Supposedly, this Earth has witnessed 5 mass extinctions before. Each time, many species simply disappeared, only some of them left fossils for our imagination. Geologically, we are now in Anthropocene epoch. It will end with the sixth mass extinction that will wipe out a large number of species, one of them probably homo sapiens.
So what?
Let’s say Elizabeth Kolbert is right. That Earth is losing biodiversity at an alarming rate. That homo sapiens will be endangered too. even by the most aggressive time table, this will take several hundreds of years, if not thousands. We could survive by learning space migration in time.
Secondly, there is no telling that the extinction of other species will lead to the extinction of this one. Homo sapiens has caused or witnessed the disappearing of many species and we are still here. Why couldn’t we keep going for another 100 thousand years. I will be long dead and also my kids and grand children.
Thirdly, even if I am altruistic and will worry for the grand-children of my grand-children, is there anything that I can really do? If I put myself in a biosphere and never come out, would that have any real impact? If not, what’s the point? Yes, I get the “everyone does their part” idea. But the prospect is so grim that even Elizabeth Kolbert is not offering a solution.
Lastly, at the end of the day, species are selfish. We homo sapiens did not destroy others just for fun. However inefficient we used the resources, we usually have a survival or economical reason doing so. Every wasted drop of water had a purpose. Would we waste that drop if we knew that a species of frog will go extinct? Sadly, for certain purposes, the answer will be yes, even for the most extreme environmentalists.