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from the real-world-following-the-movies dept.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01448-4
Up to one million plant and animal species face extinction, many within decades, because of human activities, says the most comprehensive report yet on the state of global ecosystems.
Without drastic action to conserve habitats, the rate of species extinction — already tens to hundreds of times higher than the average across the past ten million years — will only increase, says the analysis. The findings come from a United Nations-backed panel called the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
According to the report, agricultural activities have had the largest impact on ecosystems that people depend on for food, clean water and a stable climate. The loss of species and habitats poses as much a danger to life on Earth as climate change does, says a summary of the work, released on 6 May.
The analysis distils findings from nearly 15,000 studies and government reports, integrating information from the natural and social sciences, Indigenous peoples and traditional agricultural communities. It is the first major international appraisal of biodiversity since 2005. Representatives of 132 governments met last week in Paris to finalize and approve the analysis.
Biodiversity should be at the top of the global agenda alongside climate, said Anne Larigauderie, IPBES executive secretary, at a 6 May press conference in Paris, France. "We can no longer say that we did not know," she said.
"We have never had a single unified statement from the world's governments that unambiguously makes clear the crisis we are facing for life on Earth," says Thomas Brooks, chief scientist at the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Gland, Switzerland, who helped to edit the biodiversity analysis. "That is really the absolutely key novelty that we see here."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 12 2019, @04:03PM (7 children)
Homo sapien.
It is not a racist topic by default, but racists sure will want to use the idea to promote their favored genocide.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 12 2019, @04:08PM (3 children)
And the Catholic church has been willing to endorse "holy wars" in the past, but can't even stomach the idea of condoms let alone abortion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 12 2019, @04:56PM
A defensive war is sometimes needed
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday June 12 2019, @05:03PM
Not to defend the Catholic Church (which I will not), but their logic is perfectly consistent within the framework of a tribalistic god. Kill the infidels, but force the faithful to make more babies so their tribe can take over the world.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 12 2019, @06:11PM
They (and various Red states) actively fight to prevent even Non-Catholics from getting access to birth control:
Nuns, HHS to Clash With States Over Obamacare Birth Control Rule [bloomberglaw.com]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday June 12 2019, @05:27PM (2 children)
Yes, that's one of the things that makes this conversation such a landmine that people will try to avoid it.
And on the other side, racists will *also* perceive any solution that appears to disadvantage their own tribe in any way as a racist attack on them.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 12 2019, @06:41PM (1 child)
Hence the big hoopla about affirmative action, something which barely impacts white people but has become a hot topic for the reasons you gave. To be fair it is preferential treatment so disliking AA doesn't mean you're racist, but it sure is blown out of proportion these days.
I wonder if anyone has any kind of idea about when it should be repealed. Trying to fix human bias with legislation is one tricky problem.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday June 12 2019, @07:09PM
The ones most disadvantaged by AA are actually "Asians."
And here's yet another case where you can see the cracks in the whole racist edifice, the bankruptcy inherent in all racist thought.
See. we're trying to correct for opportunity based on group statistics rather than individual assessment, and that can never work properly.
In the specific case of 'Asians' the racist theory of the mainstream says that since Asians as a group perform better on a number of scales, they must have an excess of opportunity as a 'race.' So we lower their test scores accordingly, and this is supposed to balance out their supposed good fortune.
There are so many things wrong with this, but one HUGE one is the whole idea that there is some 'Asian race.' That's a racist assumption to begin with, and like every racist assumption it stumbles when expected to process reality. You lump ALL 'Asians' together in one big group and you crunch the numbers and there you go, we know what being Asian is. But we don't, not at all. Our numbers are highly weighted towards wealthy Chinese. So you get this poor Cambodian kid grows up in a slum trying to get into a school or get a job and he's being treated as if he were from a wealthy Chinese family, and by that yardstick he's suddenly not so appealing.
And that's racism, pure and simple. We're not evaluating the person, we're dealing with a classification. A category we invented and imposed on that kid.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?