If I were to leave my current position, what would I cite as my reasons. Until now, that question has always kept me entrenched here. I can't find a good enough reason to leave; but I am getting closer. Two things have come to light today that would certainly go on that list:

First, I am not and cannot be held responsible for the behavior of other web sites. I'm sorry if a site to which we link does not print well because it is too large for the paper, or if a site to which we link has a broken link itself. That isn't my fault and there is nothing I can do about it. For the printing problem, I suggest you learn to use Firefox, which is far superior about such things (resizing the print automatically to fit the page). As for the other, tell them, not me!

Second, I just don't feel like I'm doing anything worthwhile. Sure, I keep the site up to date, and accomplish office tasks, but what am I really doing to make the world a better place?

And that comes down to another thing that bothers me about my life in general.

I want to leave the world a better place than when I arrived. Many of you know that I am an ecologist, and sometimes very vocal about it. But the problem is, it seems as though no one is listening. I don't know how to make myself any plainer without resorting to the level of the worst kind of ecologists; the ones who spike trees and blow up factories.

It isn't that I feel that animals have more rights than humans, or even that they have the same rights as people do, but I do feel that it is our responsibility to protect them from extinction, not to contribute to it.

I don't agree that global warming is caused by humans, but I do believe that it is happening, and that we should be looking into doing something about it. And really, how can becoming more environmentally aware and cutting back on pollution and greenhouses gases be a BAD thing, even if global warming is a natural occurrence?

Everyday, across the world, fishermen are bringing sharks aboard, cutting off their fins, and throwing them back into the ocean to die! Don't believe me?

http://www.bluespheremedia.com/shark-conservation.html

Do I think there is something wrong with eating sharks? No, not at all. However, I do think there is something wrong with stripping the animal of its fins and then tossing the rest back into the water to die. Shark meat, I'm told, is quite good. (I must admit that I don't care for fish, so I've never tried it.)

A while back, in a little resort town in Brazil, the town was having a problem with sharks. It seemed that tourism was dropping off because sharks were eating the tourists! After some lengthy investigation, researchers discovered why. A nearby city had recently expanded their port and, in doing so, increased the pollution content of the water in the region. The result was the deaths of many fish, most of which served as prey for the sharks. Left with nothing else to eat, the sharks turned to the easiest and most plentiful meals; the tourists that spent their days splashing in the water.

This is a prime example of reaping what you sow. More careful planning and stricter pollution controls could have prevented the loss of the tourist resort. But once again, man's belief that he is superior to all other animals has led to his own downfall.

And don't get me started on extinctions. Consider the thylacine, the dodo, and the passenger pigeon, which are already extinct (and all three are either directly or indirectly human-related). Even now, the blue whale, the most majestic animal on Earth and quite possibly the largest animal that has ever lived, is on the verge of extinction. The Javan Rhino, the only predators of which are humans, has already been hunted to extinction across the Malaysian Peninsula, and there may well be only 50-100 individuals remaining in all the world.

And the list goes on. The Siberian tiger, the Florida panther, the Dama gazelle, the Aldabra flying fox, the mountain gorilla, the Chinese alligator, the giant sea bass, several species of sawfish, the southern bluefin tuna, the ivory-billed woodpecker, the chestnut-bellied hummingbird, and many others (far too many to list here) are all on the critically-endangered list, which means that within three generations, they may be wiped out or too depleted to survive as a species.

Some people will read this and shrug their shoulders. Others will laugh and go on with their business. Some may even say, "Who needs gorillas, or alligators, or tigers, anyway?" But it my hope that some who read this will realize that we're not just losing an animal, we're losing a thread in the web that is life.