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World Wildlife Falls By 58% in 40 years (bbc.com)
Global wildlife populations have fallen by 58% since 1970, BBC reports citing The Living Planet assessment by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and WWF. The report adds that if the trend continues, the decline would reach two-thirds among vertebrates by 2020. The figures suggest that animals living in lakes, rivers and wetlands are suffering the biggest losses. Human activity, including habitat loss, wildlife trade, pollution and climate change contributed to the declines. From the report: Dr Mike Barrett. head of science and policy at WWF, said: "It's pretty clear under 'business as usual' we will see continued declines in these wildlife populations. But I think now we've reached a point where there isn't really any excuse to let this carry on. This analysis looked at 3,700 different species of birds, fish, mammals, amphibians and reptiles - about 6% of the total number of vertebrate species in the world. The team collected data from peer-reviewed studies, government statistics and surveys collated by conservation groups and NGOs. Any species with population data going back to 1970, with two or more time points (to show trends) was included in the study.
Means more room for humans. We're succeeding as a species. I suspect it wont end well for us though.
I am sick and tired of climate change being mentioned in every story with no evidence to back it up?
To me the solution to most problems is simple ... Less people!
What about the fact that species die out all the time? Like before we were here? Actually, some of them dying out are the reason we are here now! It happens. It will happen to us. It will suck when it is our turn, but it will still happen.
The point is they are dying out due to human activity. Activity which only grows as the population grows. Following this trend, we'll destroy the ecosystem before long and probably ourselves along with it. We can't prosper without a healthy ecosystem. There's no sense in unregulated growth.
More economically advanced countries tend to have lower birth rates.
When they no longer need 8 or 10 kids to help out on the farm, that's when folks tend to start thinking about ways not to have so many of them.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I'm not saying there's any intentional bias here, I'm just curious and posing the question. If the data was collected from a any study with multiple data points on population... is there a control factor for whether studies including population data in general are more likely to occur on species that are dwindling? If a species has no population issues to begin with, is it likely to have a study?
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
Um.
"lesser countries"?
I'm more worried about the current ongoing mass extinction than I am about climate change per se. (Yes, I realize that climate change is a major contributor to the mass extinction). Sea level rise is going to be catastrophic, but not an existential problem for human civilization. But our agriculture depends on a lot of non-human species (bees, for example). An agricultural collapse brought on by a combination of climate change and mass extinction would be an existential threat to humanity.
Chastity is not the opposite of reproduction.
Contraception is the opposite of reproduction. Small yet important difference.
The problem is simply that religion still tries to shame sexual encounters outside of marriage and even outside of reproduction.
Imagine if the church went and told the believers that they had to be abstinent for five years after conceiving a child and that sharing yourself with someone without conception was actually pleasing god, I bet the religions would be gone in a hundred years tops.
In my opinion that reliance on population growth shows you, right there, that they are based on bullshit. If their holy scriptures made any sense to normally thinking people then they wouldn't rely so much on indoctrination in the families.
What about the fact that species die out all the time? Like before we were here? Actually, some of them dying out are the reason we are here now! It happens. It will happen to us. It will suck when it is our turn, but it will still happen.
Sure, of course. But I think you're making a very large oversight by ignoring to recognize the rate of change over time. That's like saying there's no difference between a vehicle that accelerates from 0-100km/hr in 30 seconds from vehicle car that can do it in 2 seconds. Big difference. Rate of change matters. When you're trying to figure out where you are now and then calculating how far we're going to be in the future after a fixed period of time you're going to get very different results based on that figure. Then we can talk about scale, it's easier to affect the rate of change on something small like a 2-passenger car (or your backyard's ecosystem) than it is to affect the rate of change on a seafaring super tanker (or a continent's ecosystem). It's critical to keep everything in the proper perspective. If you don't, you're going to draw fundamentally flawed conclusions.
There is overwhelming evidence that Climate Change is real. The problem isn't the evidence, but your refusal (for whatever reason) to accept it. It's the exact same attitude as anti-vaxxers or anti-evolution people. The evidence is overwhelming, yet instead of accepting that the evidence exists and adjusting their opinions accordingly, they double-down on their pre-conceived notions because of some kind of emotional investment in what they believe.
However, I agree with your main point. People need to stop fucking like rabbits. I see religion as being a serious factor in this, because most religions *insist* that people fuck like rabbits for "the greater glory of god" or some bullshit. The Catholic Church, for example, consider contraceptives to be Bad(tm).
