Humanity Has Wiped Out 60% of Animal Populations Since 1970 (theguardian.com)

Artem Tashkinov shares a report: The new estimate of the massacre of wildlife is made in a major report produced by WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe. It finds that the vast and growing consumption of food and resources by the global population is destroying the web of life, billions of years in the making, upon which human society ultimately depends for clean air, water and everything else. Many scientists believe the world has begun a sixth mass extinction, the first to be caused by a species -- Homo sapiens. Other recent analyses have revealed that humankind has destroyed 83% of all mammals and half of plants since the dawn of civilisation and that, even if the destruction were to end now, it would take 5-7 million years for the natural world to recover. Tanya Steele, chief executive at WWF, said: "We are the first generation to know we are destroying our planet and the last one that can do anything about it."

Comments

First generation?

[110010001000]

I'm pretty sure we have known this for generations and could have taken action earlier. Unfortunately, there is no financial incentive to do so. In fact, the financial incentive is to do the opposite: clear land for farming, living, raw materials. This is the real threat to humanity: the destruction of continuous habitat and forests. But the focus is on "Climate Change" because we can implement carbon trading and taxes on it and "fix it".

Re:And as usual

[freeze128]

Get rid of mosquitoes, and the frogs starve to death. Get rid of rattlesnakes, and you're overrun by mice.

Re:And as usual

[cascadingstylesheet]

Get rid of mosquitoes, and the frogs starve to death. Get rid of rattlesnakes, and you're overrun by mice.

This gets brought up every time, but I'm pretty sure that respectable authorities have said that mosquitoes aren't a crucial food source for anything. (yes, some things eat them, but nothing will starve if they went away)

Re:5-7 million years to recover is complete bullsh

[SqueakyMouse]

It's referring to biodiversity. You won't see much speciation in 5-10 years.

Re:And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

The only animal that eats a lot of adult mosquitoes are bats, but they eat other bugs as well.

And dragonflies, and mosquito hawks. Here you are ready to wipe out mosquitoes with the firm belief that you have the understanding necessary to make an informed decision, and yet you don't even know about two common insects that prey upon mosquitoes. God help our species, because we were very obviously not intelligently designed.

There isn't a global solution

[DarkOx]

The first step to protecting a future for our grand kids is to recognize there is NOT a global solution. There are probably already to many people.

Population is the one driving factor. Everything else is a rounding error. Anyone who actually cares about the environment would be in favor of basically ending immigration. Limit agricultural exports and imports.

Here in the US we are essentially at the replacement rate in terms of birth rate. Stop letting new outsiders in. Deal with the not nearly as complex economic problem of having a flat population size as compared to growth beyond sustainability or population decline.

Let the rest of the worlds population 'naturally' adjust to the local carrying capacity of those places.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the rest of the worlds population 'naturally' adjust to the local carrying capacity of those places.

The point is that there is no longer any "naturally". Even the poorest countries have access to enough technology that by the time their populations get large/dense enough that they are limited by starvation, etc. then the environments in those countries will be totally destroyed. Back when all the technology that people had was sharp rocks and rubbing sticks together to make fires, people would start starving to death long before the environment was completely destroyed. But that's no longer the case.

The interesting thing though, is that if you give people a basic education and access to affordable birth control then they don't want large families. When you're trying to survive on less than a dollar a day, condoms are hard to fit in the budget. Very few people want to tell their children that they were unwanted. So there's a lot of rationalization that goes on in developing countries. But the truth is that the high birth rate in developing countries is mostly due to unplanned pregnancies.

If people in the USA want to preserve the environment in developing countries (i.e. most of the rest of the world) then it's not about limiting immigration. I will absolutely guarantee you that people in developing countries aren't like "Oh, I see the USA has a welcoming immigration policy so let's have more kids!". Instead, it's about providing people in developing countries with enough socioeconomic assistance that they are able to choose to have small families.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Rick Schumann]

You know, it's always really fucking easy for someone who lives in a nice, safe, first-world country, who makes a nice, tidy six-digit income, owns his own home, a couple cars, has nice things, new clothes, and is perfectly safe 24/7/365, as is his wife and kids, to say shit like "Stop letting outsiders in" and "Let the rest of the worlds population 'naturally' adjust to the local carrying capacity of those places". You've never had to struggle like these people have just to have enough to eat or a roof over their heads, you've never had to deal with a government that is so corrupt and/or disregarding of their own citizens human rights that they feel the need to leave for their own safety, or lived anywhere where violent criminal organizations threaten your life on a daily basis, or try to kidnap your children to turn into prostitutes or slaves or suicide bombers. No, you have precisely ZERO perspective on what it's like anywhere else in the world, and treat your willful ignorance like it's some sort of fucked-up virtue instead. You most likely don't even know what it's like for the homeless that exist (not LIVE, but EXIST, BARELY) in your area, and probably think they're just lazy or criminals on the run and should be erradicated "for public safety reasons" or somesuch shit. You need to shut the fuck up about things you know nothing about, you entitled son of a bitch.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[CrimsonAvenger]

Let the rest of the worlds population 'naturally' adjust to the local carrying capacity of those places.

Hmm, so, what's the "carrying capacity" of New York City? Or Los Angeles? Hell, it's not like they grow enough food in either of those places to feed the Police Department, much less the rest of the people!

Or was this just your way of saying, "let them brown people starve, damnit! And pass the mashed potatoes"?

Note that if we were to drop back to the "natural carrying capacity" of the land, we'd have to drop back to the "natural" number of humans. Say, a few tens of thousands living in caves.

Oddly enough, I'm willing to bet that everyone who wants to "drop back to the natural carrying capacity of the land" assumes that they'll be part of the 0.001% who survives the famines/plagues/wars that'll be required to make sure Those Others do the dying.

Re: the web of life, billions of years in the maki

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

Those 99% of the species have gone extinct in the previous billion years. We are now talking about a period of time which is less than 0.000005%. I'm not sure Earth has ever witnessed such a rapid and currently irreversible extinction event.

Re: Unsurprising

[jd]

Mathematicians declare 1+1=2
Objectors declare mathematicians have vested interest

Sometimes, interested parties lie. Yes. Sometimes they tell the truth by accident, not intending to do so. And sometimes they are indeed being honest.

Is it a better use of time to be cynical or skeptical?

Skeptics need evidence, but will be persuaded by what they see (and not by what they don't).

Cynics don't want evidence and will never be persuaded. They don't want to be, and will move the goalposts to infinity to ensure it, if they have to.

Be a skeptic, not a cynic.

You don't have to be schooled, there won't be any significant new species forming between 1970 and now, so the maximum percentage of species must be all the ones we know went extinct divided by all the ones we know about now plus the ones that went extinct, all multiplied by 100.

We don't know about cleared land, loggers aren't known for tracking such things. So we use the biodiversity of rainforests as a guide for estimating unknown species that went extinct and unknown species total. That will give us a second percentage. The tundra has a lower species count and a lower extinction level, so we've a second lot of unknowns there. Add those to the rainforest totals to get a third percentage.

We now have a spread of three possible values. It's unlikely to be below the minimum, it's unlikely to be above the maximum, it's probably close to the figure between those, but it won't be exact.

Doesn't require any schooling. Just requires a skeptical, enquiring mind.