Nature Crisis: Humans 'Threaten One Million Species with Extinction'

[Professor Piggy 59]

In his infinite wisdom as not only the most fabulous deal maker of all time, stable genius and incorruptible superhero president but also now a climate-change expert, Tя☭mp is the only leader in the world to withdraw from the Paris climate treaty-- this despite the US being the greatest contributor to pollution from the time of the Industrial Revolution until today.

 

Every other country on the planet aside from war-torn Syria signed the treaty. Since Tя☭mp opted out, others have now begun to waver and also opt out-- most notably President Bolsonaro of Brazil, where most of the beleaguered Amazon Forest is located.

 

To Tя☭mp's lovely supporters, I would say that you can still adore your Great Leader but at the same time condemn him for his utter madness.

 

Or perhaps you truly believe what Tя☭mp and other selfish and arrogant money-first industrial leaders have told you about the US getting a raw deal when it comes to the treaty and that the US should somehow be exempt from responsibility. But what you cannot deny if you respect the reality and facts of science is the immense threat to the earth that we are all facing no matter where we live on this planet.

 

 

On land, in the seas, in the sky, the devastating impact of humans on nature is laid bare in a compelling UN report.

 

One million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction.

 

Nature everywhere is declining at a speed never previously seen and our need for ever more food and energy are the main drivers.

 

These trends can be halted, the study says, but it will take "transformative change" in every aspect of how humans interact with nature.

 

From the bees that pollinate our crops, to the forests that hold back flood waters, the report reveals how humans are ravaging the very ecosystems that support their societies.

 

Three years in the making, this global assessment of nature draws on 15,000 reference materials, and has been compiled by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). It runs to 1,800 pages.

 

The brief, 40-page "summary for policymakers", published today at a meeting in Paris, is perhaps the most powerful indictment of how humans have treated their only home.

 

It says that while the Earth has always suffered from the actions of humans through history, over the past 50 years, these scratches have become deep scars.

 

The world's population has doubled since 1970, the global economy has grown four-fold, while international trade has increased 10 times over.

 

To feed, clothe and give energy to this burgeoning world, forests have been cleared at astonishing rates, especially in tropical areas.

 

Between 1980 and 2000, 100 million hectares of tropical forest were lost, mainly from cattle ranching in South America and palm oil plantations in South East Asia.

 

Faring worse than forests are wetlands, with only 13% of those present in 1700 still in existence in the year 2000.

 

Our cities have expanded rapidly, with urban areas doubling since 1992.

 

All this human activity is killing species in greater numbers than ever before.

 

According to the global assessment, an average of around 25% of animals and plants are now threatened.

 

Global trends in insect populations are not known but rapid declines in some locations have also been well documented.

 

All this suggests around a million species now face extinction within decades, a rate of destruction tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years.

 

"We have documented a really unprecedented decline in biodiversity and nature, this is completely different than anything we've seen in human history in terms of the rate of decline and the scale of the threat," said Dr Kate Brauman, from the University of Minnesota and a co-ordinating lead author of the assessment.

 

"When we laid it all out together I was just shocked to see how extreme the declines are in terms of species and in terms of the contributions that nature is providing to people."

 

The assessment also finds that soils are being degraded as never before. This has reduced the productivity of 23% of the land surface of the Earth.

 

Our insatiable appetites are producing a mountain of waste.

 

Plastic pollution has increased ten-fold since 1980.

 

Every year we dump 300-400 million tonnes of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge and other wastes into the waters of the world.

 

What's behind this crisis?

 

 

The report's authors say there are a number of direct drivers of which land use change is the primary one.

 

This essentially means the replacement of grassland with intensive crops, or replacing ancient woodland with a plantation forest, or the clearing of forests to grow crops. This is happening in many parts of the world, especially in the tropics.

 

Since 1980, more than half of the increase in agriculture has been at the expense of intact forests.

 

It's a similar story at sea.

