Technology, Science and the Environment.

leicsmac · 21 March 2018

13 minutes ago, Manwell Pablo said:

Well literally none of it would cause a global power shortage I would imagine which would be my dictionary definition of shit.

Not sure about that either, take a good few years to totally screw the planet up if you ask me, and after all what we do it’s going to die all on its own eventually. Maybe a lot sooner than we think, we could all go back to living in mud huts and get taken out by an asteroid in 100 years (one we could of dealt with had we continued to advance technology) let’s remember living primitively and doing no damage to the planet hasn’t exactly worked out for numerous other alpha species before us has it?

Not saying we shouldn’t look at ways of progressing as carbon efficiently as possible while maintaining current living standards obviously we should look to push cleaner energy and use technology to lessen our need on natural planetary resources but as the old saying goes you’ve got to break some eggs........

11 minutes ago, Buce said:

How many years until the planet is largely uninhabitable is acceptable to you?

I see both sides here tbh.

In order to survive against the threats posed by the Earth itself as it changes mankind has to advance technologically (as Pabs said the species before us are a testament to that), but at the same time the very act of doing so is fraught with the risk of disaster caused by some corollary of that advancement.

It's a nasty dilemma: the possibility of bringing civilisation down quickly if we advance, or the certainty of it happening slow in the future if we don't. TBH, the former has to be the path we take to stand any chance at all.

Buce · 21 March 2018

5 minutes ago, Manwell Pablo said:

I wouldn’t put an exact number on it, but personally if this planet is totally uninhabitable in as little as 500 years it’s going to have zero impact on me or anyone I’ve ever met, not that it will be, But the planet dying is an inevitability anyway, and should we not progress we could be long gone before then.

As I say, everything you see going on before you could well end up saving us from something before it makes the planet uninhabitable or perhaps lead to the extension of human survival via off planet colonys, I’d view giving up on progression to make sure future generations can live a pre industrial life style until something wipes them out as a rather backwards attitude myself but then we all have different opinions on human behaviour and what the future could hold.

3 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

I see both sides here tbh.

In order to survive against the threats posed by the Earth itself as it changes mankind has to advance technologically (as Pabs said the species before us are a testament to that), but at the same time the very act of doing so is fraught with the risk of disaster caused by some corollary of that advancement.

It's a nasty dilemma: the possibility of bringing civilisation down quickly if we advance, or the certainty of it happening slow in the future if we don't. TBH, the former has to be the path we take to stand any chance at all.

I don't see how chopping down rainforests is either maintaining a post-industrial lifestyle or advancing us technologically. Ditto poisoning the seas with plastic waste or filling the air with pollutants. Technological advancement can be done in a manner which doesn't cost the Earth (literally) if we commit to doing so. And, Pabs - I think 500 years is a rather optimistic estimate based on most expert projections. I'm guessing you're a relatively young man so I'll confidently predict you will see the deaths of hundreds of millions due to water shortage and starvation in your lifetime due to man-made disasters like global warming. And its possible effects are so little understood that some of those millions may well be in this country.

Manwell Pablo · 21 March 2018

17 minutes ago, Buce said:

I don't see how chopping down rainforests is either maintaining a post-industrial lifestyle or advancing us technologically. Ditto poisoning the seas with plastic waste or filling the air with pollutants. Technological advancement can be done in a manner which doesn't cost the Earth (literally) if we commit to doing so. And, Pabs - I think 500 years is a rather optimistic estimate based on most expert projections. I'm guessing you're a relatively young man so I'll confidently predict you will see the deaths of hundreds of millions due to water shortage and starvation in your lifetime due to man-made disasters like global warming. And its possible effects are so little understood that some of those millions may well be in this country.

Im 33.

We are somewhat getting our wires crossed here.

if something can be avoided without risk of serious current socioeconomic problems we should make every effort to avoid it, but given the self governed silo nations we live in there’s zero impact people with a lot more power than me can do about that. You mentioned global warming the sad reality of that is the only way to stop that is to stop driving our petrol and diesel based transportation, Stop industry, stop all means of carbon based power etc etc.

it is finding a balance, for me, I’m very centralist when it comes to things like and detest extremism on both sides this as I’m sure a few on here know very well.

leicsmac · 21 March 2018

29 minutes ago, Buce said:

I don't see how chopping down rainforests is either maintaining a post-industrial lifestyle or advancing us technologically. Ditto poisoning the seas with plastic waste or filling the air with pollutants. Technological advancement can be done in a manner which doesn't cost the Earth (literally) if we commit to doing so. And, Pabs - I think 500 years is a rather optimistic estimate based on most expert projections. I'm guessing you're a relatively young man so I'll confidently predict you will see the deaths of hundreds of millions due to water shortage and starvation in your lifetime due to man-made disasters like global warming. And its possible effects are so little understood that some of those millions may well be in this country.

