Toby Handfield

The value of species survival

In determining our environmental policies for the future, should we explicitly take into account the risk of extinction? Philosophers have often counselled that we should not be afraid of death, because of its inevitability. Should we say the same thing about extinction?

Questions like these have a special urgency, given the issue of climate change. While it is still quite unlikely that climate change will cause human extinction in anything less than several thousand years, it has surely increased the probability of it many times over.

Over coming months, I plan a series of occasional writings on these topics. See links below.