 

Only 3% of the world's oceans were described as free from human pressure in 2014.

 

Fish are being exploited as never before, with 33% of fish stocks harvested at unsustainable levels in 2015.

 

Live coral cover on reefs has nearly halved over the past 150 years.

 

Pushing all this forward, though, are increased demands for food from a growing global population and specifically our growing appetite for meat and fish.

 

"Land use now appears as the major driver of the biodiversity collapse, with 70% of agriculture related to meat production," said Yann Laurans from IDDRI, the French policy research institute.

 

"It is time to reconsider the share of industrial meat and dairy in our diet."

 

The other key factors are the hunting and the direct exploitation of animals, climate change, pollution and invasive species.

 

The report finds that many of these factors work together to make matters worse.

 

At the report's launch, Kai Chan, a co-ordinating lead author from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, said: "No previous assessment has considered at this scale the simultaneous challenge of protecting nature, maintaining water, feeding the planet, supplying energy, while mitigating climate change... this is the most exhaustive report to have ever done that."

 

The decline in numbers

 

Species extinction risk: Approximately 25% of species are already threatened with extinction in most animal and plant groups studied.

 

Natural ecosystems: Natural ecosystems have declined by 47% on average, relative to their earliest estimated states.

 

Biomass and species abundance: The global biomass of wild mammals has fallen by 82%. Indicators of vertebrate abundance have declined rapidly since 1970.

 

Nature for indigenous people: 72% of indicators developed by local communities show ongoing deterioration of elements of nature important to them.

 

What does the future hold?

 

It all depends on what we do.

 

The authors looked at a number of scenarios for the future, including business-as-usual, but also examining options that were more based on sustainable practices.

 

In almost all cases, the negative trends for nature will continue to 2050 and beyond.

 

The only ones that didn't continue towards ecological disaster involved what the scientists term "transformative change".

 

What does transformative change actually mean?

 

The study doesn't tell governments what to do, but gives them some pretty strong hints.

 

One big idea is to steer the world away from the "limited paradigm of economic growth".

 

They suggest moving away from GDP as a key measure of economic wealth and instead adopting more holistic approaches that would capture quality of life and long-term effects.

 

They argue that our traditional notion of a "good quality of life" has involved increasing consumption on every level. This has to change.

 

"Crucially, governments must end the destructive subsidies, including for fossil fuels and industrial fishing and agriculture," said Andrew Norton, director of the International Institute for Environment and Development.

 

"These drive the plundering of the land and ocean at the expense of a clean, healthy and diverse environment on which billions of women, children and men depend now and in the future."

 

The amount of land and sea that is under protection needs to increase rapidly, with observers saying that a third of our lands need to be preserved.

 

"We need to secure half of the planet by 2050 with an interim target of 30% by 2030," said Jonathan Baillie, from the National Geographic Society.

 

"Then we must restore nature and drive innovation. Only then will we leave future generations a healthy and sustainable planet."

 

Is this worse than climate change?

 

Climate change is a crucial underlying factor that's helping to drive destruction around the world.

 

Greenhouse gas emissions have doubled since 1980 and temperatures have gone up 0.7C as a result. This is having a big impact on some species, restricting their ranges and making extinction more likely. The global assessment finds that if temperatures go up by 2C, then 5% of species are at risk of climate-driven extinction, rising to 16% if the world warms by 4.3C.

 

"Of the prioritised list of proximate drivers of biodiversity decline, climate change is only number three," said Prof John Spicer from the University of Plymouth.

 

"Climate change is certainly one of the greatest threats that face humankind in the near future - so what does that tell us about the first and second, changes in land/sea use, and direct exploitation? The current situation is desperate and has been for some time."

 

The report's authors hope that their assessment becomes as critical to the argument about biodiversity loss as the IPCC report on 1.5C has done to the debate over climate change.

 

What can I do?

 

The idea of transformative action is not just confined to governments or local authorities. Individuals can certainly make a difference.

