This week’s big story is the incredible decline of global wildlife.

[GliderGuider]

On Friday I released the first version of the graphic included below. A few days later, in an incredible stroke of timing, the following story hit the headlines, completely confirming the data in my chart. Human beings and our domestic animals have almost wiped out global wildlife, mainly by destroying their habitat and killing them directly for food, sport, or to protect our domestic animals.

Half of world's animals have disappeared since 1970

Half of the animals in the world have disappeared since 1970 because of uncontrollable human expansion, shocking new figures have shown.

A report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has found that populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish have declined on average by 52 per cent in the last 40 years.

And for freshwater creatures the situation is even bleaker, with population collapse of more than three quarters over the same period.

Almost the entire decline is down to human activity, through habitat loss, deforestation, climate change, over-fishing and hunting

The graphical presentation of the situation is pretty sobering.



In that graphic, the "wild animal" biomass doesn't include insects, bacteria, or marine organisms.

I used three data sources to develop the chart: a paper by world-respected ecological scientist Vaclav Smil, called "Harvesting the Biosphere", linked below; world population estimates from the Wikipedia article of the same name; and the UN's Medium Fertility variant for the human population in 2050 (9.6 billion).

The definition I used for Global Carrying Capacity is, "The biomass the planet can support without the assistance of human technology or fossil fuels." The impact of human activity has gradually eroded the Earth's carrying capacity over time, which is why I show the red dotted line sloping down to the right. The degree of erosion is very hard to estimate. My guess is that we may have lost around 25% by this point, some of which would of course be naturally regenerated over time in the absence of human activity. Any biomass above that dotted line has to be supported by human technology and energy supplies (which at this point are mostly from fossil fuels).

The conclusion is that we have been living in the midst of an accelerating Global Mass Extinction Event for over 100 years already. Unfortunately we've been too fixated on human issues like economics and politics to even notice, let alone realize what it means. Those who did realize the significance, both to wildlife and the human species, have been powerless to act in the face of economics and politics.

So now what do we do? Anybody?

http://vaclavsmil.com/wp-content/uploads/PDR37-4.Smil_.pgs613-636.pdf

[Anansi1171]

1. We really do have to die in tragedy and take the current...

biosphere with it, then do something sensible like build and live in Arcologies. Sensible would also mean leaving vast tracks of earth to heal.

[dontshoot]

2. We have too many people in this country but I have read we should have millions more

The only thing saving our wild life here is sportsmen and the federal government.

I wish more people would put their money where their mouths are to stop our forests from being destroyed .

[uppityperson]

23. What do you mean?

Where have you read we should have millions more people on this country? How have sportsmen saved our wild life? How should people "put their money where their mouths are to stop our forests from being destroyed?

Your post raises many questions for me and if you'd clarify, I would appreciate it. Thanks

[uppityperson]

27. Do you seriously believe "treehuggers" are ineffective and only carry signs?

and hunters buying ammo are the ones who are doing anything to help the environment?

Are you seriously advocating stopping immigration, it's "not fine" to let people immigrate?

Yes,, I read your self deleted reply and am quoting you.

[uppityperson]

30. Yountook a long time to pull up links, edit, re edit, several times, so I wanted to double checkt

that you really believe, as you said...

Pehaps I should have stated the world but I have read many articles that it's fine to let people keep emigrating into the .U.S , it's not fine
(clip)

Duck unlimited which is sportsmen have conserved and restored over 13 million of wetlands for water fowl
How many tree huggers can say that in the United States? Also the Rocky mountain ELK foundation has done close to that.
This is ALL done by donations mostly from sports men and license fees. Again how many tree huggers have done something like this.
Marching with a sign down the street protesting doesn't do squat.....that's where I say put your money where your mouth is
(clip)

And I'm not using the term tree hugger as a bad term but most of these protesters give nothing out of their pocket.
They march , write letters , have sit ins but the real dollars that have restored most wild life came from sportsmen.

As a hunting, fishing, donating, letter writing tree hugger, is this really what you believe? If so, you need to meet more tree huggers.

[noiretextatique]

33. wow...you are are a real activist

all you have to do is buy guns and ammo as for those "treehuggers"...they actually have to do something more than make a purchase.

[noiretextatique]

36. um...you just buy guns and ammo

sorry to burst your bubble, but that doesn't make you an activist. it makes you a consumer.

[uppityperson]

39. Ah, goal post moving. From "treehugger" to "tree hugger organization".

No "treehugger" has ever done anything effective to help the environment or nature, according to what you wrote. Just carry signs, write letters.

[uppityperson]

43. "treehuggers" are ineffective, only carry signs. Now you say "tree hugger organizations"

Funny thing aboutmposting on the internet, even if you delete it,it never goes away.

that you really believe, as you said...

