Humans Are Close To Killing Off Two-Thirds Of All Wildlife In Just 50 Years

[tecelote]

"At some point the earth is going to say ‘enough."



A damning new report from the World Wildlife Fund has found a precipitous decline in the world’s animal populations as thousands of species scramble to survive against a sole enemy: humans.

The 2016 version of WWF’s biennial Living Planet Report, published Thursday, found a 58 percent overall decline in vertebrate populations from 1970 to 2012, the latest year with available data. The nonprofit warned that if current trends continue, the world could lose more than two-thirds of wildlife by 2020.

“As humanity continues to demand more and more of the earth and puts pressures on our natural capital, what we’re seeing is the fraying of wildlife,” said Colby Loucks, senior director for the WWF’s Wildlife Conservation Program.

Humans have affected the entire spectrum of vertebrate life ― fish, birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, the report says. The document’s warning of vanishing wildlife refers to total population size, not the number of species that will go extinct. That’s an entirely different problem.

Read More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/living-planet-report-wwf_us_58114bcce4b064e1b4b0725b

[Odin2005]

1. K&R

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Thankfully I'll be gone before they are.

[The2ndWheel]

3. That's called progress

I mean that's literally how we do it. If the planet is finite, then what we need/want means less for other forms of life. With a decreasing amount of counter-balances to humanity at this point, well that's how we got a decreasing amount of counter-balances. We got rid of them. We'll keep doing that too, because all of humanity has to reach its full potential.

If you don't want it to happen, then we need to get rid of roads, and start walking everywhere, and no more air conditioning, or food from anywhere on the planet whenever we want it, no instant global communication, a decrease in medical science, etc, etc, etc. All the things that nobody wants to give up.

[Generic Other]

5. Not fair to say nobody has given these things up

Many have been forced to do so. Others have tried to do what they can to lessen their footprint. Sadly, it is like trying to halt the effects of gravity.

[The2ndWheel]

6. True. The majority won't give it up willingly

I'm typing these words onto a screen. Of course it also wouldn't be fair for those that have to deny those that don't. Americans can't tell the rest of the world to stop.

We're not really built to care about a situation like this. Mentally, we can think about it. Physically, the more important of the two, we're all about the short term, but how much of life isn't? It's just that most of life hasn't been as successful as humans have been. Sharks don't care about lions, lions don't care about sharks. How many sharks/lions even care about other sharks/lions? Humans are now at a point where we have to care about every human, and save the rest of life from what humans do.

We've put ourselves into an impossible situation where we have to have everything. That's not possible, and we're not going to willingly slow down.

[Calculating]

9. As I've said in every related thread

Last edited Thu Oct 27, 2016, 12:05 PM - Edit history (1)

The problem is overpopulation. Unless we can stop overpopulating the Earth, everything else we do will ultimately be pointless. I'd like to think Humans are smarter than a bunch of rodents who overpopulate and ruin the ecosystem. Unfortunately even today major religious institutions such as the Catholic church are still opposed to birth control. "Why can't I have as many children as I want? It's my God given right!"

At this point the only thing capable of stopping our civilizations march towards doom would be pandemic of unheard of proportions. Something like 80% overall population reduction would give us another few centuries to get our shit together.

[The2ndWheel]

10. We've been doing it since we hunted with sharp sticks

picked a few berries, and planted some seeds.

If we allowed people to die, we wouldn't have as many people. Overpopulation is a symptom, not a cause. Why do we have so many people? Because we don't want people to die. We find ways to keep people alive. As many as possible.

How do developed countries keep population steady or in decline? By consuming more resources. Then of course the developed countries have immigration to make up the difference, and everyone keeps growing. Take the best and brightest from developing countries, and they'll need more people in their own countries.

The most complicated part about it all is that we're sustaining our current population. There are more people today than there were yesterday.

Forget religious institutions. Governments need more people. Business needs more people. No institution we've built survives with fewer people. Business needs customers. Governments need taxpayers. The economy needs demand to get going again. That means people need to consume more.

Unfortunately, population is just one part of the issue. If there's a problem, it's the history, complexity, and momentum of thousands and thousands of years of human action. If not tens or hundreds of thousands of years. We have to account for everything that exists now, which was created in a different kind of world.

[Calculating]

12. Yeah, our economic model is part of the issue

Our whole societal system is based on unlimited growth. The second growth stops or consumption declines the economy will go straight down the toilet. It's all based on people 'needing' that new device or TV every several years. People 'needing' that new house to start up a family. People 'needing' that suv to haul their children around. The only way to fix this would be changing over to a whole new socioeconomic model which isn't driven by growth and consumption.