 

"We know that the way people eat today is often unhealthy for them and for the planet," said Dr Kate Brauman, one of the report's authors.

 

"We can become healthier as individuals by eating more diverse diets, with more vegetables, and we can also make the planet healthier by growing that food in more sustainable ways."

 

As well as consumer and lifestyle choices, other authors believe people can make a difference through politics.

 

"It might be more important for society to invest more in renewables than coal," said Dr Rinku Roy Chowdhury, from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

 

"So how do you that? Through individual behaviour, through the polling booth.

 

"Rather than just conserving energy by turning my lights off, some other less obvious means might be through political action."

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48169783

 

 

 

 

Tя☭mp, when he thinks back on all the suckers he scammed throughout his life who either did business with him or who voted for him.

[Laughing Coffin 1,352]

climate change could sterilize many male insects as well, which would trickle down the entire food chain effecting everything

[scotsho 1,981]

Maybe it's time to re-evaluate nuclear power options. Put policies in place that make it easier to get power plants up and running, and figure out a way to re-enrich the spent fuel. It is easy to do, the science is out there, but cold war fears have always shut the recycling of fuel down. The only options out there today are one time use fuel. Once used, it just takes up space and NOBODY wants used fuel buried in their back yard.

[212frawk 8,359]

no coal is where its at. good clean wholesome coal. mmmmm.

[f8ta1ity54 24,052]

no coal is where its at. good clean wholesome coal. mmmmm.

 

What good is a clean environment if you dont have profits?

[Professor Piggy 59]

At this point, I guess nothing coming from the Tя☭mp administration death-star should surprise anyone. Nonetheless I did find the below bolded part amazing, and not in a good way.

 

US Climate Objections Sink Arctic Council Accord in Finland

 

US objections to wording on climate change prevented Arctic nations signing a joint statement at a summit in Finland, delegates said.

 

It is the first time such a statement has been cancelled since the Arctic Council was set up in 1996.

 

A Finnish delegate, Timo Koivurova, said "the others felt they could not water down climate change sentences".

 

There is international concern that Arctic temperatures are rising twice as fast as in the rest of the world.

 

On Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed the forum in Rovaniemi, northern Finland, with a speech welcoming the melting of Arctic sea ice, rather than expressing alarm about it.

 

"Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade," he said. "This could potentially slash the time it takes to travel between Asia and the West by as much as 20 days."

 

"Arctic sea lanes could become the 21st-Century Suez and Panama Canals," Mr Pompeo said.

At short notice he cancelled talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Tuesday, in a surprise move.

 

 

Environmental warning

 

Scientists and environmental groups warn that the retreat of Arctic sea ice threatens polar bears and marine species, but also contributes to rising sea levels, adding to the risk of coastal flooding.

 

They also warn of a major pollution risk if energy and transport firms find it easier to exploit the pristine Arctic wilderness.

 

The Arctic Council consists of the United States, Canada, Russia, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Iceland. It meets every two years to address economic and environmental challenges in the Arctic.

 

Sources at the forum told Reuters news agency that the US shunned the joint statement because of wording stating that climate change posed a serious threat to the Arctic.

 

In 2017 US President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 Paris climate accord signed by almost 200 governments. The accord aims to limit a rise in average global temperatures to "well below" 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.

 

At the Rovaniemi meeting Mr Pompeo also attacked what he called "aggressive behaviour" by China and Russia in the Arctic region.

 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48185793

 

 

 

Tя☭mp, when he thinks back on all the suckers he scammed throughout his life who either did business with him or who voted for him.

[f8ta1ity54 24,052]

At this point, I guess nothing coming from the Tя☭mp administration death-star should surprise anyone. Nonetheless I did find the below bolded part amazing, and not in a good way.

 

 

 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48185793

 

 

 

Tя☭mp, when he thinks back on all the suckers he scammed throughout his life who either did business with him or who voted for him.