Pabs has touched on balance in the post above, but I'd like to add that I agree that chopping down rainforests is often senseless and I'm hardly one to back away from nihilist predictions - that being said, there's a fine line between something being wasteful and something being used to advance technology IMO.

I definitely agree that we have to advance sustainably in order to mitigate risk, but for me the having to advance is the thing, even if the risk becomes higher in the way that we do so - simply because the alternative is one we can't really pick.

22 March 2018

Sorry for the delay in replying, it's that damn annoying posting limit.

23 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Yeah, you have a point there, so substitute "usual" in for "natural", then.

Though I believe humans are rather unique in nature in this regard as we seem to be the only species that has begun an extinction pulse (as I think they're called) purely through our own actions and not with the aid of some drastic change caused by an outside event.

If I understand an extinction pulse or extinction events then it is clear that these have been happening since long before man was even on the earth. If I was going to take an alternative view to discuss the matter, I'd suggest that man is simply the tool for the next one. As for us being the only species to cause them, firstly I don't know enough about other pulses to know what actions a species took which may have affected the situation (clearly a meteor caused extinction wouldn't have been species led - though that still maybe the next extinction event now as well). Secondly man is simply the present evolutionary apex that started with slime. Some of us believe that our actions are simply the result of previous actions going back ad infinitum. Meaning that our destructive actions are the natural consequences of evolution. Should we really be blamed for that? Is there even any point?

19 hours ago, Buce said:

We may be part of nature but we are unique in being able to understand the consequences of our actions.

There is nothing 'natural' about poisoning the very air we breathe, polluting the seas, chopping down the rainforests, willfully ignoring man-made global warming, driving a mass extinction and generally destroying the planet that we depend on for our survival.

I'm not in a position to say that we are unique in being able to understand - douglas Adams would disagree - and even if I can agree that we DO understand, and I'm not sure that I can; the ability to understand and the ability to alter our course of action are clearly not linked.

Since we are a part of nature, I think it must be said that many, if not all of the situations you state are natural. It's not even only humans who destroy "nature", most species destroy nature to some extent, in their own attempt to survive. We have polluted the seas and chopped down trees etc... in order to feed and provide shelter for ourselves. As with any dominant species there comes a time when their success means that they are too populous to live from their ever depleting resources and then that species begins to suffer until a balance is found once again.

Like you and many others I worry about the state of the earth for my grandchildren and their grandchildren but what are you and I doing about it? Do you drive a car? Do you heat your home? Do you put lights on at night? Do you eat fish? We know that these actions are harming our planet yet we continue to do them. We are only human - a product of evolution.

I like Manwell and many others believe that man will solve the problem of global warming and other earth destroying scenarios because that's what we do well, we solve problems. If you don't believe this I think you have two alternatives - don't have any children or stop killing the planet. It may be that man has had it's best moments and is now on the decline, only time will tell and that would be as natural as the turning of the tide, it would be unnatural to expect the lives of our children to get better and better for eternity.

leicsmac · 22 March 2018

4 minutes ago, FIF said:

Sorry for the delay in replying, it's that damn annoying posting limit.

If I understand an extinction pulse or extinction events then it is clear that these have been happening since long before man was even on the earth. If I was going to take an alternative view to discuss the matter, I'd suggest that man is simply the tool for the next one. As for us being the only species to cause them, firstly I don't know enough about other pulses to know what actions a species took which may have affected the situation (clearly a meteor caused extinction wouldn't have been species led - though that still maybe the next extinction event now as well). Secondly man is simply the present evolutionary apex that started with slime. Some of us believe that our actions are simply the result of previous actions going back ad infinitum. Meaning that our destructive actions are the natural consequences of evolution. Should we really be blamed for that? Is there even any point?

