Biodiversity crisis is about to put humanity at risk, UN scientists to warn

[bronxiteforever]

We are in trouble if we don’t act,’ say experts, with up to 1m species at risk of annihilation
By Jonathan Watts for The Guardian
Published: 08:53 Friday, 03 May 2019

The world’s leading scientists will warn the planet’s life-support systems are approaching a danger zone for humanity when they release the results of the most comprehensive study of life on Earth ever undertaken.

Up to 1m species are at risk of annihilation, many within decades...the report is a compilation of reams of academic studies, in this case on subjects ranging from ocean plankton and subterranean bacteria to honey bees and Amazonian botany. Following previous findings on the decimation of wildlife, the overview of the state of the world’s nature is expected to provide evidence that the world is facing a sixth wave of extinction. Unlike the past five, this one is human-driven.

Mike Barrett, WWF’s executive director of conservation and science, said: “All of our ecosystems are in trouble. This is the most comprehensive report on the state of the environment. It irrefutably confirms that nature is in steep decline.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/03/climate-crisis-is-about-to-put-humanity-at-risk-un-scientists-warn?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

An existential threat completely ignored by the GOP and it’s base... but it comes a knocking.

[Moostache]

1. This is why humanity is doomed and people born today will be among the last EVER to die...

The species is a virus on the planet Earth. We over consume EVERYTHING. Food, water, arable land, vulnerable ecosystems (Coral Reefs, Marshes), seemingly impervious ecosystems (Amazon Basin, Ocean food chains), natural resources (oil, gas, coal, minerals) and we replenish NOTHING.

Native American culture - especially that of the Plains tribes and cultures - lived in harmony with the land and the cycles of nature. Europeans had decimated their native continent by the 1500s and HAD to seek out additional resources when they settled the New World and decimated the cultures in North and South America that had a far more harmonious relationship to the natural world. Ever since then, we have seen it get worse and worse and worse in an unending stream of bad-to-worse decisions and practices.

No one cares though...least of all those in power overtly and especially behind the curtains. The great and powerful Oz of our day has no interest in change, only accelerated extraction and destruction. There is no real outrage and absolutely ZERO willingness to sacrifice or deny ourselves the newest I-Phone or Android device. No one feels the coming calamity in their day-to-day life and the media is nothing more than the most diabolically effective propaganda machine in human history - keeping everyone on the planet in a constant stream of required comercial exposures. Buy more, you'll feel better with the newest $5000 hand bag or $3000 skirt and blouse with $500 shoes.

I have absolutely no hope for the future. There is nothing happening on a global scale that will come close to stemming this tide of doom. The little bits that are happening are nothing more than boarding up windows in the face of a Category 5 hurricane....quaint, but useless.

And in all honesty, given the craven asshole in the White House, his equally craven 'supporters' in the GOP and the semi-conscious response of the Democratic Party in the face of the destruction of our government, our society and our planet...I have given up hope. We are doomed and there is nothing that will save us from ourselves. Its already too late for most, by 2025 it will be too late for all. If you honestly see a huge swing and turn around in the next 6 years that has been absent for the last 60+, then good on you...I admire your positivity. I just think believing in a future for humanity at this point is a lost cause.

Find a comfortable vantage point and watch the carnage because avoiding it entirely is no longer a possibility...

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. This.

[CrispyQ]

3. I share your pessimism.

I have felt this coming for a while now, but have thought we could possibly reverse or lessen the impact. But we are beyond that now.

I think the rich people think that the eaters & takers - that's us - are going to die off & it will be a wonderful world - basically what it is today but with far fewer people. I don't think they have grasped the scope of climate change. We are not too far away from people in AZ & TX migrating north to avoid hostile climate or because of lack of water. I've had DUers scoff at that comment, but it's going happen. The Water Knife, a novel by Paolo Bacigalupi is a future that isn't that far off. Less than two decades, I would guess & that might be optimistic. There. I am optimistic after all.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Kissinger's 1974 Genocide Report agrees with you

National Security Study MemorandumNSSM 200
Implications of Worldwide Population GrowthFor U.S. Security and Overseas Interests
(THE KISSINGER REPORT)

https://www.scribd.com/document/7423676/NSSM-200-Kissinger-Genocide-Report-1974

This a 1974 report! It was written in response to the population/environmental concerns of the early 70's, outlining what could be done to alleviate the problems which indeed have surfaced since then.

Said report predicted where we are at today with climate change, its effect on food/water supplies, the increasing reliance on other, mostly poorer countries for the minerals, oil, etc that the US would need in the future.

There is great uncertainty whether the conditions for achieving food balance in the LDCs*
can in fact be realized.
Climatic changes are poorly understood, but a persistent atmosphericcooling trend since 1940 has been established. One respectable body of scientific opinion believes that this portends a period of much wider annual frosts, and possibly a long-term lowering of rainfall in the monsoon areas of Asia and Africa.

*LDC= Less Developed Countries

but instead of using the information to help achieve global equality in the past 50 years, the oil-igarchs used it as an instruction manual of what to globally plunder.

[Mickju]

5. 100% agree with everything in your post

We are doomed, probably sooner than later.

[The_jackalope]

6. As those species are annihilated they are being replaced by

Cows, pigs, chickens ... and lots and lots and lots of humans.

By my calculations, only about 1% or so of the world's land animal biomass now consists of wild mammals. The other 99% is humans and their domesticates.

The best, and perhaps the only, thing one can do that has any hope of redressing the climate and extinction predicament is to stop having children.