 

It is inevitable that a oil tanker will crash into an iceberg and spill everything in the arctic.

[scotsho 1,981]

We should really just quit. For the sake of the EnViRoNmEnT. Ban all boats within a 100 miles of ice.

[f8ta1ity54 24,052]

We should really just quit. For the sake of the EnViRoNmEnT. Ban all boats within a 100 miles of ice.

 

The FrEe MaRkEt fixes everything.

[foster 8,397]

With all the microplastic in the food chain, maybe we are next on the list

[Meathead 72,146]

With all the microplastic in the food chain, maybe we are next on the list

 

i just saw a report yesterday that microplastics are being found in human urine and stools now

[Meathead 72,146]

its getting REALLY scary out there now

 

the number of insects is plummeting. theres something like 1/3 the bees that there were thirty years ago. something similar is happening with the ants. arctic ice is melting at a rate twenty times higher than they thought during the last study. microplastics are being found EVERYWHERE and it kills the algae that is one of the earliest starts of the oceanic food chain

 

you could go on and on. the very bad reports just keep coming in

[Down and Out 785]

its getting REALLY scary out there now

 

the number of insects is plummeting. theres something like 1/3 the bees that there were thirty years ago. something similar is happening with the ants. arctic ice is melting at a rate twenty times higher than they thought during the last study. microplastics are being found EVERYWHERE and it kills the algae that is one of the earliest starts of the oceanic food chain

 

you could go on and on. the very bad reports just keep coming in

Just like when manbearpig convinced the dupes that Florida and NYC would be underwater right about now. Yawn.....

[Down and Out 785]

If one truly wants to heal this Earth then about 5 billion folks must be culled. War IS human population control and it's coming regardless of how much money folks want to throw at it. Eugenics is the doctrine one must follow.

 

All the Avengers hated Thanos in the marvel movies, but in the grand scheme of things, Thanos wasn't wrong.

[StraightJ 10,248]

You fat **** flamers should just stop eating. Especially if you eat meat. Do you have any idea the carbon footprint YOU leave?!? Kill yourselves, if you really want to make a difference. Otherwise, this is just the usual dog and pony show mrant to fool simple minds with inflated egos.

 

The founding fathers were against treaties and alliances. You can have your own laws without having to bow to those of other nations. It's very simple. The earth has been around how long? It really doesnt give a sh*t about you, and will be here long after you and your species are gone. I'm guessing that didnt feel good to your ego, but it's the truth. Your puppetmasters are the people who want to destroy the earth and all indigenous peoples who understand our connection to it. Thanks for the new thread ideas inspired by your cable news nonsense.

[scotsho 1,981]

Thank you StraightJ, you get it. Eco-BS is really just about controlling peoples lives. The founding fathers would tell these goofballs to go fly a kite. In a lightning storm.

[bv 9,440]

\The machine isn't going to change.. Its over.

[StraightJ 10,248]

Ive been trying to take it easy on some of you, to amuse myself a bit longer(like the Earth), but sometimes it's too hard to resist! Does anyone think the OP has ever heard of China?

[StraightJ 10,248]

\The machine isn't going to change.. Its over.

 

Welcome, to The Machine™, bv!!(the rest of this post is to everyone) Folks are giving me reasons to post Floyd videos, and with all the off-topic nonsense, I figure it might be helpful to share some things that are always on topic for those with eyes to see.

 

This video, for example, encouraged me to consider whether different sperm would result in different personalities, and how different each of us could be if that were the case(or the world could be, in the case of some powerful individuals). Meathead, any comments?

 

[HipKat 73]

Just like when manbearpig convinced the dupes that Florida and NYC would be underwater right about now. Yawn.....

 

And yet, ocean levels and temperatures ARE still rising.

[CBennett 15,995]

Oh well so be it!

[Professor Piggy 59]

Ive been trying to take it easy on some of you, to amuse myself a bit longer(like the Earth), but sometimes it's too hard to resist! Does anyone think the OP has ever heard of China?

