By Mickey Friedman
December 17, 2018
Many will ignore the latest reports about the climate crisis. Some, like our fearful leader, will profess: “I don’t believe.”
So let’s shift the focus to some other critical things that are happening. That some won’t want to believe.
With the possible exemption of ticks and roaches from the love-fest, a more appreciative species than ours would honor the other life forms who accompany us on our journey. But if we’re not shooting, spearing or trapping them in nets, actively participating in their individual demise, we’re destroying their habitats. Ignoring their disappearance.
There are, though, a few organizations who pay attention. Like the World Wildlife Federation, who issue a Living Planet Report.
Their 2018 report reveals “wildlife populations have declined by over half in less than 50 years … Plummeting numbers of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and fish around the world are an urgent sign that nature needs life support.”
People like to quarrel with the notion that humans have anything to do with climate change. You can imagine how annoyed they’ll be with this: “Humans have only been around for 200,000 years, a tiny blip in the 4.5 billion years of our planet’s history. Yet we have had a greater impact on the Earth than any other species. All over the world, we are cutting down forests, using too much water from rivers, choking our oceans with plastic and pushing many animals to extinction.” Us. People.
How appropriate is it that as we transition from Black Friday to Cyber Monday to the Twelve Shopping Days of Christmas, we’re told that the cause of this remarkable loss of species is, wait for it: consumption. What? “Consumption is the driving force behind the unprecedented planetary change we are witnessing, through the increased demand for energy, land and water.”
No dummies, the folks at WWF try to appeal to the movers and shakers of the global economy. Protecting nature makes sense if you want to make money: “All economic activity ultimately depends on services provided by nature, estimated to be worth around US$125 trillion a year … Business and the finance industry are starting to question how global environmental risks will affect the macroeconomic performance of countries, sectors and financial markets, and policy-makers wonder how we will meet climate and sustainable development targets with declining nature and biodiversity.”
Not sure the orangutans, elephants or penguins are sympathetic to the concerns of the capitalists but I’m pretty sure no one’s asking for their input.
Let’s acknowledge the “it could be worse argument.” On a global level between 1970 and 2014 population sizes of wildlife decreased by 60%, while in South and Central America there was a population decline of 89%. Could have been 100%.
We take many things about nature for granted. Like the fact that “about 87% of all flowering plant species are pollinated by animals, and crops that are partially pollinated by animals account for 35% of global food production.” We may actually need some of these critters if we want food.
Then plants. “Many medical treatments have been inspired by wild species, from painkillers to treatments for heart conditions and from cancer cures to remedies for high blood pressure … there are between 50,000 and 70,000 known medicinal and aromatic plants used industrially. Some of them are key to drug discovery and could be vital in finding the next blockbuster treatment.”
It turns out that “Agriculture accounts for the lion’s share of the conversion of forested land. Decreases in forest area and forest quality both impact the plants and animals living within them. A recent study of more than 19,000 species of birds, amphibians and mammals found that deforestation substantially increased the odds of a species being listed … as threatened and exhibiting declining populations.”
And insects. The New York Times article, “The Insect Apocalypse Is Here,” chronicles the decimation of insects over the last several decades. First reminding us that insects are “the vital pollinators and recyclers of ecosystems and the base of food webs everywhere,” then telling us that “In the United States, scientists recently found the population of monarch butterflies fell by 90 percent in the last 20 years, a loss of 900 million individuals; the rusty-patched bumblebee, which once lived in 28 states, dropped by 87 percent over the same period. With other, less-studied insect species, one butterfly researcher told me, ‘all we can do is wave our arms and say, “It’s not here anymore!”
The Times notes: “People who studied fish found that the fish had fewer mayflies to eat. Ornithologists kept finding that birds that rely on insects for food were in trouble … Half of all farmland birds in Europe disappeared in just three decades. At first, many scientists assumed the familiar culprit of habitat destruction was at work, but then they began to wonder if the birds might simply be starving.”
They’re not here anymore.