Pehaps I should have stated the world but I have read many articles that it's fine to let people keep emigrating into the .U.S , it's not fine
(clip)

Duck unlimited which is sportsmen have conserved and restored over 13 million of wetlands for water fowl
How many tree huggers can say that in the United States? Also the Rocky mountain ELK foundation has done close to that.
This is ALL done by donations mostly from sports men and license fees. Again how many tree huggers have done something like this.
Marching with a sign down the street protesting doesn't do squat.....that's where I say put your money where your mouth is
(clip)

And I'm not using the term tree hugger as a bad term but most of these protesters give nothing out of their pocket.
They march , write letters , have sit ins but the real dollars that have restored most wild life came from sportsmen.

[uppityperson]

46. nope. You never did answer about blocking immigration either.

You may have meant to say that, but you did not say that. And I quote you, again...

Pehaps I should have stated the world but I have read many articles that it's fine to let people keep emigrating into the .U.S , it's not fine
(clip)

Duck unlimited which is sportsmen have conserved and restored over 13 million of wetlands for water fowl
How many tree huggers can say that in the United States? Also the Rocky mountain ELK foundation has done close to that.
This is ALL done by donations mostly from sports men and license fees. Again how many tree huggers have done something like this.
Marching with a sign down the street protesting doesn't do squat.....that's where I say put your money where your mouth is
(clip)

And I'm not using the term tree hugger as a bad term but most of these protesters give nothing out of their pocket.
They march , write letters , have sit ins but the real dollars that have restored most wild life came from sportsmen.

[uppityperson]

48. 3 questions in this post upthread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025602053#post27

[uppityperson]

42. " some people just like to argue about everything"

Still missing the point, that "treehuggers", according to you, do nothing to help the environment or nature. Only Hunters do that, according to you.

Incredible.

[uppityperson]

50. immigration.

Are you seriously advocating stopping immigration, it's "not fine" to let people immigrate?

Pehaps I should have stated the world but I have read many articles that it's fine to let people keep emigrating into the .U.S , it's not fine

[The2ndWheel]

3. Human civilization is a resource extraction and concentration mechanism

Unlike any other form of organization in scale or success. It has no competition. It's a monopoly.

Everyone likes the mom and pop store. The small business that's unique. Nobody likes those big chain restaurants. Civilization is the Wal-Mart/ Monsanto/Exxon/etc of life on this planet. Just like Exxon tries to find some loophole in government legislation so they can make more profit, we don't like the limits that the planet/nature/whatever puts on us either, and we want to write the rules that govern us all the same.

[progressoid]

4. I'm sorry to correct you, but this week's big story is George Clooney's wedding.

We have to have our priorities!

[GliderGuider]

6. Yeah, I was thinking that would be a pretty big hurdle to overcome.

[liberal_at_heart]

5. We are in the middle of a mass extinction. It's very sad. It's also pretty difficult to get people

to care about the environment when they can't even feed themselves. When your kids are hungry they become your first and only priority. We need to win the battle against the 1% so that we have the resources we need to help the environment.

[Baclava]

7. meanwhile, in the US, there is a population explosion of deer, coyotes, raccoons and black bears

All animals that easily exploit humans for food and have no fear of getting close to us

Deer - "from 500,000 a century ago to 25 million today"

"URBAN COYOTES THRIVE IN NORTH AMERICAN CITIES"

"Exploding raccoon population keeps pest control busy"

"Black Bear numbers have increased substantially in Pennsylvania, from around 4,000 in the 1970s to around 14,000 today."

[hunter]

8. URBAN COYOTES ARE EATING OUR BABIES!

That's certainly going to keep the human population in check.

[GliderGuider]

9. Well. let's show them who's the boss

We should start eating the coyotes - and the raccoons.

We will - just give it time.

[Baclava]

16. give them time

[logosoco]

10. The species that can adapt to change will be fine...

it's all the other ones that aren't faring well. Many species have adapted to very specific environments and when those places are threatened, there goes the species.

It seems like at this time there will be less expansion, since the economy is bad people can't invest in new development. But then there are those big corporations (like the koch brothers) who want to make a profit at any cost, even if it means destroying large areas.

It is hard for many to think of these things when they are worried about making rent and feeding kids and keeping old cars running.

[blkmusclmachine]

11. The Amazon Rain Forest is about 25% cleared for farming. Human race is on fast track for extinction.

[Baclava]

15. The Amazon's environmental issues can’t be easily separated from economic and political ones.

That's the problem - money and profit trumps the environment every time

[Avalux]

12. We humans think we're so smart but we have it all wrong.

Instead of recognizing that we are a part of the earth and using our brains to figure out how to live as caretakers, we think everything here is for us to use and destroy. We're too stupid to understand that the consequences of our actions will be our eventual extinction.

[GliderGuider]

13. We evolved to be short-term thinkers. It's built into our neural wiring.

Plus, we make most decisions based on emotion rather than reason, no matter what we think after the fact.

So it goes.

[daleanime]

14. kick, kick, kick.....

[littlemissmartypants]

17. Kicking. Thank you. nt

[Dont call me Shirley]

18. Stop war immediately. Close down chemical factories and oil fields. Use our

intelligence and resources to create sustainable environment. Promote responsible population growth for humans.

