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https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/full
Humanity is causing a rapid loss of biodiversity and, with it, Earth's ability to support complex life. But the mainstream is having difficulty grasping the magnitude of this loss, despite the steady erosion of the fabric of human civilization (Ceballos et al., 2015; IPBES, 2019; Convention on Biological Diversity, 2020; WWF, 2020). While suggested solutions abound (Díaz et al., 2019), the current scale of their implementation does not match the relentless progression of biodiversity loss (Cumming et al., 2006) and other existential threats tied to the continuous expansion of the human enterprise (Rees, 2020). Time delays between ecological deterioration and socio-economic penalties, as with climate disruption for example (IPCC, 2014), impede recognition of the magnitude of the challenge and timely counteraction needed. In addition, disciplinary specialization and insularity encourage unfamiliarity with the complex adaptive systems (Levin, 1999) in which problems and their potential solutions are embedded (Selby, 2006; Brand and Karvonen, 2007). Widespread ignorance of human behavior (Van Bavel et al., 2020) and the incremental nature of socio-political processes that plan and implement solutions further delay effective action (Shanley and López, 2009; King, 2016).
We summarize the state of the natural world in stark form here to help clarify the gravity of the human predicament. We also outline likely future trends in biodiversity decline (Díaz et al., 2019), climate disruption (Ripple et al., 2020), and human consumption and population growth to demonstrate the near certainty that these problems will worsen over the coming decades, with negative impacts for centuries to come. Finally, we discuss the ineffectiveness of current and planned actions that are attempting to address the ominous erosion of Earth's life-support system. Ours is not a call to surrender—we aim to provide leaders with a realistic "cold shower" of the state of the planet that is essential for planning to avoid a ghastly future.
Journal Reference:
Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Paul R. Ehrlich, Andrew Beattie. et al. Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future, Frontiers in Conservation Science [OPEN] (DOI: 10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 23 2021, @10:48PM (6 children)
If you only preserve penguin-land, desert, and Alaskan Tundra - until such time as you decide you want the petroleum from the Tundra then you F that landscape for 1000 years, you're going to be preserving a very limited set of species, most of which don't do much with h. sapiens in a natural setting.
It counts when there are significant, safe, functioning ecosystems representative of the kinds of lands we have moved into and obliterated the existing ecosystems from in the last 500 or so years. 99% of Europe (99.9 if you discount Poland) & 98% of the lower 48 US has had the trees clearcut in the last 500 years, most of them in the last 50. That means that the forest ecosystems that had built up over thousands to millions of years, or repopulated from nearby forests after they were burned by nature or man in the distant past, are not repopulating anymore - the ecosystems that developed there can't rebuild because they've been too fragmented and too many species simply extinct. Brazil is working hard to catch up, as is much of South America and Africa.
Keep the cities, sure, but farmland doesn't count as "wild space," including tree farms. You're near Yellowstone? Go take a walk on some commercial timberland, then take a walk in a natural forest - the difference is stark, unless all you see is the dollars you can get from cutting the trees.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 24 2021, @05:24AM (5 children)
That short list doesn't get you to 30%. And what's supposed to be the big deal with "F that landscape" for a 1000 years. The ecosystem doesn't care.
In the US, 7% of forest is old growth. And 500 years is nonsense. There's huge swaths of the US forest that never had old growth forest of that age in the first place, because the forests burn down every few decades naturally, even without humans of any sort present.
Depends on the "wild space". The areas affected by the 1988 Yellowstone fires look like commercial forest with trees of the same narrow band of age. And Yellowstone's lodge pole pine forests rarely get very old due to its tendency to burn.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 24 2021, @07:14PM (1 child)
You're so desoerate to not see the problems. Or you're too stupid to notice the signs. I'm gonna go with "desperate" based on your track record of ignoring inconvenient data.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 26 2021, @12:48PM
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 25 2021, @02:29AM (2 children)
Fires started by what?
And how long have the wolves been allowed back into Yellowstone? Have they reached pre-Lewis and Clarke levels of population even now? Predators very much influence the species mix of forests. Without over-grazing by "cute cuddly" deer, what would regrow in the lodge pole pine forests after the next fire?
Counting Alaska now, are we? Interior Alaska, while more habitable for humans than Antarctica, is still clearly not the most representative collection of "cradle of humanity" species.
In the South East forests were fire adapted. They would burn every few years at times, but the old growth trees would survive those fires. The 20 acres we owned north of Arcadia Florida was forested with old growth pine until the 1890s, then they built a sawmill 6 miles downriver, then they cut and floated the logs to the sawmill (some logs sank and were recovered by our neighbors in the 1980s, sold for thousands of dollars a piece), those that floated to the sawmill were used to build a small town, which burned down in the early 1900s. The area has been "fire controlled" since then and is regrown with non-fire adapted oaks which will, as soon as the fire department quits responding, burn down after then next drought+lightning storm. Fire adapted old growth pines would live hundreds of years, 500 was not unusual, until the 1890s.
Doesn't it? Care to comment on what has happened to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico around Deepwater Horizon?
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 25 2021, @03:11AM
Thanks for trying but khallow is paid to push a pro-oil narrative.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 25 2021, @06:18AM
Multiple causes [wikipedia.org], some man-caused like someone dropping a cigarette into combustible materials, abandoned campfire, or power lines. And natural - lightning strikes. There were 250 identifiable fire starts in that year in or near Yellowstone.
Lodge pole pines. The trees are well optimized for spreading through fire.
Since when has "cradle of humanity" species been at all relevant to this discussion?
So there was old forest in the US? Who knew?
I don't think that's relevant.
Bunch of oil entered the ecosystem. Sounds like it's in the process of leaving the ecosystem though those natural systems that don't care. I certain don't expect it to stick around for a thousand years, given that the gulf has a lot of oil enter the ecosystem naturally. If oil wasn't being digested or buried, there'd be a vast amount of it in the gulf depths already.