On this 40th anniversary of Earth Day, a quote to ponder:
[The objective of the Endangered Species Act] represents a quantum jump in man’s acknowledgment of his moral responsibility for the integrity of the natural world he passes on to future generations. It is this which lends the Endangered Species Act its special significance. It recognizes values, be they ethical or aesthetic, that transcend the purely practical and admit to awe in the face of the diversity of creation. Not everyone will be moved by them, and they no more lend themselves to a cost-benefit analysis than does a Bach chorale. But surely it is an act of unseemly arrogance to decree the extinction of a unique form of life without compelling justification. Such an act is irreversible, and it diminishes by however small a fraction the biological diversity that has come down to us from eons past.
So, what tree-hugging, Gore-worshipping greenie wrote this, and where?
Answer: Former senator (and ESA co-sponsor) James L. Buckley, in National Review – cover story! — September 14, 1979.