They Have All One Breath
Ann made me a cross-stitch when we were still in school at Auburn. It was just a snip from a full verse in Ecclesiastes which reads
For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.
On it were thread outlines of a giraffe, a butterfly, a salamander, and a bird. We moved that wall hanging from house to house over time, and I haven't seen it in years. But I think about it often.
The beasts now are both cause and victim of suffering. We make them sick with our chemicals and destroy the places they've lived since long before we became the dominant life form on the planet; they share their diseases with us now in a sad kind of symmetry.
BBC NEWS--Science/Nature--Animals 'hit by global warming'
"Nature has always had to adapt to changing climate conditions.
Indeed, it is one of the driving forces behind the process of evolution which has produced the staggering variety of life on Earth.
But the fear is that the changes currently under way are simply too rapid for species to evolve new strategies for survival."
Their options are also being narrowed by the rapid conversion of ecosystems such as the draining of wetlands, felling of forests and development of coastlines - so if their existing habitats are hit by global warming, there is literally no place to go.