Re: Obama overturns Bush endangered species rule
There's only a thin layer of soil over bedrock anywhere in Kentucky. The trees learn to put roots down into cracks in the rock.
Actually, there have been only 60 documented extinctions of life since 1500 and 27 in the past 20 years. That's according to the Red List published by the IUCN.
With that said, I completely agree that mines of any type, either surface or subsurface should not be allowed to damage our streams and wildlife. Runoff from mines can contaminate streams. Several streams here in KY with native Brook Trout have been endangered by mine runoff.
Correction on your IUCN numbers. The reason why the number of documented extinctions of life is so much lower than the estimated number of extinctions is that from a biologist perspective, we live in a largely unknown planet. At best, only 10% of the world's species are even known to science so far. Basically, right now we have only documented most of the big stuff.
From the IUCN:
FACTS
• 16,928 plant and animal
species are known to be
threatened with extinction.
This may be a gross
underestimate because less
than 3% of the world’s 1.9
million described species
have been assessed for the
IUCN Red List of
Threatened Species.
• Only 1.9 million species
have been described out of
an estimated 13-14 million
species that exist.
• In the last 500 years,
human activity is known to
have forced 869 species to
extinction (or extinction in
the wild).
• One in four mammals and
one in eight birds face a
high risk of extinction in the
near future.
• One in three amphibians
and almost half of all
tortoises and freshwater
turtles are threatened.
• The current species
extinction rate is estimated
to be between 1,000 and
10,000 times higher than
the natural or ‘background’
rate.
• The total number of known
threatened animal species
has increased from 5,205 to
8,462 since 1996.
http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/species_extinction_05_2007.pdf