Many people are wrapped up in their lives, but they can be wrapped up in their life (which makes sense) but still care about others even if the “other” doesn’t have much of an impact on them, this is caring and wanting to care. Someone who speaks a lot about caring and compassion is Ogyen Trinley Dorje who’s the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, he leads a group of environmentalists made up of Buddhist nuns and monasteries, he touches on this in “Walking the Path of Environmental Buddhism through Compassion and Emptiness”. Animal extinction is an important issue to care about because not only does it impact the earth that we live on but also our human race. A lot of people don’t care about animal extinction because they don’t see animals at the same level as them or don’t see how animals impact people. Another person who focuses more on this is Julia Whitty who writes “Animal Extinction: The Greatest Threat to Mankind”, including the publishing of seventy nature documentaries in the PBS and Discovery channel. Animals impact people in many ways such as agriculture and overall health (medicine and nutrition). To help lessen animal extinction people have to care in order to sacrifice luxuries or privileges they have and advocate for animals.
Without care, there is no motivation or chance of motivation, which is what carries people to act on something. Dorje’s article speaks about having compassion and caring for others other than yourself. In his text, he encourages the reader to care about the Tibetan Plateau but gives relevant information on animals. With this, he gives examples of what if’s (such as what if we live with mountains of trash) and gives information of what is going to happen in the future (poising of drinkable water and seafood and the dying of crops). He then compares all living things as mothers, that all living things like people take care of you even if you don’t know, they package things, make your clothes and necessities that you want. He says “Yet we are benefiting from their hopes, dreams, and labor. Plants, animals, and raw materials have all been used to provide us these things. This is the interdependence that characterizes life-no one thing exists by itself alone, or can survive alone” (1094). Before this quote, he gives the example of people but animals can be seen as mothers too, they provide humans with food, help with agriculture, and in keeping the environment such as maintaining land fertile and the air clean. Dorje speaks about interdependence in this quote which relates to Whitty’s “Animal Extinction: The Greatest Threat to Mankind” when she speaks about all animals being interconnected and forming a membrane on earth. In her article, she speaks about all species including us humans and since we are all interconnected we will always affect one another. Whitty says “All these disappearing species are part of a fragile membrane of organisms wrapped around the Earth so thinly […] We owe everything to this membrane of life. Literally everything. The air we breathe. The food we eat. The materials of our homes, clothes, books, computers, medicines” (175). By Whitty speaking oh how animals directly help us with, this invites the audience to be curious and care about the animals since people are benefiting from animals by many things such as medicine, environmental control (carbon footprint, which links to global warming) and fertility of the land. If those animals would stop doing what they naturally do we can see a huge change in everything such as agriculture and materials. Some people rather help others if it benefits them by the author writing how animals benefit humans with (which are resources we need to survive as a race) it gives a reason for the reader to care.
In order to lessen animal extinction, people have to take action and give something up. Taking action even in the smallest way is driven by motivation that comes from caring about an issue. Such as when Dorje speaks about most people wanting to have possessions of everything and naming them “my” and people tending to buy materialistic to derive joy from or to show their social status or value. He says “We are driving a species to extinction simply because we believe wearing its skin makes us look wealthy or that consuming tiger parts will make us healthier” (1095-1096). This gives an example of action and something that can be done as little as not buying animal materials such as leather, fur, and skin (which also cost more money) to show your value. Demand for these materials are high and many animals are being killed for a luxury that can be replaced with alternate materials. By him, wording “we are driving a species to extinction” gives the statement a much more powerful effect on the reader. A material that is seen as small such as a fur coat a leather bag or shoes is literally driving the animal to death, which as I talked about previously is a good example to show how interconnected we (people) are to animals. Some can even take their motivation steps further such as Whitty who proposed another solution to the extinction of these animals she proposed The Wildlands Project “Within each megalinkage, core protected areas would be connected by mosaics of public and private lands providing safe passage for wildlife to travel freely” (178). She proposes an effective solution that can be done to help endangered animals even if it is not for all animals. Having a solution even if it is small or if you don’t know if it is going to work is still an action of you showing that you care enough to give something. In this quote, people have to give land which can be seen as luxuries that some have. Thinking about others and not themselves and having many luxuries which can be used and save the lives of others such as animals is a way one can lessen animal extinction.
Advocating is important because if someone does not advocate or shed light on an issue no one is going to know, either because they have their own lives they are focusing on or the issue hasn’t ever been introduced. A way of advocating is seen in Dorje’s article when a friend showed a documentary of animals going through the production of meat (being killed for meat) he explains how he “could feel the fear felt by the animals. Like a thunderclap, I became aware that these living beings were suffering so greatly simply to satisfy my habitual preferences” (1096). The person who showed him the film was a good advocate because they used pathos and emotion to have the audience be affected and provoked by their statement. Dorjes friend had to provoke evidence, enough for Dorje to give up meat which relates to what was discussed in the previous paragraph. Using something as simple as a video or article that you believe had an impact on you and gave you the inspiration to advocate is as good as any other evidence or opinion. In Whitty’s article she gives an example that can be seen as advocating she states that “A European study finds steep declines in honeybee diversity in the past 25 years but also significant attendant declines in plants that depend on bees for pollination – a job estimated to be worth £50bn [about $80 billion] worldwide” (177). This shows advocation although it is subtle, these European researchers cared about plants and bees enough to spend a time of their lives and a lot of money ($80 billion!) to do important research. The fact that the research was also published is advocating because they released it to show others what is going on with the bees and give hard facts/evidence for those who don’t find a reason for caring about the bees studied.
Although Dorjes solution wasn’t about animals he still spoke about the importance of animals through more emotional stories, pieces of evidence, and the act of caring to help them (along with caring about people and nature). While Whitty is able to give a lot of her and others evidence on why animal extinction is important. She also proposes a solution, which both authors were successful in giving smaller (Dorge and materials) and larger (Whitty and land) solutions. Both solutions proposed greatly impact the lives of endangered animals.