2

As far as can be possibly ascertained, no single species in the entirety of recorded history has been responsible for an extinction event/pulse in the way that humans are attributable to the one happening now - all the others were due to increased vulcanism, impact event or other factors attributable to the Earth itself rather than a single species inhabiting it.

I'd agree that mankind is simply the latest link in the evolutionary chain, but one with ability hitherto unseen in the history of the Earth in the way that we can manipulate the environment around us. I don't think that humanity can be "blamed" for what they do, nor do I think that attributing responsibility really helps much beyond (and this is important) acknowledging the problem and so looking to find a solution for it.

The key thing is survival - and unless humans do work more on understanding what they are doing to the Earth and the species on it and begin to take steps to rectify it, then there won't be any humans left to consider the why's and wherefores anyway.

22 March 2018

2 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

The key thing is survival - and unless humans do work more on understanding what they are doing to the Earth and the species on it and begin to take steps to rectify it, then there won't be any humans left to consider the why's and wherefores anyway.

Do you think that dinosaurs or White Rhinos or whatever species thought that they were intelligent enough for their species to survive? It could be that we really aren't intelligent enough, we just think we are because (we think) we are the most intelligent species that has ever existed. IMO extinction is the natural and inevitable destination of every species, including man.

I find the idea that we are destroying the earth to be quite humancentric. After all we aren't destroying the earth, we are simply altering it ( in a way that may destroy man and other species) but we aren't destroying it. If man becomes extinct the earth will likely continue in some form - an earthly form at that - and it will contain living organisms, until it is destroyed by some greater cosmic situation and even then the earth is just a speck in the universe which itself will continue.

Of course I also wonder if we have already been visited by aliens, without knowing it, so my views may not hold much water. The aliens could be seen as a virus or so microscopic that we can't see them, they could be using us as hosts at this moment. Maybe they are even driving us towards extinction

leicsmac · 22 March 2018

9 minutes ago, FIF said:

Do you think that dinosaurs or White Rhinos or whatever species thought that they were intelligent enough for their species to survive? It could be that we really aren't intelligent enough, we just think we are because (we think) we are the most intelligent species that has ever existed. IMO extinction is the natural and inevitable destination of every species, including man.

I find the idea that we are destroying the earth to be quite humancentric. After all we aren't destroying the earth, we are simply altering it ( in a way that may destroy man and other species) but we aren't destroying it. If man becomes extinct the earth will likely continue in some form - an earthly form at that - and it will contain living organisms, until it is destroyed by some greater cosmic situation and even then the earth is just a speck in the universe which itself will continue.

Of course I also wonder if we have already been visited by aliens, without knowing it, so my views may not hold much water. The aliens could be seen as a virus or so microscopic that we can't see them, they could be using us as hosts at this moment. Maybe they are even driving us towards extinction

That's an interesting way of looking at it. I'm no buyer of human exceptionalism either - we've got a few extra tricks up our sleeve than those who have come before us, but not much more than that. However, as far as we can tell, we are also the first species to be aware of the evolutionary principle and how it works to a degree, and that implies that perhaps, in the future, we can at least attempt to get outside it.

Also agree with the second paragraph - the Earth is far bigger than humans, and the Universe is far bigger still. As Carlin said, “The planet is fine. The people are fvcked.”

davieG · 22 March 2018

Toxins leaking from old Sheffield landfill sites

4 hours ago

Image captionFarmer Michael Spurr said he was worried about the impact on his livestock

Toxins are leaking from old landfill sites in Sheffield, causing pollution to a nature reserve and stream.

Millions of tons of household and light industrial waste were dumped at Parkwood Springs and Beighton sites, which are now capped off and closed.

Methane gas and a toxic liquid called leachate have polluted Shire Brook and Beighton Marshes nature reserve.

Sheffield council said it was spending more than £500,000 on measures to tackle the problem.

Destruction of nature as dangerous as climate change, scientists warn

Unsustainable exploitation of the natural world threatens food and water security of billions of people, major UN-backed biodiversity study reveals

Human destruction of nature is rapidly eroding the world’s capacity to provide food, water and security to billions of people, according to the most comprehensive biodiversity study in more than a decade.

Such is the rate of decline that the risks posed by biodiversity loss should be considered on the same scale as those of climate change, noted the authors of the UN-backed report, which was released in Medellin, Colombia on Friday.

