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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 JoeMerchant on Thursday November 01 2018, @02:58AM
True, and one of the many core problems that needs addressing.
As for the alarmism, yes, the article is written in that tone and may be guilty of puffery and all the other emotional irrelevance, however, without some of this emotional appeal to the masses, the majority of the population will not respond to the cold hard facts.
The cold hard facts have been known for decades, the numbers are there, the surveys have been statistically significant for a long time... it's past time for the alarmism and past time for effective political action. We've "preserved" a couple of percent of the oceans.. that number needs to move from 2 or 3 up to 50, or even higher, fast.
https://www.half-earthproject.org/ [half-earthproject.org]
https://mission-blue.org/ [mission-blue.org]
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/