March 24, 2009 (World News Trust) -- The newspapers and TV like natural disasters. They provide countless emotional and, on the whole, non-controversial scenes (with the exception of New Orleans as the Bush administration seems capable of making anything controversial with the way they handle things) and keep people glued to the news.
I Love a Planet with a Happy Atmosphere (Michael Greenwell)
Also, there is never any need to provide context and background for natural disasters. Most of the major media excels at missing context and background (Palestine, Northern Ireland, etc., etc.).
So the news has been full of two horrific things recently -- the Chinese earthquake and the Burmese storm. Both tragedies have rightly received a lot of coverage and for all its worth my sympathies go to the victims and their families.
But there is another disaster underway and it is anything but natural. It can’t easily be cut into two minute sections for news reports.
It is hard to find an exact location for where it is happening and the fact that there are several causes makes it difficult for reporters to isolate it from the larger story that surrounds it.
I am referring to this from the BBC…
Wildlife populations ‘plummeting’
Between a quarter and a third of the world’s wildlife has been lost since 1970, according to data compiled by the Zoological Society of London.
Sorry, wait a minute, let me run that by you again…
Between a quarter and a third of the world’s wildlife has been lost since 1970, according to data compiled by the Zoological Society of London.
One more time. I just want to be sure you are clear on this…
Between a quarter and a third of the world’s wildlife has been lost since 1970, according to data compiled by the Zoological Society of London.
The story continues…
Populations of land-based species fell 25 percent, marine species 28 percent and freshwater species 29 percent, it says.
Humans are wiping out about 1 percent of all other species every year, and one of the “great extinction episodes” in the Earth’s history is under way, it says.
Now this is a major major crisis, what is causing all of this?
Pollution, farming and urban expansion, over-fishing and hunting are blamed.
Ok, so five reasons are given. Here are some "highlights" from the rest of it before I come back to that...
The Living Planet Index, compiled by the society in partnership with the wildlife group WWF, tracks the fortunes of more than 1,400 species of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, using scientific publications and online databases.
It said numbers had declined 27 percent in the 35 years from 1970 to 2005.
Some of the worst hit are marine species which saw their numbers plummet 28 percent in just 10 years, between 1995 and 2005.
Populations of ocean birds have fallen 30 percent since the mid 1990s, while land-based populations have dropped 25 percent.
Among the creatures most seriously affected have been African antelopes, swordfish and hammerhead sharks.
Another, the baiji -- or Yangtze River Dolphin -- may have been lost altogether.
The findings were released ahead of a meeting of the Convention on Biodiversity in the German city of Bonn.
The convention was signed in 1992 with the aim of stabilising the loss of species. In 2002, member states pledged to achieve a “significant reduction” in the current rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.
But the Zoological Society said governments had since failed to put in place policies necessary to achieve that goal.
It said that while species’ decline does appear to have flattened off in recent years, it is “very unlikely” that the 2010 target will be reached.
The WWF said that over the next 30 years, climate change was also expected to become a significant threat to species.
Colin Butfield, head of campaigns at WWF UK, said: “Biodiversity underpins the health of the planet and has a direct impact on all our lives, so it is alarming that despite an increased awareness of environmental issues we continue to see a downward trend.”
The charity also warned that a failure to stop biodiversity loss would have a direct impact on humans.
Director general James Leape said: “Reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies are more vulnerable to pests and disease and where water is in irregular or short supply.
“No-one can escape the impact of biodiversity loss because reduced global diversity translates quite clearly into fewer new medicines, greater vulnerability to natural disasters and greater effects from global warming.”
The WWF is calling on governments meeting in Bonn to honour their commitments to put in place effective protected areas for wildlife and to adopt a target to achieve net annual zero deforestation by 2020.
The UK’s Biodiversity Minister, Joan Ruddock, said the report showed that the international community had to work together to stem the decline.
“The fact that human activities have caused more rapid changes in biodiversity in the last 50 years than at any other time in human history should concern us all,” she said.
“Supporting wildlife is critical to all our futures and the UK will continue to give strong support to international action.
“Schemes such as the Darwin Initiative have used UK expertise to help more that 490 wildlife conservation, regeneration and research projects in 146 countries.”
So in about 40 years we have undone millions of years of evolution. I understand it is difficult for journalists to put these stories together in a way that fits the episodic style of news coverage we have, but really, this is an incredible crisis.
It is often said that it is difficult to explain all the factors involved in this as much of the work is scientific and the public have difficulties understanding stories that evolve over long timescales. Now I think that that is patronising and plain wrong but nonetheless I will run with it for a moment and see if I can put it into words that a child could understand…
“Hello class, look in your dictionaries, here is what biomass means. Now, if we have less biomass that means less ability to regenerate, less ability to regenerate means less biomass and so on. No animals and plants does not simply mean less things to look at when you go on the school trip to the countryside. It means less food, less medicine and possibly less breathable air. If we don’t do something major, and soon, we will all be fighting each other for the few resources left and that fighting will reduce the resources again.”
That wasn’t so hard.
The minister in the article, Joan Ruddock, seems to think it is a cause for concern, Of course, it is not of so much concern that she can’t be part of a government planning expansions in air travel and new coal fired power stations.
Anyway, of the five problems mentioned, hunting, distasteful (or boneheaded) as it might be, is the least of them.
Overfishing is as a result of increased population, increased demand and more industrial methods of scooping out the oceans. It affects the ecological balance as some other predators no longer have a food supply. It has also been shown that with the right restrictions in place then fish populations can rebound. Also, very often fish are dumped back into the sea, dead, after they are caught. This is a fixable problem.
Pollution is mentioned as one of the problems but they don’t say what kind of pollution, where it comes from and what effect it has (these are just very simple links, please read more).
Urban expansion is not only a result of population, the elephant in the room but also of the suburban car-obsessed society. Read Fast Food Nation for an excellent account of the phenomenon.
As for farming, modern farming and food production relies on oil. We literally eat the stuff. Oil based-pesticides, oil to fly those foreign oranges around the world and oil for the trucks to move them around after the airport, oil to power the fancy lights of the supermarkets to entice us to come in and eat more oil.
“In 1944 the average US farm produced 2,300 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil fuel energy that went into the field. In 1974 that ratio became 1 to 1. In our own time, thanks to nitrogen fertilisers, oil-based pesticides, refrigeration and four-figure food miles it is 2000 to 1 reversed so you would think the lead item on every newspaper would be how are we going to feed ourselves now that the oil is running out?” -From Rob Newmans History of Oil
I will leave you with this stat if you are still not convinced that simply tinkering around the edges of the current modes of production will alter the way things are going enough to stop this train…
On average each person needs 2.2 global hectares to support the demands they place on the environment, but the planet is only able to meet consumption levels of 1.8 global hectares per person.
http://michaelgreenwell.wordpress.com
- CreatedMonday, March 23, 2009
- Last modifiedWednesday, November 06, 2013
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