Among the standout findings are that exploitable fisheries in the world’s most populous region – the Asia-Pacific – are on course to decline to zero by 2048; that freshwater availability in the Americas has halved since the 1950s and that 42% of land species in Europe have declined in the past decade.

Underscoring the grim trends, this report was released in the week that the decimation of French bird populations was revealed, as well as the death of the last male northern white rhinoceros, leaving the species only two females from extinction.

“The time for action was yesterday or the day before,” said Robert Watson, the chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) which compiled the research. “Governments recognise we have a problem. Now we need action, but unfortunately the action we have now is not at the level we need.”

“We must act to halt and reverse the unsustainable use of nature or risk not only the future we want but even the lives we currently lead,” he added.

Divided into four regional reports, the study of studies has been written by more than 550 experts from over 100 countries and taken three years to complete. Approved by the governments of 129 members nations, the IPBES reports aim to provide a knowledge base for global action on biodiversity in much the same way that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is used by policymakers to set carbon emission targets.

Although poaching often grabs the headlines for the demise of the rhino and other animals, worldwide the biggest threats to nature are from habitat loss, invasive species, chemicals and climate change.

Conversion of forests to croplands and wetlands to shrimp farms has fed a human population that has more than doubled since the 1960s, but at a devastating cost to other species – such as pollinating insects and oxygen-producing plants – on which our climate, economy and well-being depend.

In the Americas, more than 95% of high-grass prairies have been transformed into farms, along with 72% of dry forests and 88% of the Atlantic forests, notes the report. The Amazon rainforest is still mostly intact, but it is rapidly diminishing and degrading along with an even faster disappearing cerrado (tropical savannah). Between 2003 to 2013, the area under cultivation in Brazil’s northeast agricultural frontier more than doubled to 2.5m hectares, according to the report.

“The world has lost over 130m hectares of rainforests since 1990 and we lose dozens of species every day, pushing the Earth’s ecological system to its limit,” said Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Programme. “Biodiversity and the ecosystem services it supports are not only the foundation for our life on Earth, but critical to the livelihoods and well-being of people everywhere.”

The rate of decline is moreover accelerating. In the Americas – which has about 40% of the world’s remaining biodiversity – the regional population is gobbling up resources at twice the rate of the global average. Despite having 13% of the people on the planet, it is using a quarter of the resources, said Jake Rice, a co-chair of the Americas assessment.

Since the start of colonisation by Europeans 500 years ago, he said 30% of biodiversity has been lost in the region. This will rise to 40% in the next 10 years unless policies and behaviours are transformed.

“It will take fundamental change in how we live as individuals, communities and corporations,” he said. “We keep making choices to borrow from the future to live well today. We need a different way of thinking about economics with a higher accountability of the costs in the future to the benefits we take today,” Rice said.

“It’s because of us,” added Mark Rounsevell, co-chair of the European assessment. “We are responsible for all of the declines of biodiversity. We need to decouple economic growth from degradation of nature. We need to measure wealth beyond economic indicators. GDP only goes so far.”

The authors stressed the close connection between climate change and biodiversity loss, which are adversely affecting each other. By 2050, they believe climate change could replace land-conversion as the main driver of extinction.

In many regions, the report says current biodiversity trends are jeopardising UN global development goals to provide food, water, clothing and housing. They also weaken natural defences against extreme weather events, which will become more common due to climate change.

Although the number of conservation areas has increased, most governments are failing to achieve the biodiversity targets set at the 2010 UN conference in Aichi, Japan. In the Americas, only 20% of key biodiversity areas are protected.

The authors urged an end to subsidies for agriculture and energy that are encouraging unsustainable production. The European Union’s support for fishing was among those cited for criticism. Watson also urged people to switch to a more sustainable diet (less beef, more chicken and vegetables) and to waste less food, water and energy.

There are glimmers of hope. In northern Asia, forest cover has increased by more than 22% as a result of tree-planting programs, mostly in China. But this was from a very low base and with far fewer species than in the past. In Africa, there has been a partial recovery of some species, though there is still a long way to go.

Watson – a former chair of the IPCC and a leading figure in the largely successful campaign to reduce the gases that were causing a hole in the ozone layer – said the biodiversity report was the most comprehensive since 2005 and the first of its type that involved not just scientists, but governments and other stakeholders.

