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

[brooklynite]

Source: Washington Post

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

The report’s findings underscore the conclusions of numerous 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.

Nature’s current rate of decline is unparalleled, the report says, and the accelerating rate of extinctions “means grave impacts on people around the world are now likely.” In a 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.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/05/06/one-million-species-face-extinction-un-panel-says-humans-will-suffer-result

[Iliyah]

1. Yep.

[Croney]

2. It's God's will, the hastening of The Rapture.

Yippee!

[democratisphere]

3. All species eventually become extinct.

Humans may be the only species that destroys every other species AND themselves; self-extinction.

[Blue_Tires]

4. Oh I got it! Let's put more anti-intellectual nutbars in office! That'll certainly help!

[Kid Berwyn]

5. Remember Bruce Dern and the Drones in "Silent Running"?

The greed heads and warmongers wouldn’t be bothered to keep the planet’s biodiversity.

We don’t have to be that way.

[Ghost Dog]

6. Humanity must save insects, if not for their sake, then for ourselves, a leading entomologist warns

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/07/humanity-must-save-insects-to-save-ourselves-scientist-warns

“Insects are the glue in nature and there is no doubt that both the [numbers] and diversity of insects are declining,” said Prof Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson, at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. “At some stage the whole fabric unravels and then we will really see the consequences.”

On Monday, the largest ever assessment of the health of nature was published and warned starkly that the annihilation of wildlife is eroding the foundations of human civilisation. The IPBES report said: “Insect abundance has declined very rapidly in some places … but the global extent of such declines is not known.” It said the available evidence supports a “tentative” estimate that 10% of the 5.5m species of insect thought to exist are threatened with extinction...