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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: 2) by mendax on Wednesday October 31 2018, @11:49PM (2 children)
Within the last few years I've come to the conclusion that human civilization as it currently exists is doomed. It's collapse is bound to happen. It's just a question of when and how traumatic it will be to the planet. With human civilization out of the way, life on the planet will bounce back.
The only good thing about this situation is that it is highly unlikely I will live to see it happen given my age and physical condition.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 01 2018, @03:04AM
Yeah, as I age I'm starting to look on life-extending technology as a form of torture.
If I could get an additional 60 years of life granted, I'd much rather relive 1950-2010 than extend 2020 to 2080, 2050 is building up too much like that suspense-thriller-horror movie where you know something bad is going to jump out and do something unthinkably terrible.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 01 2018, @03:06AM
> Within the last few years...
A bit late to the party? Plato was saying similar things some time back. Maybe Ari can fill us in on the details, since he was there at the time.