Pigeon's Flight To Extinction

The first lecture was by Dr.Bob Sanford on Water and Climate Security. Sanford’s lecture discussed how water and climate security are inseparable, and how the amount of people affected by climate disruption will continue to grow. I think this lecture was best summed by up the line “climate change is the new sex, a lot of people get it, but don’t want to talk about it.” I believe that this accurately demonstrates the way many people feel and think about climate change. Global warming is bringing increasing climate variability as the water cycle speeds up, causing more frequent floods as well as droughts. I found Dr. Sanford made a convincing argument for how climate issues could tear our society apart, and of the need to reframe the situation.

Greenberg uses the example of the Passenger Pigeon as an ecological catastrophe, and demonstrates the extinction challenges we all face. Birding since he was twelve, Greenberg became part of the Project Passenger Penguin, in an effort to tell its story and underline messages that are still relevant today. Passenger regions were an important food source for Natives and settlers, were sold at local markets, and whose droppings could help create future healthy harvests. Martha, a passenger pigeon, was the last known passenger pigeon. On September 1, 1914, at around one in the afternoon, she passed away. Martha’s death marked the end of a species that once dominated the skies of North America in the millions; only to be, in a few decades, made extinct at the hands of

Martha is a symbol of the threat of the extinction, and the need for conservation. Even a bird whose species numbered in the billions could go extinct in a short period of time. Greenberg uses a species as an example, whose extinction can be directly correlated to human activities. I feel that this relates to the sentiment expressed in Dr.Sanford’s lecture because it speaks to the need for humans taking responsibility for our actions. Society today does not have the same excuse of ignorance as our ancestors did. Greenberg explained in the question period how he had always been drawn to birding, and his thoughts on the de-extinction progress and the viability that might be possible for the passenger penguin. He felt that some would find it inspiring or fearful. I agree that de-extinction could help open portals of learning for species that were never studied in life. At the same time, I found it surprising that it could be possible for the passenger pigeon, were that to happen, could be the only species to go extinct twice. Greenberg’s film demonstrated how even an extinct bird can hold many lessons for how one thinks about