago, there were bird-scarers in the few remaining tall trees in its world-class botanic gardens. Now, it is creating a second Natural History Museum in support of a surge in pro-Biodiversity policies on several fronts. Worldwide, a revival of interest and competence in Natural History would be the most direct way to manage the biodiversity problem before it impoverishes us all. We should all aspire to reaching a Hunter-Gatherer rating in Natural history. Starting with names becoming familiar, all of us can cope with the taxonomy. As in supermarkets, our memories are fully equipped to recognise the range of wondrous creatures around us, and, with access to their names at a community level, we can tag on lots of relevant information, scientific, artistic, or whatever. In this way, Humans can either be responsible and free (feeling "at home") in partnership with Nature, or, as is increasingly apparent, we will be impoverished and feel "lost" by not knowing of our ignorance of Nature within a consumer society. Taxonomy should be informing such a debate. The role of the science of taxonomy, and why society should be supporting it, is to provide the tools for scientists and others to gain access to and communicate basic biodiversity information. If it is basic enough, then with insightful scientific leadership and the Web, people everywhere could become savvy about the lives, relationships and ecologies of their food species and other organisms living around them and elsewhere. Only then, with public support at all levels, will the sciences that study the relationships and interactions between species within the environment, namely taxonomy and ecology, produce really worthwhile results - information to inform society and our future. If humans are to stop and reverse the ongoing, rampant biodiversity collapse and significantly rejuvenate ecosystems everywhere, the direct path has to start with taxonomy and names. These are the communication system and the vehicles to open up species-level awareness, then information, debate, knowledge, understanding and action. There are difficulties to be solved along the way. The main ones, I suggest, require a change of focus by taxonomists. 1. Most eminent taxonomists seem to want to name all possible species (perhaps another several million on top of the less-than two million described to date). Putting a key element of one's profession first may seem appropriate, but it cannot be responsible to do so ahead of or instead of giving priority to making taxonomic information available for use by others, even as the Sixth Mass Extinction advances. Answer: Sort out priorities objectively. 2. It would be too easy to wait (even impatiently as has happened since taxonomic databases were first thought of) for access to ever bigger computers. Answer: use what tools are at hand. 3. Identification of species is a problem, but at a local level the number of species that are difficult to separate from each other is many fewer than what experts deal with. So a little taxonomic advice can go a long way at a local level. Highly efficient means of identification would be time-wasting and unnecessary at field level when a neighbourly word would suffice. Close identifications can always be corrected later, as necessary. For cutting-edge (academic) opinions, see: Quentin D. WHEELER (Editor & Contributor) 2008 The New Taxonomy, The Systematics Association Special Volume Series 76: 237p., and: WHEELER, Q.D. (Editor & Contributor) 2004 Taxonomic triage and the poverty of phylogeny: 571-583 in: Taxonomy for the Twenty-first Century. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. London (Biology) (2004) 359: 559-739. The crux of this issue is: without fixing and popularising taxonomy, science and society will not have the communication tools to be able to use science to revitalise Nature. Nature is now too damaged in too many areas and ways to fix herself without help from us, and, based on Biodiversity losses alone, no part of civil society will maintain itself above poverty levels for many Human generations unless we soon succeed in reviving all possible ecosystems, habitats and populations. Of many problem, the current dirth of taxonomists and ecologists is the paramount bottleneck. Typically, poor self-esteem and low status among scientists generally shows up much more strongly among knowledgeable taxonomists. So, to do environmental monitoring and primary data capture, science will need to recruit parataxonomists and the public. SKIS is designed to make this easily possible, starting now. With increased data collection, many more scientists will be needed in Taxonomy and Ecology just for enough data analysis and evaluation to happen. While seemingly counter-intuitive at science funding level, understanding the fine detail of what is happening in our local environment (everywhere) can be more insightful and useful than headline observations. For example, this could (still) be the direct way to track climate change. The public should become aware of local aspects of general environmental trends and problems; as with invasive noxious weeds. By helping with such problems, the public will become amenable to becoming part of the answers, however difficult, rather than laying blame or giving up. So, let's fix Nature.