[moondust]

14. Unlimited growth/unlimited greed.

Back before Reagan, globalization, and financialization, "capitalism" was more about freedom than it was about greed. In fact "freedom capitalism" had a lot to do with winning the Cold War because most people didn't want to work for an all-powerful government that owned and controlled everything centrally. "Freedom capitalism" allowed people to be their own boss.

Then came Reagan, the "trickle-down" hoax, globalization, corporatism/financialization, and "greed is good"--the unlimited growth/"greed capitalism" paradigm that is unsustainable.

For some reason I never hear conservatives complaining about no longer having the freedom to be their own boss because corporations have made small business survival so difficult. I suppose many of them just own stocks now and that form of parasitism is almost as good as slavery; in some ways better.

If aggregate greed is the ultimate "winner," the Chinese will eventually swallow everything before the planet finally dies in its bloated belly.

[The2ndWheel]

16. I'm not even sure there is such a model

Why bother with some mass model that isn't driven by growth and consumption? Civilization is just one big resource concentration mechanism. All of our economic models are an attempt to figure out how to use all that stuff in one way or another.

Society has been on a growth path since we stopped being nomadic bands.

Continuing the species is what life does. We've just found ourselves at an odd time in history, where we have to somehow care about the total population. Not just of our small tribe, but of the entire species. Most of whom any one of us will never even meet. That's a tough thing to do. No other species, not even our own up until fairly recently, has to do that.

It's tough to ask people to sacrifice for the greater good. Who does the asking? Who does the sacrificing? Humans aren't really good at those kinds of questions. That's why we leave it up to choice, and different people want different things. Which goes into the whole growth question. The more growth we have, the easier it is to accommodate everyone's choices. Because again, we are not good at figuring out who gives up what.

[Calculating]

20. Indeed, it's an unprecedented problem

Suddenly the long term survival of our species relies on us going against our core instincts to reproduce and expand. No other species has ever been faced with this problem.

[Generic Other]

24. Isn't it always historically true before civilization retreats into a dark age?

The center cannot hold, and it comes crashing down -- plague, drought, horrific times, then slow recovery?

Is this not a possible model even today? Or is it even too late for this?

Thanks for an interesting and important discussion to those up thread.

[riderinthestorm]

11. Great OP but most don't want to hear this or talk about it

They think the status quo is excellent.

[Old Vet]

13. Really kinda sad the shape were leaving this planet in for the next generation.......

I cant even imagine what this planets condition will be like in 20 years, Sad

[GliderGuider]

15. We've killed off ~95% of wild animals since the dawn of agriculture

But we more than made up for it with CAFOs...

[hunter]

19. Internal combustion engines and guns... worst inventions ever.

It's too easy to bulldoze a new road, drain a wetland, shoot an endangered animal with a gun, cut down an endangered tree with a gasoline powered chainsaw, put it on a truck, and profit from what you've destroyed.

[GliderGuider]

21. I blame the moldboard plow. nt

[awoke_in_2003]

22. One day we are going to have to address

population growth. China's one child policy will not be enough.

[The2ndWheel]

29. We already do

We do it by increasing consumption, aka, women have more options. It's only fair, but it does increase the amount of resources society needs. We do it by pooling more and more tax payers together, in terms of our social safety nets. Which, of course, if we actually end up with fewer people tomorrow than we have today, we won't be able to do as easily.

Those are mostly done in the developed countries, and Japan is getting older, and the US and various countries in Europe keep the population growing through immigration. That ends up essentially turning the still developing countries into baby factories. Until at some point those countries increase their consumption, giving women more options, and there are physically fewer people alive tomorrow than are alive today, which still isn't the case.

Again, the issue we run into there is that every modern institution we've built is based on there being more and more people. We like to spread the risk. Add more people to any organized effort, and each individual has a decreased burden to carry. Economically speaking, that then makes each individual less needed, thus making them cheaper.

We're always trying to balance the upside and the downside. What we want is all upside and no downside, but that's not going to happen. Anything we do will have a downside, or a cost.

[dalton99]

25. No worries. They all will be resurrected at the second coming

so we can eat them again

[romanic]

26. overpopulation and consumerism.

It needs to be checked or there will be nothing left. It all starts at the top.

[pansypoo53219]

28. when are we gonna cull US?

[kwolf68]

31. Don't worry that will happen

The human population will one day be culled...either by our own hubris or the result of some microbial agent we unleash onto our own world. I don't know what the carrying capacity of the planet is for humans, but its gotta be getting pretty damn close to the tipping point. Natural disasters that only used to kill 100 people, now kills thousands. NO ANIMAL can over consume its resources without some repercussions. Ann Coulter's view that the bible gives man domain over the beast of the field means to rape and pillage, take it, its yours...is a view in which more than a few people subscribe.