We're eating this planet alive with our collective greed and self-obsession, and nobody seems to care. I hate to say it, but we *need* another world war to thin down the numbers.
We hand out condoms for free in many places in Africa affected by AIDS and most people refuse to use them and it has nothing to do with their religion. They have every incentive to avoid unprotected sex and stop producing children. Yet, they still do. Sure, while it's easy and mentally satisfying to simplify the problem and blame religion. The reality of the situation is far, far, far more complex. You have to dig into the fundamentals of human nature and begin to unravel the hundreds of reasons why groups of people make bad decisions. Cultural, psychological, economical, biological, etc. There are 1000's of factors and yes, religion is certainly mixed into that soup of reasons. Being greedy and self obsessive is definitely part of our programming, it's not easy to override our basic instincts.
Yeah, that's more than a bit of exaggeration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
WWF has been accused by the campaigner Corporate Watch of being too close to businesses to campaign objectively.[31][32] WWF claims partnering with corporations such as Coca-Cola, Lafarge, Carlos Slim's and IKEA will reduce their effect on the environment.[33] WWF received €56 million (US$80 million) from corporations in 2010 (an 8% increase in support from corporations compared to 2009), accounting for 11% of total revenue for the year.[3]
11% is not insignificant, but it's not at the level of 'greenwashing their projects' of influence.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Actually, I think it's probably about the time they realize that they could afford another kid or they could afford a big-screen TV. IMHO a big-screen TV is the ultimate birth-control device.
Leaving aside the usual mindless cant about "government-subsidized litters" and other duckspeak assertions that are either no longer true or never were, there was actually a reverse baby-boom during the Reagan years to the extent that there are something like 3 million fewer people in the 19-40 age bracket right now than there was a decade ago or something along those lines.
In fact, if Trump builds his wall, the current US population growth rate would suffer the same fate as countries such as Japan, Italy and Russia, where the population is shrinking at a rate that they find alarming. Only the immigrants have kept the overall US population growing.
What about the fact that species die out all the time?
Wow, the level of ignorance here is ... astounding.
It's not species dying that's the issue. It's the *rate* that they're dying that's the issue.
I know that may be too difficult for you to understand, but go look here and learn:
http://news.nationalgeographic...
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Maybe if you read the article, seeing as how it does not claim "all of them"
"Human activity, including habitat loss, wildlife trade, pollution and climate change contributed to the declines."
And since when was the BBC World News a clickbait site? Seriously you make fucking ridiculous claims for someone who obviously never even bothered to learn anything more then they think they know.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
It's not just poverty. People in Orlando wouldn't be constantly having their dogs eaten by bears if they weren't developing into the Ocala National Forest. Florida is a post-automobile state and high-rise residences are the exception, not the rule. Pair that with the American Dream of owning your own detached home and you end up crowding the critters. You end up with alligators in your garage and bears in the garbage bins.
Some critters respond to encroachment by going extinct. Others respond by trying to eat you.
Um.
"lesser countries"?
Does the concept of ranking things bother you? Do you feel every country should be ranked the same, just to be more fair? Why, if I may ask? What is a country to you, other than just an administrative division of land with some local rules? Are you some kind of nationalist?
Countries like the US or most places in Europe are objectively better places to live than most countries in Africa. It's why so many people want to migrate there.
some animal parts have the potential to produce them
Only through the placebo effect.
What we have to do is convince the Chinese that parts of invasive species will give you a super-boner...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Does the concept of ranking things bother you?
I think that implying that some people should be subject to eugenics programs because they don't live in the U.S. or Europe is pretty profoundly offensive, yeah. Extra points for giving the First-Worlders tax breaks at the same time.
Population growth is a huge problem, and it's a fact that most of it is taking place in the Third World, but it's also a fact that most of the resource consumption is taking place in the First World. The best way to stem population growth is via prosperity: middle-class people don't have as many children, which is why population growth is practically negative in places like Europe and Japan. Economic justice is in the First World's interest, and we would do well to export prosperity, not just condoms and bullets.
A separate problem with this, though, and much harder to quantify -- is what this does to their reputation? Read somewhere that Greenpeace's mom & pop contributions went down, for example, as their board-room involvement went up.
Hard to say if that has ramifications on how effective they can be. Maybe they genuinely get more done with less funds this way.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
Chastity is not the opposite of reproduction.
