Killing Issues

The First of the Buddha’s Five Precepts:

From Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Old Paths, White Clouds, “The first precept is do not kill. . . All living beings fear death. As we cherish our own lives, we should cherish the lives of all other beings. Not only should we refrain from the taking of human life, we should strive to avoid taking the lives of other species. We must live in harmony with people, animals, and plants.” (pp. 194-195).

But here are two charts showing non-human extinction rates versus human population growth.

At the same time, the extinction rate for plants is also painful:

“According to current research, the Earth’s current rate of plant and tree extinction is significantly higher than the historical background rate, with some studies suggesting plants are going extinct up to 500 times faster than the natural rate, meaning multiple plant species are disappearing every few years due to human activities like habitat destruction and climate change.

Key points about the current plant extinction rate:

• High rate of extinction:: Studies indicate that plants are going extinct at a rate hundreds of times faster than the natural background extinction rate.

• Human impact: The primary driver of this rapid extinction is human activity, including deforestation, land conversion, climate change, and overexploitation.

• Significant threat to biodiversity: This rapid loss of plant species poses a severe threat to global biodiversity and ecosystems.” (AI overview 2/15/2025)

In the next blog, I will be covering what we can all do to reduce our human footprint so as to diminish all this killing.