In this website, I suggest how much of the necessary toning up of taxonomy can be achieved, namely, how to quickly fix the biodiversity classification system, how to make it available and easily usable by any interested person, and how to facilitate the use of whatever common names are in vogue in any key-board-compatible language. Yes, for speed, we will need computers - some big, many tiny, plus lots of plugged-in, shoulder-top computers. To this end, this website offers a tool - the SKI-System. To fix Nature - we must first fix its Taxonomy (Expanded from: "More than just a Name", Otago Daily Times, 25-Nov-2010: p.19.) Naming and classifying living things is part of human nature,if only because people co-operatively hunt, gather, farm, trade, prepare and eat food. Communities everywhere have always had their own detailed taxonomies of living things for talking and learning about medicinal plants, harmful creatures, and foods. Today we use this great inbuilt skill to navigate supermarket isles as if we were in a luxuriant rainforest. It's perverse that we do so with more concerns for penny-pinching than for Nature's dwindling suppliers of the goods and services without which we would not be filling our shopping trolleys. In this and other ways, Nature gives us our overall wellbeing. A written taxonomy of universal biodiversity has been growing, fitfully, for the past 400 years. The earliest known herbals are from 5000 years ago in China, and 2300 years ago in Europe where Aristotle helped establish a fashion for naming both Animals and Plants. Starting relatively recently, science has now named almost all of Earth's larger living organisms, but as yet we have only named between about 5% and 25% of all living beings: we can't even guess how many tiny species of organisms there might be, especially those in the seas and in that even more mysterious environment called soil. Taxonomy, the science of how we distinguish and comprehend organisms, is much more than just a list of names. [See: Taxonomy is...] In naming organisms, taxonomists investigate and describe them, initially so as to place them into meaningful hierarchies - the Biodiversity Classification. Following the 1858 revelation by Charles Darwin and Arthur Wallace of a mechanism of evolution, this is done by inferring and codifying the likely evolutionary relatedness of species, each to all others. Biodiversity names and their relative position in the Classification embody this coded information; users learn to decode the information and using it, to make further inferences. Evolutionary theory is a core strength of taxonomy: always controversial, and thus political, evolution is also taxonomy's Achilles's heel. Now, just when environmental concerns should be making good use of it, the science of taxonomy is in even more serious disarray than usual due to conflicting processes and theories within and beyond science. Because of this, even what the experts know about named species is even more inaccessible than usual by ordinary people or by science in general. With professional taxonomists mired in a time-honoured culture of territorial infighting, our society has no well-worn access to objective knowledge about even that bit of Nature that is in the scientific record. Allied to this, all but the best, local, vernacular taxonomies have an uneasy relationship with the more academic one. More than ever, taxonomists are too few and too busy to do everything within their purview. Taxonomy is sick. Ferdinando Boero (2010. The Study of Species in the Era of Biodiversity: A Tale of Stupidity. Diversity. 2010 (2): 115-126.) is the first to explain plausible mechanisms by which "Traditional taxonomy was overly neglected and is in serious distress all over the world.". The problems started nearly a century ago with confusion over the roles of Taxonomy and Genetics. Around the 1980s these issues morphed into problems between Taxonomy and molecular biology (Phylogenetics). In particular, DNA analyses revealed relationships between selections of species that were not then interpreted by taxonomists before entering the total Classification. Funding problems prevented this problem being sorted at source. Monies intended for Biodiversity studies (promoted by environmental concerns raised at the 1992 U.N. Rio de Janeiro Convention on Biological Diversity) were allocated to scientists based on their publications record as interpreted by an "Impact Factor" [IF] calculated using citation records. Science managers found this to be a "clinical" method for prioritising the allocation of funds between projects and the salaries of their charges. To continue to cut Boero's story short, due to differences in the nature of the research and the publications produced, the IF shows up taxonomists as poor self-promoters (of typically lengthy studies and large publications with short print runs). In contrast, molecular biologists are slick go-getters. Not sorted, the problem has scrambled the taxonomic Classification since the mid-1990s. As yet, it is not being fixed. Taxonomy needs fixing so as to serve as the communications hub of scientific programs to end the biodiversity crisis, and to then reverse it by educating society in how we might invigorate degraded ecologies, including agricultural lands. At another level in a continuum, I contend that today it's critical for us to refine our ability to communicate about our living environment, person to person. How? By knowing and using one or more of the taxonomic and common names that have been given to common organisms - the plants and creatures we are most likely to see. Formal Latin names are universal and are keys to the scientific literature; Common names, linked to their scientific names, can be educational and should have an important role to play in Conservation and grass-roots Ecology. Species-level names are ideal, but for "flies" and Beetles, for example, we might have to be satisfied initially with using Family-level and Genus-level names. Names that everyone uses for the species around us are an absolute prerequisite for learning about Nature and Ecology and doing Conservation projects. Without gaining information in this way, we will continue to have a few favourites, such as Butterflies, Birds and Daisies, and out of ignorance to have feelings of dread, disgust and suchlike towards others, almost all of which are useful in their place. We should all be able to distinguish House-flies and Hover-flies by name: only then can we come to know their ecological roles. Only with names we can use will our society, city and country folk alike, be able to relate in sufficient detail to Nature to be able to appreciate it and perpetuate it with all its essential benefits. Singaporeans appreciate Nature. Along with several far-flung cities, this tiny nation and tightly-knit metropolis of five million people is sharing in a wave of enthusiasm for the appreciation of wildlife in cities. There were bird-scarers in the few remaining tall trees when I