Despite the grim outlook, he said there was cause for hope. The report outlines several different future paths, depending on the policies adopted by governments and the choices made by consumers. None completely halt biodiversity loss, but the worst-case scenarios can be avoided with greater conservation efforts. The missing link is to involve policymakers across government and to accept that biodiversity affects every area of the economy. Currently, these concerns are widely accepted by foreign and environment ministries; the challenge is to move the debate to incorporate this in other areas of government, such as agriculture, energy and water. Businesses and individual consumers also need to play a more responsible role, said Watson.

“We don’t make recommendations because governments don’t like being told what to do. So, instead, we give them options,” he said.

The IPBES report will be used to inform decision-makers at a major UN conference later this year. Signatories to the Convention for Biodiversity will meet in Sharm El-Sheikh in November to discuss ways to raise targets and strengthen compliance. But there have been more than 140 scientific reports since 1977, almost all of which have warned of deterioration of the climate or natural world. Without more pressure from civil society, media and voters, governments have been reluctant to sacrifice short-term economic goals to meet the longer-term environmental challenge to human wellbeing.

“Biodiversity is under serious threat in many regions of the world and it is time for policymakers to take action at national, regional and global levels,” said José Graziano da Silva, director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Others have put the crisis in starker terms. Biologist Paul Ehrlich, has warned that civilisational collapse is a “near certainty” in the next few decades due to the destruction of the natural world.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/23/destruction-of-nature-as-dangerous-as-climate-change-scientists-warn

Buce · 23 March 2018

Paul Ehrlich: 'Collapse of civilisation is a near certainty within decades'

Fifty years after the publication of his controversial book The Population Bomb, biologist Paul Ehrlich warns overpopulation and overconsumption are driving us over the edge

A shattering collapse of civilisation is a “near certainty” in the next few decades due to humanity’s continuing destruction of the natural world that sustains all life on Earth, according to biologist Prof Paul Ehrlich.

In May, it will be 50 years since the eminent biologist published his most famous and controversial book, The Population Bomb. But Ehrlich remains as outspoken as ever.

The world’s optimum population is less than two billion people – 5.6 billion fewer than on the planet today, he argues, and there is an increasing toxification of the entire planet by synthetic chemicals that may be more dangerous to people and wildlife than climate change.

Ehrlich also says an unprecedented redistribution of wealth is needed to end the over-consumption of resources, but “the rich who now run the global system – that hold the annual ‘world destroyer’ meetings in Davos – are unlikely to let it happen”.

The Population Bomb, written with his wife Anne Ehrlich in 1968, predicted “hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death” in the 1970s – a fate that was avoided by the green revolution in intensive agriculture.

Many details and timings of events were wrong, Paul Ehrlich acknowledges today, but he says the book was correct overall.

“Population growth, along with over-consumption per capita, is driving civilisation over the edge: billions of people are now hungry or micronutrient malnourished, and climate disruption is killing people.”

Ehrlich has been at Stanford University since 1959 and is also president of the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere, which works “to reduce the threat of a shattering collapse of civilisation”.

“It is a near certainty in the next few decades, and the risk is increasing continually as long as perpetual growth of the human enterprise remains the goal of economic and political systems,” he says. “As I’ve said many times, ‘perpetual growth is the creed of the cancer cell’.”

It is the combination of high population and high consumption by the rich that is destroying the natural world, he says. Research published by Ehrlich and colleagues in 2017 concluded that this is driving a sixth mass extinction of biodiversity, upon which civilisation depends for clean air, water and food.

The solutions are tough, he says. “To start, make modern contraception and back-up abortion available to all and give women full equal rights, pay and opportunities with men.

“I hope that would lead to a low enough total fertility rate that the needed shrinkage of population would follow. [But] it will take a very long time to humanely reduce total population to a size that is sustainable.”

He estimates an optimum global population size at roughly 1.5 to two billion, “But the longer humanity pursues business as usual, the smaller the sustainable society is likely to prove to be. We’re continuously harvesting the low-hanging fruit, for example by driving fisheries stocks to extinction.”

Ehrlich is also concerned about chemical pollution, which has already reached the most remote corners of the globe. “The evidence we have is that toxics reduce the intelligence of children, and members of the first heavily influenced generation are now adults.”