[GliderGuider]

19. One small correction: "Promote responsible population *reduction* for humans." nt

[Dont call me Shirley]

20. No genocide like the Georgia Guidestoners (Eugenecists) romote.

Responsible family planning, promotion of birth control

[GliderGuider]

21. No world-wide "one child policy" then?

If it was vigorously enforced, that would get us back down to a sustainable population level in about two hundred years without having to deliberately kill anyone.

[Dont call me Shirley]

22. No. Have media and religions stop promoting mega-families, 19 And Counting.

Use tax code to only allow child tax credit for 2 children.

Promote sane child-rearing early in life so kids don't get harmed from abuse. In school, teach kids about the massive responsibility it is to have children, not to scare them away from having kids, but to really get them thinking about why they want to have a child and would they be able to be an effective parent.

[DonCoquixote]

28. and how would you avoid

having to build a nasty, outright racist mechanism to do that?

Take for example, Muslims. Many of them will notice initiatives in Germany to have more "native" babies, with phrases that are outright disgusting like "kinder Nicht Inder." They will also be able to read stuff like Orianna Falacci that compared them to vermin, and also note the hysterica in Europe because they are growing.

If you want to take religion out of it, well, I am a Latino, and am used to being talked about as if we all gathered in the back and decided to steal jobs and ruin Anglo-Saxon culture by putting up a few Billboards en Espanol.

But of course, serious population control comes in at the time when the White Majority is realzing it will no longer BE the Majority.

Now, I am not denying your facts, but I am saying that before you have a hope in hell of getting any population scheme to work, you will have to get past the fact that

A) many such schemes were, in the past, a way to weaken nonwhites. Nonwhites KNOW this.

B) the fact that the people who can have the policy enforced on them are, not accidentally, the people who have the least power. When people talk aboput Sterilizing welfare moms, they are not thinking of some blonde, blue eyed lady, even if statistics show that most people on welfare are white.

And yes, quote your science, because it is true that there are too many people, eapecially since many of us latinos, and the Asians, and the Indians, are slowly imprving economies, only to have a bunch of well fed anglos say "Ya gotta slow down for Mudder Erf!" Funny, your grandpa sure had no problem with paving over Mudder Erf when it was our land. If you want to do anything global, which,let's face it, you will, you will need to engage the people that do not look like you, and offer them something real, especially since what you will tell them is "yeah, we know we ruined things for all of you, and yeah, we know are asking this when youn are finally getting the medical care and water supplies like we used to, but we gotaa cut back." And then you will hope that they do not say "well, since you started this thing, why don't you make yourselves extinct first.."

[GliderGuider]

56. I don't recommend OCP as an initiative.

I was being a bit ironic - I don't recommend things that have no chance of happening.

What I actually think we'll do is keep on making tomorrow better and better for the people who are alive today. Then, when tomorrow actually gets here, we'll see how well we did. I expect major surprises in that tomorrow, none of them good. But we will have done our best, with very best of intentions.

[IcyPeas]

24. Orangutans dying as demand for palm oil soars

Orangutans dying as demand for palm oil soars
From instant noodles to ice cream, palm oil is found in roughly half of all packaged supermarket products. Demand for the product has led to the destruction of Indonesian jungles which are home to a large number of wild orangutans. NBC News Correspondent Ian Williams travels to Indonesia and follows a man fighting to save one of our closest relatives.

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/rock-center/49472280#49472280

[GliderGuider]

25. The biosphere is dying the death of a thousand cuts.

Wildlife and other natural systems are under assault from all directions, driven by one simple human desire - that tomorrow should be better than today. Out of that good intention flow a host of evil actions.

[DonCoquixote]

53. tomorow should be better than today

but we do not need to wreck the earth to do it. Saving the earthj does improve tomorrow. However, when the "archdruid" michael greer or derrick jenseens speak of "progrtess" being evil, they want to take the good aspoects of progress out, such as the social ones where poor people are fed, or women are not considering brood mares or chattel.

[GliderGuider]

57. I'm not Greer or Derrick Jensen

I'm not an activist. I don't propose any actions to try and avoid some hypothetical vision of a gloomy tomorrow.

What I think we will do is continue along with business more or less as usual. And when the tomorrow we are creating today actually arrives, we'll see how well that worked for us.

[DonCoquixote]

60. I can appreciate that

and as i said, I do not dispute the science, however, if we as humanty want somethign fixed, we will need to deal with the greers jensen, al-bagddadis, or other purveryors of pasts and futures that never were, not could be, nor should be.

[The2ndWheel]

59. That progress will always come at the expense of something else

Be it other people, other forms of life, or the environment. It has to, because we actively try to stop the downsides of our progress, while keeping the good parts, otherwise it wouldn't be progress.

[Jenoch]

52. I wonder how many species have become extinct

during the history of planet Earth?

[NickB79]

54. Probably billions

But the absolute number over 4 billion years doesn't matter nearly as much as the RATE that they die off.

And that rate is currently going apeshit.

[GliderGuider]

55. To a first approximation, all of them. nt

[raouldukelives]

58. K&R

It is the same in the circles I travel. As I know it must be for everyone the world over. Those who love wildlife and wilderness, those old enough to remember what it was once like, weep for what it will soon become.