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Humanity has wiped out 60% of animal populations since 1970, report finds.
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."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 31 2018, @02:41PM (19 children)
Make voluntary sterilization a requirement for a universal basic income, especially in the 3rd world.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Wednesday October 31 2018, @02:57PM (17 children)
Why bother making it a requirement? Plenty of people would line up for permanent and reversible birth control like hormone implants or vasectomy if it were free. The last thing any urban poor person usually wants is another mouth to feed.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 31 2018, @03:03PM (9 children)
You'd think but check the reproduction numbers. It's not like condoms are beyond the means of anyone who's not homeless. This leaves no possible conclusions except that they either desire lots of children or are idiots.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 31 2018, @03:12PM (2 children)
So, we're talking about populations who don't have the restraint even to pull out before ejaculation.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday October 31 2018, @03:42PM
As the joke goes "Tried pulling out but, in the heat of the moment, the hand keeps gripping".
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 01 2018, @08:32AM
What are people called who use the "pull out birth control"?
Parents.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Wednesday October 31 2018, @04:07PM (5 children)
At this point population growth is mostly restricted to the developing and heavily Catholic nations - pretty much everyone else is only growing through immigration.
Catholics broadly condemn birth control, requiring members who wish to use it without public condemnation to have access to more discrete (and generally expensive) options than condoms (i.e. IUDs or bi-monthly injections).
And condoms *are* in fact beyond the means of a lot of people in developing nations. A condom costs about $0.50, which represents a sizeable fraction of a day's income for an awful lot of households in rural Africa, India, China, etc.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 31 2018, @04:18PM (1 child)
And, besides the fact that Muslims have a large birthrate, you know who make up a huge number of immigrants to the West? Muslims.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday November 01 2018, @12:39AM
So true. Big Caravan of People from Honduras now coming across Mexico and heading to our Weak Laws Boarder, had better be stopped before it gets there. Unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in -- too many for Guantanamo Bay. Must also stop foreign aid to Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and the Muslim countries that allow this to happen.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 31 2018, @06:00PM (2 children)
We're not talking developing nations here. If we were, the demographic in question would not have been "the urban poor". That's a developed nation phenomenon. And in the US that is a well above average number-of-children-having demographic.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday October 31 2018, @11:49PM (1 child)
Really? You think that developing nation cities, which contain a large percentage of rural dirt-farmers hoping to find their fortune, don't have any poor people?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 01 2018, @02:59AM
I think the urban poor being a demographic worth separately naming is a developed world phenomenon, yes.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Wednesday October 31 2018, @07:27PM (1 child)
Because often, the amount of benefits one receives depends upon the number of people in the family.
More kids == more benefits.
Now, the care, feeding, and upbringing of the kids costs more than the increase in benefits would provide, but all that's often considered irrelevant beside the fact that the benefit amount gets bigger, therefore having more kids is an investment that pays off in cash.
Financially rewarding sterilization would stand a chance at stopping the parts of the population explosion that are due in part to more kids==bigger check.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday November 02 2018, @04:11PM
The incentive you are talking about generally only applies to people that already have kids. Having even one is a full-time job, and if your goal is to get a job involving children there are usually less stressful ways to do that (such as running a daycare, which the countries we are talking about also tend to subsidize).
But sure, some people figure out after they have a kid that they don't really have time for anything else but being a parent. This is especially true for single mothers. And the incentive may lead to some people deciding that more children will lead to more stable finances. But this situation is the size of a rounding error when it comes to population growth.
If you're really concerned, though, then the real solution isn't forced sterilization AKA eugenics. The real solution is to make it easier to make money doing something else while being a parent. That means raising the number of opportunities for part-time, intermittent work. Stuff where the person doing the job can skip days at a time because their kid is sick and pick up extra work once in a while when their schedule allows or they just need more money to cover a sudden expense.
Basically, we need something that looks more like a gig economy. And we need to either make it profitable facilitate this economy without incentivizing exploitation, or we need it to be facilitated by people that are directly accountable to the public (i.e. elected officials of the government).
But again, the whole thing is no more than a rounding error when it comes to population growth. Birth rates in countries that provide per-child welfare benefits are still below replacement.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 01 2018, @02:12AM (4 children)
People who desire permanent birth control (tubal ligation, vasectomy) but are not able to afford it can often find ways to get it for free or very low cost. Lots of people do opt for permanent birth control, but not nearly enough to actually reverse population growth.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 01 2018, @03:05AM (3 children)
Population growth is irrelevant at our current state. We're in no danger whatsoever of running out of land. You could fit every person on the planet in the state of Texas and still have a lower population density than NYC. As for feeding them all? We still have vast areas of land that no human being ever sets foot on and are still using exclusively 2D farming methods. There is no danger of running out of or even low on food for another thousand years at least.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 01 2018, @08:36AM (1 child)
How very apt a comment in a thread about
Humanity Has Wiped Out 60% of Animal Populations Since 1970, Report Finds
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 01 2018, @10:26AM
A) I smell bullshit. Environmental scientists are wont to engage in non-factual hysteria of late.
B) Even if true, my prior comment should lead you to rather easy solutions.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 01 2018, @12:09PM
'nuff said.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 31 2018, @07:09PM
Hitler, is that you?