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

Humans + livestock account for 96% mammal biomass

[fedor]

Humans account for about 36 percent of the biomass of all mammals. Domesticated livestock, mostly cows and pigs, account for 60 percent, and wild mammals for only 4 percent. https://www.ecowatch.com/bioma...

Re:And as usual

[squiggleslash]

Frogs have plenty of alternatives to mosquitoes, and mice have plenty of natural predators.

Re:First generation?

[Ly4]

Logging companies aren't the ones destroying habitat. That's mostly from farming and ranching, and suburban growth.

Brazil just elected a president who wants to privatize even more of the Amazon, so expect the rate of deforestation there to increase from its current rate of six square miles per day.

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.

Fake News

[fleabay]

Vince McMahon is the chief executive at WWF, not some Tanya Steele who may not even be a real person.

Re:60% of species

[JoeDuncan]

Bugs are animals, and many of them are thriving on our leftovers...

Nope.

Bugs dying off too:

https://www.theguardian.com/en...

Welcome to the Anthropocene Extinction Event!

[His name cannot be s]

Better get used to it.

It's still a long slide to the bottom.

Re:First generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately they almost exclusively replant fast growing species like pine. They are planning for the next trip through that area in 20-30 years to cut down mature trees again. They hardly ever plant hardwoods and when they do it's only because they are forced to by state or local regulations. They will come through and cut down trees that take 50 to 70 years to reach maturity. Trees that are worth a ton of money because they take so long to grow. Then they plant cheap, fast growing pine to "replace" the hardwoods they cut. Even if they plant 10 pine trees for every hardwood they cut down it's still not a fair trade.

I'm glad they are planting more trees but don't pat them on the back. They have a financial incentive to plant a ton of evergreen trees. They will need something to cut down and process in the future. It has exactly zero to do with environmental stewardship and everything to do with future profits. The one and only reason companies in the US do anything that seems environmentally responsible is because they are either forced to do so by regulations or because they know if they don't they will go out of business since their won't be any trees left for them to cut down.

Re:And as usual

[ElizabethGreene]

AC is right. History teaches us, specifically the Four Pests Campaign , that eliminating "pest" species can end very poorly.

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.