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posted by janrinok on Wednesday June 12 2019, @03:47PM   Printer-friendly
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."


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Rupert Pupnick on Wednesday June 12 2019, @04:31PM (4 children)

    by Rupert Pupnick (7277) on Wednesday June 12 2019, @04:31PM (#854703) Journal

    In the book “Sapeins”, Yuval Noah Harrari posits that this has been going on since the first Homo Sapiens migrated out of East Africa. He also cites evidence that Sapiens may have also driven other human species, such as Neanderthals, to extinction. Australian megafauna were wiped out around the same time that HS arrived about 45,000 years ago. This will not be an easy trend to halt.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Wednesday June 12 2019, @05:13PM (3 children)

    by Arik (4543) on Wednesday June 12 2019, @05:13PM (#854719) Journal
    "In the book “Sapeins”, Yuval Noah Harrari posits that this has been going on since the first Homo Sapiens migrated out of East Africa."

    It was old even then.

    Every species alters its environment in some way. Humans were altering our environment long before we left Africa, long before Sapiens evolved even. Forget Neanderthalis, even Habilis and Erectus would have a huge effect in some places. Pigs, horses, cattle, even before human domestication large mammals in the wild cause changes as well. Even tiny insects and worms and the like can do the same.

    "This will not be an easy trend to halt."

    I think the whole idea that it *can* be halted is wrongheaded. If humans disappeared tomorrow that would not produce this mythical stable state where the climate is just right and stays that way, year after year, century after century, millennium after millennium. That's just a fairy tale.

    Our best bet may be to just try and avoid the most catastrophic effects, and to anticipate and ameliorate what we can't avoid.

    As a species we're notoriously bad at managing public goods though, and that's what this amounts to. Clean air and clean water and a lack of catastrophic climate disasters is something everyone has a rational interest in preserving.
    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    • (Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Wednesday June 12 2019, @06:53PM (2 children)

      by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday June 12 2019, @06:53PM (#854778) Journal

      Every species alters its environment in some way.

      Yep, Here you see beavers clear-cutting a forest and causing widespread flooding. [telegraph.co.uk]

      --
      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
      • (Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday June 13 2019, @12:13AM (1 child)

        by Arik (4543) on Thursday June 13 2019, @12:13AM (#854931) Journal
        Yeah, beavers can do tremendous amounts of damage. Another good image to come to mind when dealing with someone who seems to think that all bad things are caused by people.
        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday June 13 2019, @09:33AM

          by acid andy (1683) on Thursday June 13 2019, @09:33AM (#855055) Homepage Journal

          when dealing with someone who seems to think that all bad things are caused by people

          Who thinks that? Nobody here AFAICT and I don't think that was the point of TFA either.

          Yeah, beavers can do tremendous amounts of damage.

          Its a matter of scale. How many species are going extinct globally due to the activity of beavers (I'd suggest roughly none) versus humans. If beaver numbers exceeded the human population, more bad things would start happening but I seriously doubt it would approach the kind of damage human technology and profiteering can generate. We do have a very special talent for royally fucking everything up.

          --
          If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?