He treats this risk with characteristic dark humour: “The first empirical evidence we are dumbing down Homo sapiens were the Republican debates in the US 2016 presidential elections – and the resultant kakistocracy. On the other hand, toxification may solve the population problem, since sperm counts are plunging.”

Reflecting five decades after the publication of The Population Bomb (which he wanted to be titled Population, Resources, and Environment), he says: “No scientist would hold exactly the same views after a half century of further experience, but Anne and I are still proud of our book.” It helped start a worldwide debate on the impact of rising population that continues today, he says.

The book’s strength, Ehrlich says, is that it was short, direct and basically correct. “Its weaknesses were not enough on overconsumption and equity issues. It needed more on women’s rights, and explicit countering of racism – which I’ve spent much of my career and activism trying to counter.

“Too many rich people in the world is a major threat to the human future, and cultural and genetic diversity are great human resources.”

Accusations that the book lent support to racist attitudes to population control still hurt today, Ehrlich says. “Having been a co-inventor of the sit-in to desegregate restaurants in Lawrence, Kansas in the 1950s and having published books and articles on the biological ridiculousness of racism, those accusations continue to annoy me.”

But, he says: “You can’t let the possibility that ignorant people will interpret your ideas as racist keep you from discussing critical issues honestly.”

leicsmac · 24 March 2018

17 hours ago, Buce said:

Destruction of nature as dangerous as climate change, scientists warn

Unsustainable exploitation of the natural world threatens food and water security of billions of people, major UN-backed biodiversity study reveals

Human destruction of nature is rapidly eroding the world’s capacity to provide food, water and security to billions of people, according to the most comprehensive biodiversity study in more than a decade.

Such is the rate of decline that the risks posed by biodiversity loss should be considered on the same scale as those of climate change, noted the authors of the UN-backed report, which was released in Medellin, Colombia on Friday.

Among the standout findings are that exploitable fisheries in the world’s most populous region – the Asia-Pacific – are on course to decline to zero by 2048; that freshwater availability in the Americas has halved since the 1950s and that 42% of land species in Europe have declined in the past decade.

Underscoring the grim trends, this report was released in the week that the decimation of French bird populations was revealed, as well as the death of the last male northern white rhinoceros, leaving the species only two females from extinction.

“The time for action was yesterday or the day before,” said Robert Watson, the chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) which compiled the research. “Governments recognise we have a problem. Now we need action, but unfortunately the action we have now is not at the level we need.”

“We must act to halt and reverse the unsustainable use of nature or risk not only the future we want but even the lives we currently lead,” he added.

Divided into four regional reports, the study of studies has been written by more than 550 experts from over 100 countries and taken three years to complete. Approved by the governments of 129 members nations, the IPBES reports aim to provide a knowledge base for global action on biodiversity in much the same way that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is used by policymakers to set carbon emission targets.

Although poaching often grabs the headlines for the demise of the rhino and other animals, worldwide the biggest threats to nature are from habitat loss, invasive species, chemicals and climate change.

Conversion of forests to croplands and wetlands to shrimp farms has fed a human population that has more than doubled since the 1960s, but at a devastating cost to other species – such as pollinating insects and oxygen-producing plants – on which our climate, economy and well-being depend.

In the Americas, more than 95% of high-grass prairies have been transformed into farms, along with 72% of dry forests and 88% of the Atlantic forests, notes the report. The Amazon rainforest is still mostly intact, but it is rapidly diminishing and degrading along with an even faster disappearing cerrado (tropical savannah). Between 2003 to 2013, the area under cultivation in Brazil’s northeast agricultural frontier more than doubled to 2.5m hectares, according to the report.

“The world has lost over 130m hectares of rainforests since 1990 and we lose dozens of species every day, pushing the Earth’s ecological system to its limit,” said Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Programme. “Biodiversity and the ecosystem services it supports are not only the foundation for our life on Earth, but critical to the livelihoods and well-being of people everywhere.”

The rate of decline is moreover accelerating. In the Americas – which has about 40% of the world’s remaining biodiversity – the regional population is gobbling up resources at twice the rate of the global average. Despite having 13% of the people on the planet, it is using a quarter of the resources, said Jake Rice, a co-chair of the Americas assessment.

Since the start of colonisation by Europeans 500 years ago, he said 30% of biodiversity has been lost in the region. This will rise to 40% in the next 10 years unless policies and behaviours are transformed.

