One Million Species Face Extinction, U.n. Report Says. And Humans Will Suffer As A Result.

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Mankind's biggest challenge since we rose to rule the planet. And yet, we will do nothing. Just as we have been doing since these warnings began sounding, back in the 1990s. Because doing something will cost many their hoards of riches. That they don't understand that their riches mean nothing if Earth ceases to provide them sustenance. Until saving the planet becomes profitable nothing will happen. By then if it ever happens it will be too late.

Greed shall be our downfall.


Up to 1 million plant and animal species are on the verge of extinction, with alarming implications for human survival, according to a United Nations report released Monday.

The report’s findings underscore the conclusions of previous scientific studies that say human activity is wreaking havoc on the wild kingdom, threatening the existence of living things ranging from giant whales to small flowers and insects that are almost impossible to see with the naked eye.

But the global report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services goes a step further than previous studies by linking the loss of species to humans and analyzing its effect on food and water security, farming and economies.

According to the report, more plants and animals are threatened with extinction now than any other period in human history. Nature’s current rate of decline is unparalleled, it says, and the accelerating rate of extinctions “means grave impacts on people around the world are now likely.”

In a prepared statement, Robert Watson, a British chemist who served as the panel’s chairman, said the decline in biodiversity is eroding “the foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”

One million species face extinction, U.N. report says. And humans will suffer as a result.

Nations that signed off on the study’s findings acknowledged that opposition from rich people invested in the status quo is expected.

“Since 1992, we’ve been telling the world we have a problem,” Watson said. “Now what’s different? It’s much worse today than it was in 1992. We’ve wasted all of the time . . . the last 25 years.” However, he said, “we have a much better understanding of the links between climate change, biodiversity, and food security and water security.”

Nearly 150 authors from 50 nations worked for three years to compile the report. They relied on input from 300 contributing authors who assessed the impact of economic development on nature to estimate future effects.



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b.c.

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I personally (is that redundant? Sorta like saying "me myself"?) have arrived at a rather whimsical analogy (though no doubt, others have already drawn similar comparisons).

That of the world as a human host, and we, as either good bacteria or harmful bacteria - which kind, being wholly dependent on our OWN actions.

And that like a human body, when we fuck up (i.e. become bad bacteria), the earth will, via various "responses," (extreme weather, rising tides, warming climate, etc), try to rid itself of the harmful pathogen.

The end result being either it EVENTUALLY rids itself of the "infection" or succumbs to the disease. Either way, we're fucked.
 
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I personally (is that redundant? Sorta like saying "me myself"?) have arrived at a rather whimsical analogy (though no doubt, others have already drawn similar comparisons).

That of the world as a human host, and we, as either good bacteria or harmful bacteria - which kind, being wholly dependent on our OWN actions.

And that like a human body, when we fuck up (i.e. become bad bacteria), the earth will, via various "responses," (extreme weather, rising tides, warming climate, etc), try to rid itself of the harmful pathogen.

The end result being either it EVENTUALLY rids itself of the "infection" or succumbs to the disease. Either way, we're fucked.

Exactly. The planet will rid itself of us unfortunately not before we take everything down with us. I used to think insects would at least survive thanks to their sheer numbers but now with the insect apocalypse actually already here. Insects are the vital pollinators and recyclers of ecosystems and the base of food webs everywhere. What happens when they're gone? I don't think even they will make it out. We've embraced doomsday capitalism. Capitalism rules the world and corporations rule capitalism and corporations are amoral entities with no conscience to act against in the first place. Given that how does the planet and all life on it have a chance?

As the 20th century draws to a close, we find that we are being overwhelmed by our success as species. The human population grows without restraint, our activities are steadily destroying the global ecosystem in which we evolved, and we occupy and dominate all major ecosystems. We are no longer a few bands of inconsequential primates roving the grasslands of East Africa as we were three million years ago. The human species, through the instrument of culture, has become the dominant force of planetary ecological change. Our adaptations have become maladaptive. Moreover, the human species as a whole now displays all four major characteristics of a malignant process: rapid, uncontrolled growth; invasion and destruction of adjacent normal tissues (ecosystems); metastasis (distant colonization); and dedifferentiation (loss of distinctiveness in individual components). We have become a malignant ecopathologic process. If this diagnosis is true, what is the prognosis? The difference between us and most forms of cancer is that we can think, and we can decide not to be a cancer. Is this possible?​

Has The Human Species Become A Cancer On The Planet?: A Theoretical View Of Population Growth As A Sign of Pathology

..The human species is capable of regulating its fertility and population growth, it is capable of restoring environments and saving other species from extinction, and it is capable of living in harmony with the rest of the ecosystem. This hypothesis predicts that, while the human species is capable of all these noncancerous activities and even occasionally displays them, it will continue to behave overall as a cancer on the planet. This will be true even if population growth stops but no other changes are made in the way that human beings relate to recover from the stress of human impact.​
 

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Remember my thread some time ago that we need a two child population? The elephant in the room of environmental impact debate is that humans have doubled in number in the last fifty years. This has to be reversed.
 

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Remember my thread some time ago that we need a two child population? The elephant in the room of environmental impact debate is that humans have doubled in number in the last fifty years. This has to be reversed.

So we need to cut the population in half? Time to call on You-Know-Who.
 
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Remember my thread some time ago that we need a two child population? The elephant in the room of environmental impact debate is that humans have doubled in number in the last fifty years. This has to be reversed.

