Royal Star Fish –Astropecten articulatus, Daytona Beach Shores, Fla. Copyright Marc Walz. (Posted on the Encyclopedia of Life)

“ The remainder of the century will be a bottleneck of growing human impact on the environment and diminishing biodiversity. We bear all of the responsibility of bringing ourselves and as much as possible of the rest of life through this into a sustainable Edenic existence.” Read Edward O. Wilson’s full op-ed in the The Economist (Nov 13, 2013)

Edward O. Wilson: biologist, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and emeritus professor at Harvard University. Photo by Alex Harris/Liveright.

Let me count the ways… of how biologist Edward O.  Wilson has graced the planet with his presence for eighty-some years.

An educator whose “intro to bio” course at Harvard was fully subscribed and SRO for years on end; an eminent biologist (his field is ants) with a deeply inquiring mind that seeks and finds new perspectives; a talented communicator, author of 26 books and winner of two Pulitzer Prizes; a visionary who used his TED “wish” in 2007 to envision an accessible directory of all organisms that is now the Encyclopedia of Life (an endeavor still underway).  Comment on EdoWilson’s facebook page

Moral choices ahead, as Wilson reminds us. “The human impact on biodiversity can be characterized as a mindless juggernaut fuelled by the life it destroys.”

Edward O. Wilson, Letters to a Young Scientist (2012)