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5) Small things lead to bigger ones. If people care enough to save something as seemingly trivial as a salt marsh
and as tiny as a beetle, then they'll surely care about the environmentally big things, like the destruction of 'The Lungs of the
World', the Amazon rainforest. Cutting down rainforests leads to global warming. They'll also think more about sustainable living,
such as the kinds and amounts of chemicals they use on their lawns and pour down their drains, which end up being consumed by
people downstream from their town.
6) As a famous biologist once noted, it is the last word in ignorance when a person asks 'what good is it?'
We are not smart enough as a species to understand what parts are worth saving and what are not. Remember the story about a
good tinker not throwing away parts until he fully understands what each does? We're not even close to knowing how everything
works, whether it's the prairies, rainforest, oceans, the Arctic or even the last of the salt marshes in northern Lancaster
County, Nebraska.
7) Let's save endangered species simply because we care. The beetle is just one small part of the picture. The big
issue is whether or not all of us care enough to preserve what we have left. Do we want to save species and habitats, or do we want
to simply pave over and sterilize as much as we can in the name of economics? If you truly care about the environment, the last
islands of natural habitat remaining are all precious, whether it's a salt marsh, a virgin prairie, or a century-old cottonwood
tree. To good stewards of the Earth, all are equally worth saving.
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