We’ve hooked ourselves to an ideology that demands infinite growth and infinite markets. We haven’t acknowledged this and I’m not confident we ever will. We will keep giving the corpse CPR.

The good news is birth rates are the plummeting all over the developed world. The cost of raising children apparently is turning millions of people away from the idea. And that is unlikely to change as resources become scarce and scarce. Will it be enough to save the planet?
 

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So we need to cut the population in half? Time to call on You-Know-Who.

The current level of human population is not sustainable. The sustainable level will depend on several factors, but only a complete fucking idiot would happily sit by with us reproducing at a similar rate with a similar consumption/destruction rate.

And I don't know who you may mean as you know who. Please tell.
 

Drifterwood

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We’ve hooked ourselves to an ideology that demands infinite growth and infinite markets. We haven’t acknowledged this and I’m not confident we ever will. We will keep giving the corpse CPR.

The good news is birth rates are the plummeting all over the developed world. The cost of raising children apparently is turning millions of people away from the idea. And that is unlikely to change as resources become scarce and scarce. Will it be enough to save the planet?

I agree that one of the fundamental problems is the central tenet of our current form of capitalism, growth. This is the self destruct button of the human psyche apparently. Will we turn it off, will we make people turn it off before we take the whole place with us? Do people even care? Are we like an alcoholic knowingly drinking themselves to death?

The West does seem to have an economic one child policy and of course China was criticised for imposing one for two generations. We can continue this, but if the rest of the world doesn't, then there are going to be some very very unpleasant decisions ahead.
 
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This is the self destruct button of the human psyche apparently. Are we like an alcoholic knowingly drinking themselves to death

That requires some kind of global agreement, strategy and sustained execution so far that's been a spectacular failure in regards to climate change. These are the end of day as foretold by ancient prophets people will think.

Do people even care?

Ultimately they don't care enough for concrete steps to reverse the trend until it has direct impact on their lives and by then it will be too late. We are ourselves as really disconnected from the natural world almost supernatural godlike creatures that can exist without the planet. When the reality is the universe is quite inhospitable to human life and in many ways wants you dead. You don't have to go too far up into the atmosphere or too far down before it kills you. Or too far into the desert heat or the arctic cold to die very easily.

I agree that one of the fundamental problems is the central tenet of our current form of capitalism, growth. This is the self destruct button of the human psyche apparently. Will we turn it off, will we make people turn it off before we take the whole place with us? Do people even care? Are we like an alcoholic knowingly drinking themselves to death?

Until turning over vast swatches of land and sea back over to nature the answer is obvious: no. Doing this means a shrinking economy which for capitalism is a death sentence which we've embraced worldwide. It is the humanity's first worldwide religion.

The West does seem to have an economic one child policy and of course China was criticised for imposing one for two generations. We can continue this, but if the rest of the world doesn't, then there are going to be some very very unpleasant decisions ahead.

China is in the same situation:
China’s Looming Crisis: A Shrinking Population
sidebar: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sperm-count-dropping-in-western-world/



The Pet Shop Boys thought it would all be alright. That's a big delusional fantasy.

Forests falling at a desperate pace
The earth is dying, and desert taking its place
People under pressure on the brink of starvation
hope it's gonna be alright
(Alright alright alright)
Cause the music plays forever
(Cause it goes on and on and on and on and on)
I hope it's gonna be alright
(On and on and on and on, forever)
And the music plays forever
(Alright alright)


[/QUOTE]
 
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We Asked People If They Care About Homo Sapien Extinction

 
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Lead the way.

But science medal winner Lynn Margulis, a professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and an expert on the evolution and structure of human cells, pooh-poohed assertions made by other medal winners about technology's contribution to society. Instead, she painted a somber picture for the future of the human race.

"The fundamental driving force for humanity is the genital friction that produces more people," she said. "We are 'plague mammals,' and plague mammals multiply fantastically until just before the last generation."
 
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NCbear

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This is an interesting discussion. Yes, we're fucking like there's (literally?) no tomorrow, and we're increasing the human population on this planet at an amazing rate--but we're also facing significant antibiotic resistance and other threats to our collective health, so much so that our generation will most likely be the first one that doesn't enjoy better health than our parents.

Frankly, I think no matter what we try to do individually, our critical mass over the globe will lead to epidemics of various types as pathogenic bacteria and viruses opportunistically mutate and attempt to reproduce themselves at similarly amazing rates. We won't be able to escape this mass purge.

Perhaps things would've been different if we'd developed the technology to colonize other planets. But now that we desperately need that technology--and I do mean desperately--we are well behind the curve in terms of performing the necessary research and testing our prototypes so that at least some of humanity can escape the ruin of this planet. We've run out of time, collectively.

A potential silver lining: Humanity took a very long time to evolve, so over future millennia comparable conditions may bring about some new version of intelligent life on this planet. There is still hope for Earth, in that sense; this planet may yet see intelligent ocean-dwelling mammals, intelligent birds, or other animals (including primates) that may replace humankind as the dominant form of intelligent life on this third rock from our sun. But I don't really see much hope for modern humans, given the accelerating prospects for dying in our own waste heat and taking most of this planet's current species with us.

Unless, of course, enough of us die off so that the planet can over time recover from this period's excesses. In which case the humans of several millennia in the future will have survived a truly harrowing reduction in our collective gene pool (and the gene pools available on this planet) and will therefore be very different from humans of today.

NCbear (who didn't want to be so depressingly realistic on Mother's Day, but who had to point out the elephant in the room)