Humanity has wiped out 60% of animal populations since 1970, report finds

[G_j]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds


The huge loss is a tragedy in itself but also threatens the survival of civilisation, say the world’s leading scientists

Damian Carrington Environment editor
@dpcarrington
Mon 29 Oct 2018 20.01 EDT

Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, leading the world’s foremost experts to warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens civilisation.

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.

“We are sleepwalking towards the edge of a cliff” said Mike Barrett, executive director of science and conservation at WWF. “If there was a 60% decline in the human population, that would be equivalent to emptying North America, South America, Africa, Europe, China and Oceania. That is the scale of what we have done.”

“This is far more than just being about losing the wonders of nature, desperately sad though that is,” he said. “This is actually now jeopardising the future of people. Nature is not a ‘nice to have’ – it is our life-support system.”

..more...

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. K&Fuckin'R

[sweetroxie]

2. What a terrific species WE are

[roamer65]

3. Maybe we don't deserve this planet.

Mother Nature will render her verdict very soon, IMO.

[JDC]

4. We are a virus

[defacto7]

8. True...

We feed indiscriminately on our host and multiply until our host dies or until it kills us.

[KPN]

11. Seems like it doesn't it? That thought's been rattling

around in my brain for a few decades now.

[UrbanProspector]

5. If only

all the RINOS', DINOS' and other conservitard vermin were to become exstinct..what a world we could have!

[malaise]

6. We are monsters

[c-rational]

7. Bingo - not the first time I have heard this fact. It needs to be shouted from the rooftops.

We are at peril. Regarding nature being our life support system, I agree. Another way of putting it is We are not born into this world, we come out of it. When you destroy it....

[Cetacea]

9. Looks like dolphins won the intelligence argument eom

[KPN]

10. K&R! And do keep in mind that

nature has a way of finding balance in the end and always wins.

My Theory: the global rise of right-wing fascism and the great political divides it has created are a substantive piece of nature’s way to bring the human species into balance with earth, our home. ... WTF elsecould explain such sheer idiocy?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

12. Just to be fair, we're also pretty good at wiping out plant species.

We focus on growing species that have economic value, that can ship easily and stay ripe a long time. The rest are relegated to small specialty farms growing "heritage" crops.

Algae, however, appreciate all the fertilizer we dump into lakes and rivers, mostly by over-fertilizing.

[Calculating]

13. It's overpopulation really

This world just isn't fit to hold more than a few billion of us sustainably.

[Mendocino]

14. With 8 billion humans,

consuming billions more of domestic and harvested animals, it's no wonder that wildlife populations are crashing.

[camelfan]

15. For me it's more than just the consumption of beautiful animals...

it's the glee we take in stuffing our faces with them. And with such idiocies as turducken, which is a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey, we've found new ways to show our superiority over those creatures who have done nothing to us. Couple that with the trophy hunters - some of them named Trump - and we delight in being at the top of the food chain. Of course, when you think this is what God wants, it's hard to argue with you. So you get families with 19 children and others with 19 shotguns.

Genesis 9:3 - Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

Another nail in the coffin of science.

[The_jackalope]

16. Here's a terrifying graphic about this problem:

I created it two years ago. It comes with a companion article that explains it, posted here:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/112791869

[anarch]

17. I'm not so sure we're "sleepwalking towards the edge of a cliff..."

More and more lately I'm getting the impression we've already stepped over the side of the cliff, and just haven't realized it yet, like Wile E. Coyote in the old "Road Runner" cartoons. Except humanity/all life on Earth won't be able to just pick itself up from the impact zone at the bottom of the cliff and carry on as before.

Increasing and accelerating impacts of climate change will begin to affect the basic infrastructures upon which our society relies, and sooner than anyone thought. The melting of arctic ice and permafrost will continue to release more and more methane into the atmosphere, exacerbating greenhouse effects well beyond the worst-case scenarios that anyone could imagine 40 years ago; even the targets set by the Paris Accord were influenced by industry, and likely not enough to mitigate disaster. And we're not even going to meet those targets. Major, catastrophic impacts to our society are likely unavoidable at this point, and coming sooner than anyone could have dreamed.

We are in the midst of the sixth Great Extinction...and in this case, it was human activity that started the chain reaction that will kill off most species. Like a lot of people say, "there has always been climate change; it could just be a natural process." Well, nature does have a way of restoring balance...unfortunately for the current population on the planet, Nature's Way of dealing with the stresses that human activity have caused to the delicate web of life is going to include a major extinction cycle, and the end of our current way of life.