Missing Animals
World Skyscrapers and Disappearing Animals
2014 Noah Jang
The rate of extinction of flora and fauna since the emergence of homo sapiens has accelerated 1,000-fold. Academia considers this to be the world’s sixth mass extinction. Humans have plundered and destroyed habitats of other species and have caused climate change and environmental pollution. Giant metropolises and skyscrapers are being expanded and built higher and higher without end in every part of the world. Skyscrapers built by state-of-art technology are symbols of development and affluence, and they are wondrously beautiful works of architecture. To be sure, the development and prosperity achieved by human beings are amazing. On the other hand, forests continue to disappear at an alarming rate while our cities expanding. Animals deprived of their habitats are disappearing one by one. Our cities are built by killing forests. Our comfortable life is maintained by the tear of forests and other species. Forests for all living things are turning into forests made of buildings only for humans.
Burj Khalifa in Dubai at 828 meters high is the tallest building in the world, followed by the Shanghai Tower at 632 meters and the Abraj Al Bait Towers in Mecca, Saudi Arabia at 601 meters. The ranks and list of skyscrapers changes every year, and the lists of extinct animals and endangered animals continue to lengthen. The dodo, a species of flightless bird, died out around 1682 due to excessive hunting. The Bonin wood pigeon, a species so docile and gentle that it would not put up any resistance even when caught by hand, vanished from the earth in 1889. The bluebuck, a species of antelope famous for its mysterious blue skin, was last seen around 1800. The passenger pigeon, once the most abundant bird on earth, was finally eradicated when the last passenger pigeon died in 1914 at a zoo. The Barbary lion, the beautiful lion with very dark and long-haired manes that extended over the shoulder and under the belly, no longer exists in the wild. Over the past 100 years, the population of tigers declined to 5000~7000 individuals from tens of thousands of individuals due to excessive hunting and deforestation. A full 97% of tigers’ habitats have disappeared, and three of nine species died out in the latter part of the 20th century. Even at this moment, animals big and small are disappearing from the earth forever. We cannot see, touch, or feel animals that have vanished. Are our cities that are soaring like the Tower of Babel more important than forests? Is there any relatively easy way for us to coexist with disappearing animals?
When we were young, we looked at things and the world in pure and innocent way. What we needed was simple, and we were touched by small things and were happy. As children, we wondered with awe at the world of grown-ups, which seemed to be full of contradictions and could not be understood. But before we knew it, we too became awkward grown-ups, who crave more and more of all sorts of things and want everything to be faster and faster even though we all have more than we need. The downside of the convenience, prosperity, and development we humans enjoy is irrevocable destruction of nature. It is our children who suffer the most. They are forced into streets beset by smog. As a member of the species called homo sapiens who threatens the ecosystems of the earth and as an individual grown-up, I always feel sorry, sad, and responsible. I hope that viewers will reawaken the innocence that each of them still has deep inside, even if only for a moment, as they look at paintings depicting a little girl and animals left all alone in the metropolis of the world. I hope that my works serve as an opportunity to look back on how we treat weaker creatures and regain our compassion and love for them.