 

Hello StraightJ,

 

First let me get something out of the way. I don't think I've had occasion to write directly to you before now, but I'd like you to know that the pleasure and honor-- or honour as we say here-- is all mine. As a matter of fact, when I told my wife, Mrs Professor Pigworth, just now that I intended to write to you, her reaction, as her face lit up like a Christmas tree, was this: "StraightJ? You're kidding? You're really actually writing to StraightJ? The StraightJ? You're just teasing me, Piggy. (She calls me 'Piggy.') "I hate when you do that. Please stop." "No, really," I replied. "I really, really am writing to StraightJ."

 

Anyway, StraightJ, I do hope that this might be the first of many exchanges we'll have in the months and years to come and that we can be pals who always listen to each other, no matter how different our viewpoints may be, and never talk down to each other as some do. I look forward to learning a lot of new things from you, because I know you possess a wealth of knowledge. Who knows, maybe you can even learn one or two new things from me that you didn't know before. And if I sound a little nervous, please excuse me for that. Like I also said to my wife, Mrs Professor Pigworth, just now: "Pinch me, pinch me. I can't believe I'm really writing to StraightJ! This could be the beginning of great things for me."

 

Gosh. You must think I'm kind of silly for carrying on like this, right? It's just that I've been a great fan and admirer of yours for as long as I can remember.

 

Now let me come to the point. Here it is:

 

Yes. To answer your question, yes, I have heard of China. I can definitely confirm that I have. Now would you mind if I asked you a question of my own? My question is this. Have you heard of "historical emissions"? Here, look at this:

 

Historical emissions

 

Since carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere can stay there for centuries, historical emissions are just as important – or even more important – than current emissions. The tricky question of historical responsibility is one of the key tensions in the process of negotiating a global climate deal. The following figures from the World Resources Institute show the top 10 nations as measured by their cumulative emissions between 1850 and 2007. The US tops the list by a wide margin – though Chinese emissions have risen significantly since these data were assembled.

 

1. US: 339,174 MT or 28.8%

2. China: 105,915 MT or 9.0%

3. Russia: 94,679 MT or 8.0%

4. Germany: 81,194.5 MT or 6.9%

5. UK: 68,763 MT or 5.8%

6. Japan: 45,629 MT or 3.87%

7. France: 32,667 MT or 2.77%

8. India: 28,824 MT or 2.44%

9. Canada: 25,716 MT or 2.2%

10. Ukraine: 25,431 MT or 2.2%

 

Now, as you can see, according to this the US has caused more pollution than any other country from 1850 to 2007. Granted, China at the moment pollutes more per year, but the US wins the award for the most cumulative pollution. I wish I could have found statistics to at least 2017 or 2018, but I think that we can assume that the US still occupies the No. 1 position. In fact, as of 2011 it was the second highest current producer, right after China. Whether India has since surpassed the US, I don't know, but it's possible. Here are those 2011 statistics:

 

1. China: 9697 million tonnes (MT) or 28.6%

2. US: 5420 MT or 16.0%

3. India: 1967 MT or 5.8%

4. Russia: 1829 MT or 5.4%

5. Japan: 1243 MT or 3.7%

6. Germany: 810 MT 2.4%

7. South Korea: 609 MT or 1.7%

8. Canada: 555 MT or 1.6%

9. Indonesia: 490 MT or 1.4%

10. Saudi Arabia: 464 MT or 1.4%

 

Anyway, do you not think that the US, as the greatest historical cumulative polluter and either the second or third biggest current polluter bears considerable responsibility for the state of the environment and that it's rather crazy and selfish to, for example, withdraw from climate treaties?

 

Thank you in advance for your response.

 

Your new friend,

 

PP

 

 

 

 

Tя☭mp, when he thinks back on all the suckers he scammed throughout his life who either did business with him or who voted for him.

[scotsho 1,981]

Does Shareblue pay you by the word? Jeebus.