GLOBAL VIEW : - Life on Earth -
" Of the billions and billions of species of living things that have existed since the dawn of time, most -99.99 percent are no longer around. Life on Earth, you see, is not only brief but dismayingly tenuous. It is curious feature of our existence that we come from a planet that is very good at promoting life but even better at extinguishing it."
( A Short History of Nearly Everything -Bill Bryson : ISBN o-7679-0818-X )