[devonin]

dodo birds went extinct. why didn't humans? truth is, not all life is essential for another's survival. maybe if say, cows went extinct. that would probably create a much larger issue. instead, people are making a huge deal out of some random species of bird/lizard/whatever going extinct that nobody's even heard of, and if they're going extinct it's probably because nobody cared enough.

I think it's more about the issue of the fact that even though we as humans can -live- without any really high quality of biodiversity, there's at least some feeling from some people some of the time that maybe we ought to actually care about more than -just- the survival of humans, and that maybe the environment and all the various species living in it might be at least worth thinking about.

The whole concept of environmental ethics and the degree to which we should consider the consequences of our actions on non-humans is a comparatively new branch of thought (Or at least, theories that say we -should- give a damn are relatively new, historically speaking) Go read some Peter Singer for some of the more Cogent arguments.