Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mrpg on Wednesday October 31 2018, @02:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the I'm-fed-up-with-humans dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

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."


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 31 2018, @04:06PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 31 2018, @04:06PM (#756043)

    What are you talking about?