The world is failing to address a catastrophic biodiversity collapse that not only threatens to wipe out beloved species and invaluable genetic diversity, but endangers humanity’s food supply, health and security, according to a sweeping United Nations report issued on Tuesday.

When governments act to protect and restore nature, the authors found, it works. But despite commitments made 10 years ago, nations have not come close to meeting the scale of the crisis, which continues to worsen because of unsustainable farming, overfishing, burning of fossil fuels and other activities.

Last year, an exhaustive international report concluded that humans had reshaped the natural world so drastically that one million species of animals and plants were at risk of extinction. This year, the World Economic Forum’s annual global risk report identified biodiversity loss, in addition to climate change, as one of the most urgent threats, saying that “human-driven nature and biodiversity loss is threatening life on our planet.” Last week, a respected index of animal life showed that, on average, the populations of almost 4,400 monitored mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish had declined by 68 percent since 1970.

The report estimates that governments around the world spend $500 billion per year on environmentally harmful initiatives, while total public and private financing for biodiversity came to a fraction of that: $80 billion to $90 billion.

“Our economic and financing systems are all screwed up,” said Robert Watson, a former chairman of two high-profile panels, one on climate change at the United Nations and the other on biodiversity. “We use gross domestic product as a measure of economic growth. It completely ignores nature. It completely ignores human well being. And so it’s a very limited concept.”

Scientists say food supplies are threatened by ecosystem collapse, climate change, the decline in pollinators and soil degradation from unsustainable farming. Conflict follows food and water scarcity.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/climate/biodiversity-united-nations-report.html

read that

there’s those polar ice melts too, not a small trouble ahead i’d expect, the fossil fuel free lunch likely turn out to be quite expensive

over population, say that slowly

transition said:

read that

there’s those polar ice melts too, not a small trouble ahead i’d expect, the fossil fuel free lunch likely turn out to be quite expensive

over population, say that slowly

Nature is currently running a phase 3 trial of a new virus.
So far it’s not looking good, it’s mostly taking out humans past reproductive age.

A decrease in population is not the same as a decrease in biodiversity.

One thing I find amazing is that as human biomass increases, the wild animal biomass does not decrease to match. In a nutshell, the sum of human and animal biomass is increasing, at an accelerating rate.

mollwollfumble said:

A decrease in population is not the same as a decrease in biodiversity.

One thing I find amazing is that as human biomass increases, the wild animal biomass does not decrease to match. In a nutshell, the sum of human and animal biomass is increasing, at an accelerating rate.

We need to kill more whales to even it up.

mollwollfumble said:

A decrease in population is not the same as a decrease in biodiversity.

One thing I find amazing is that as human biomass increases, the wild animal biomass does not decrease to match. In a nutshell, the sum of human and animal biomass is increasing, at an accelerating rate.

From the article:

>>This year, the World Economic Forum’s annual global risk report identified biodiversity loss, in addition to climate change, as one of the most urgent threats, saying that “human-driven nature and biodiversity loss is threatening life on our planet.” Last week, a respected index of animal life showed that, on average, the populations of almost 4,400 monitored mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish had declined by 68 percent since 1970.<<

Which mean if moll is correct, then humans must have shrunk in size as they certainly have not become fewer.

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

A decrease in population is not the same as a decrease in biodiversity.

One thing I find amazing is that as human biomass increases, the wild animal biomass does not decrease to match. In a nutshell, the sum of human and animal biomass is increasing, at an accelerating rate.

From the article:

>>This year, the World Economic Forum’s annual global risk report identified biodiversity loss, in addition to climate change, as one of the most urgent threats, saying that “human-driven nature and biodiversity loss is threatening life on our planet.” Last week, a respected index of animal life showed that, on average, the populations of almost 4,400 monitored mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish had declined by 68 percent since 1970.<<

Which mean if moll is correct, then humans must have shrunk in size as they certainly have not become fewer.

be a complex business analyzing structure related biodiversity, ecosystems etc, require technical level systems theory applied

not sure, guessing lot of people would have little interest in considering nature as a system, of organic life, climate and all

the first barrier possibly is that so much came about as a consequence of accidents, and that so much could be arrived at by way of accidents doesn’t lend to intuitive understanding, nor the time scales involved

it’s like some contradictions lie unabstracted deep in human consciousness, secret indifference/s of the flipside of caring maybe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory
reading that^

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-09-16/un-biodiversity-bramble-cay-melomys-extinction/12668356

Peak Warming Man said:

transition said:

read that

there’s those polar ice melts too, not a small trouble ahead i’d expect, the fossil fuel free lunch likely turn out to be quite expensive

over population, say that slowly

Nature is currently running a phase 3 trial of a new virus.
So far it’s not looking good, it’s mostly taking out humans past reproductive age.

Saving the Planet

George was an irreverent COMEDIAN
who, unfortunately, died before he saw yet
another far seeing prediction came to pass

…stay with it to The END… ;-)

Ogmog said:

Peak Warming Man said:

transition said:

read that

there’s those polar ice melts too, not a small trouble ahead i’d expect, the fossil fuel free lunch likely turn out to be quite expensive

over population, say that slowly

Nature is currently running a phase 3 trial of a new virus.
So far it’s not looking good, it’s mostly taking out humans past reproductive age.

Saving the Planet

George was an irreverent COMEDIAN
who, unfortunately, died before he saw yet
another far seeing prediction came to pass

…stay with it to The END… ;-)

just watched that, watched previous few times maybe, it’s good