„Even though only an estimated 2% of all of the species that ever lived are alive today, the absolute number of species is greater now than ever before. It was into such a biologically diverse world that we humans evolved, and such a world that we are destroying. […]

Today, species extinction rates are hundreds or thousands of times faster than the »normal« or »background« rates prevailing in the last tens of millions of years. […]

More than 400 vertebrate species became extinct in the last 100 y, extinctions that would have taken up to 10,000 y in the normal course of evolution. […]

The growing human population, increasing rates of consumption, and projected growth in the future can only accelerate the rapid disappearance of species, now a stream, to a rushing torrent–a problem for survival that only human beings have the power to alleviate. […]

The extinction crisis, like the toxification and climate crises to which it is tied, poses an existential threat to civilization. […]

There is time, but the window of opportunity is almost closed. We must save what we can, or lose the opportunity to do so forever. There is no doubt, for example, that there will be more pandemics if we continue destroying habitats and trading wildlife for human consumption as food and traditional medicines. It is something that humanity cannot permit, as it may be a tipping point for the collapse of civilization. What is at stake is the fate of humanity and most living species. Future generations deserve better from us.”

„…future environmental conditions will be far more dangerous than currently believed. The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms—including humanity—is in fact so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts. […]

The gravity of the situation requires fundamental changes to global capitalism, education, and equality, which include inter alia the abolition of perpetual economic growth, properly pricing externalities, a rapid exit from fossil-fuel use, strict regulation of markets and property acquisition, reigning in corporate lobbying, and the empowerment of women. These choices will necessarily entail difficult conversations about population growth and the necessity of dwindling but more equitable standards of living. […]

Given the existence of a human »optimism bias« that triggers some to underestimate the severity of a crisis and ignore expert warnings, a good communication strategy must ideally undercut this bias without inducing disproportionate feelings of fear and despair […]. It is therefore incumbent on experts in any discipline that deals with the future of the biosphere and human well-being to eschew reticence, avoid sugar-coating the overwhelming challenges ahead and »tell it like it is.« Anything else is misleading at best, or negligent and potentially lethal for the human enterprise at worst.”