saw it nearly 40 years ago - albeit in a world-class botanic gardens. which is creating a second Natural History Museum in support of a surge in pro-Biodiversity policies on several fronts, a revival of Natural History would be the most direct way to National Biodiversity Strategy / Raffles Museum of Natural History / a new We should all aspire to reaching a Hunter-Gatherer rating in Natural history. Starting with names becoming familiar, all of us can cope with the taxonomy. As in supermarkets, our memories are fully equipped to recognise the range of wondrous creatures around us, and, with access to their names at a community level, we can tag on lots of relevant information, scientific, artistic, or whatever. In this way, Humans can either be responsible and free (feeling "at home") in partnership with Nature, or, as is increasingly apparent, we will be impoverished and feel "lost" by not knowing of our ignorance of Nature within a consumer society. Taxonomy should be informing such a debate. The role of the science of taxonomy, and why society should be supporting it, is to provide the tools for scientists and others to gain access to and communicate basic biodiversity information. If it is basic enough, then with insightful scientific leadership and the Web, people everywhere could become savvy about the lives, relationships and ecologies of their food species and other organisms living around them and elsewhere. Only then, with public support at all levels, will the sciences that study the relationships and interactions between species within the environment, namely taxonomy and ecology, produce really worthwhile results - information to inform society and our future. If humans are to stop and reverse the ongoing, rampant biodiversity collapse and significantly rejuvenate ecosystems everywhere, the direct path has to start with taxonomy and names. These are the communication system and the vehicles to open up species-level awareness, then information, debate, knowledge, understanding and action. There are difficulties to be solved along the way. The main ones, I suggest, require a change of focus by taxonomists. 1. Most eminent taxonomists seem to want to name all possible species (perhaps another several million on top of the less-than two million described to date). Putting a key element of one's profession first may seem appropriate, but it cannot be responsible to do so ahead of or instead of giving priority to making taxonomic information available for use by others, even as the Sixth Mass Extinction advances. Answer: Sort out priorities objectively. 2. It would be too easy to wait (even impatiently as has happened since taxonomic databases were first thought of) for access to ever bigger computers. Answer: use what tools are at hand. 3. Identification of species is a problem, but at a local level the number of species that are difficult to separate from each other is many fewer than what experts deal with. So a little taxonomic advice can go a long way at a local level. Highly efficient means of identification would be time-wasting and unnecessary at field level when a neighbourly word would suffice. Close identifications can always be corrected later, as necessary. For cutting-edge (academic) opinions, see: Quentin D. WHEELER (Editor & Contributor) 2008 The New Taxonomy, The Systematics Association Special Volume Series 76: 237p., and: WHEELER, Q.D. (Editor & Contributor) 2004 Taxonomic triage and the poverty of phylogeny: 571-583 in: Taxonomy for the Twenty-first Century. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. London (Biology) (2004) 359: 559-739. The crux of this issue is: without fixing and popularising taxonomy, science and society will not have the communication tools to be able to revitalise Nature. Nature is now too damaged in too many areas and ways to fix herself without help from us, and, based on Biodiversity losses alone, civil society will not maintain itself above poverty levels for many Human generations unless we succeed in reviving all possible ecosystems, habitats and populations. Of many problem, the current dirth of taxonomists and ecologists is paramount. Typically, this shows among knowledgeable taxonomists as poor self-esteem and low status among scientists. So, to do most environmental monitoring and primary data capture, science will need to recruit parataxonomists and the public. SKIS is designed to make this easily possible now. With increased data collection, many more scientists will be needed in Taxonomy and Ecology just for enough data analysis and evaluation to happen. While seemingly counter-intuitive at science funding level, understanding the fine detail of what is happening in our local environment (everywhere) can be more insightful and useful than headline observations. For example, this could (still) be the direct way to track climate change. The public should become aware of local aspects of general environmental trends and problems; as with invasive noxious weeds. By helping with such problems, the public will become amenable to becoming part of the answers, however difficult, rather than laying blame or giving up. So, let's fix Nature.
In this website, I suggest how much of the necessary toning up of taxonomy can be achieved, namely, how to quickly fix the biodiversity classification system, how to make it available and easily usable by any interested person, and how to facilitate the use of whatever common names are in vogue in any key-board-compatible language. Yes, for speed, we will need computers - some big, many tiny, plus lots of plugged-in, shoulder-top computers. To this end, this website offers a tool - the SKI-System. "Revitalizing taxonomy is the greatest scientific challenge of our time. Knowledge of our world's species can help us and all future generations expand our understanding of the living world and solve environmental and human welfare challenges. Revitalizing taxonomy is the noblest contribution that our generation can make to humankind. No future generation will ever have access to the number and diversity of species that we have. For comparatively modest costs we can provide a legacy of specimens, data, information and knowledge that will inspire and inform all humans that follow us." Wheeler (2008: p.13) Wheeler continues this theme with grand statements that refer to the Sixth Mass Extinction Event which is already well advanced and is progressing steadily. Repairing species-shy ecosystems by evolution is likely to require between many and many thousands of millennia. Thia and his related statements are literally acceptable to Biologists. "No future generation will ever have access to the number and diversity of species that we have." No Human being will ever again live in a World as rich in Biodiversity as it is now, or half as rich, or a quarter as rich, ... One way to help save Biodiversity is with science using precise information: use BioLists to capture, analyse and communicate information about the problems and the answers. |