That's only been true since 1960 or so.
It's been true for 100s of years, likely 1000s. Just because our sense of history generally is so short doesn't mean we're living in a unique era in everything we can do.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I am sick and tired of climate change being mentioned in every story with no evidence to back it up?
Is that a question?
In any case, you're in good company on Slashdot. The prevailing opinon is one of high skepticism that humans adversely affect the environment/biosphere what-so-ever.
When I say skepticism, what I mean is denialism.
FWIW, there is no point in arguing. Motivated reasoning trumps all. I would love to find out that all the 'bad news' of the last few decades was a hoax. I'm just not intellectually cowardly enough to kid myself into thinking that.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
If something is going to happen in the far future, i.e., after you're dead, it doesn't matter.
There was a saying in ancient Greece along the lines of A civilization grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they will never sit in.
Your attitude is precisely the reason why extinction is beckoning us, but hey, you won't be around so who gives a fuck. Sadly, some of the rest of us have "consciences", which means that knowing full well that you're leaving a toxic wasteground behind when you die causes some cognitive dissonance while you're still actually alive.
So yeah, I guess I envy your shallow, mindless, selfish attitude. Bravo you.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
If something is going to happen in the far future, i.e., after you're dead, it doesn't matter.
Please be Poe's Law, but this sort of thinking is half the reason we have climate problems (the other half being greed).
"If I can be comfortable, who gives a shit if the entire planet falls apart the day after I die? That's the next generation's problem."
#whywecanthavenicethings
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
That's all they want everyone to know that its mans fault and if we don't just die and leave the planet, all hope is lost.
... or we could take some time to evaluate whether we're seeing a tragedy of the commons problem caused by actors chasing short-term goals. That's a solvable problem without extreme measures. But yeah, if you really believe that the only proposed solution is to wipe out humanity then I guess I can see where burying your head in the sand and pretending everything is fine seems like a sensible alternative.
Actually, yes. Humanity was at least partially responsible for a lot of the megafauna of the wildlife going extinct.
We wiped out lots of large animals already and now we're working on the smaller ones.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
IMO, this isn't about climate change, global warming, or some other complex ecological equation with a gazillion variables. Isn't it just that we're simply destroying more and more wild spaces/habitat for our own species' reasons? We've been slashing forests and clearing out new land for new subdivisions, dumping waste elsewhere, for centuries now - usually in the best places on the planet.
Mix in our propensity for permanently altering various environments with invasive species or new chemicals to support the human race's growing need for food/energy, and you have a very potent force for mass extinction.
Modern development should change to live more within the natural background it's living within, to cohabitate with other animals.. Hopefully we'll figure that out soon.
What about the fact that species die out all the time? Like before we were here? Actually, some of them dying out are the reason we are here now! It happens. It will happen to us. It will suck when it is our turn, but it will still happen.
There have been long periods in evolutionary history where individual species are occassionally dying out, new ones are occasionally emerging, and the ecosystem is relatively stable.
What's being suggested here is something else. The idea is that we're looking at a mass extinction event, marked by a sudden, unstable transition in the ecosystem, where major chunks of the tree of life are wiped out. There's no reason to assume that we're on the part of the tree that survives, but if some humans do come thorugh this, they will find themselves in a world where much of what we think of as "nature" is gone -- the natural world that has sustained us, and, beyond that, which has been the essense of life, the thing in mind when we speak of "life".
It's not species dying that's the issue. It's the *rate* that they're dying that's the issue.
Well, really, the issue is that species we prefer are dying. We're not in any position to wipe out the biosphere; we're just making it less pleasant for ourselves. We're reducing diversity and reducing the number of species that we find it relatively pleasant to coexist with, and they'll be replaced by ones we aren't so fond of.
Species with longer reproductive cycles and smaller populations take longer to evolve, so when there's a sharp drop in biodiversity, it takes a relatively longer time, in evolutionary timescales, for such species to develop and fill the open niches. And broadly speaking we prefer that sort of organism - complex animals and long-lived plants - in our environment. We like birds and mammals more than insects; we like trees more than fungi and weeds.
Of course some people also attach an ethical imperative to this, which is fine (that is, it's a subjective good); but from a practical human standpoint, the underlying problem isn't that species are dying out in general but that we're making things worse for ourselves in the process. Earth will abide, but the place is going downhill.