“It will take fundamental change in how we live as individuals, communities and corporations,” he said. “We keep making choices to borrow from the future to live well today. We need a different way of thinking about economics with a higher accountability of the costs in the future to the benefits we take today,” Rice said.

“It’s because of us,” added Mark Rounsevell, co-chair of the European assessment. “We are responsible for all of the declines of biodiversity. We need to decouple economic growth from degradation of nature. We need to measure wealth beyond economic indicators. GDP only goes so far.”

The authors stressed the close connection between climate change and biodiversity loss, which are adversely affecting each other. By 2050, they believe climate change could replace land-conversion as the main driver of extinction.

In many regions, the report says current biodiversity trends are jeopardising UN global development goals to provide food, water, clothing and housing. They also weaken natural defences against extreme weather events, which will become more common due to climate change.

Although the number of conservation areas has increased, most governments are failing to achieve the biodiversity targets set at the 2010 UN conference in Aichi, Japan. In the Americas, only 20% of key biodiversity areas are protected.

The authors urged an end to subsidies for agriculture and energy that are encouraging unsustainable production. The European Union’s support for fishing was among those cited for criticism. Watson also urged people to switch to a more sustainable diet (less beef, more chicken and vegetables) and to waste less food, water and energy.

There are glimmers of hope. In northern Asia, forest cover has increased by more than 22% as a result of tree-planting programs, mostly in China. But this was from a very low base and with far fewer species than in the past. In Africa, there has been a partial recovery of some species, though there is still a long way to go.

Watson – a former chair of the IPCC and a leading figure in the largely successful campaign to reduce the gases that were causing a hole in the ozone layer – said the biodiversity report was the most comprehensive since 2005 and the first of its type that involved not just scientists, but governments and other stakeholders.

Despite the grim outlook, he said there was cause for hope. The report outlines several different future paths, depending on the policies adopted by governments and the choices made by consumers. None completely halt biodiversity loss, but the worst-case scenarios can be avoided with greater conservation efforts. The missing link is to involve policymakers across government and to accept that biodiversity affects every area of the economy. Currently, these concerns are widely accepted by foreign and environment ministries; the challenge is to move the debate to incorporate this in other areas of government, such as agriculture, energy and water. Businesses and individual consumers also need to play a more responsible role, said Watson.

“We don’t make recommendations because governments don’t like being told what to do. So, instead, we give them options,” he said.

The IPBES report will be used to inform decision-makers at a major UN conference later this year. Signatories to the Convention for Biodiversity will meet in Sharm El-Sheikh in November to discuss ways to raise targets and strengthen compliance. But there have been more than 140 scientific reports since 1977, almost all of which have warned of deterioration of the climate or natural world. Without more pressure from civil society, media and voters, governments have been reluctant to sacrifice short-term economic goals to meet the longer-term environmental challenge to human wellbeing.

“Biodiversity is under serious threat in many regions of the world and it is time for policymakers to take action at national, regional and global levels,” said José Graziano da Silva, director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Others have put the crisis in starker terms. Biologist Paul Ehrlich, has warned that civilisational collapse is a “near certainty” in the next few decades due to the destruction of the natural world.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/23/destruction-of-nature-as-dangerous-as-climate-change-scientists-warn

This is all true, and highly visible too.

That being said, I don't buy the Malthusian line that Professor Ehrlich is giving in the subsequent article posted - the Earth is capable of sustaining a large human population given good technological know-how and logistics.

Also:

https://phys.org/news/2018-03-arctic-wintertime-sea-ice-extent.html

yorkie1999 · 24 March 2018

19 hours ago, leicsmac said:

More on the above:

https://www.cnet.com/news/great-pacific-garbage-patch-swells-ocean-pollution-mess-study-shows/

Seriously. This is horrible.

Terrible, but it's nothing to do with me. I separate my plastic waste and place it in the correct wheelie bin as advised by the local council. What they do with it though is anyones guess.....No wait, they throw it in the ocean because if they didn't, how the fvck would it get there!

leicsmac · 24 March 2018

3 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

Terrible, but it's nothing to do with me. I separate my plastic waste and place it in the correct wheelie bin as advised by the local council. What they do with it though is anyones guess.....No wait, they throw it in the ocean because if they didn't, how the fvck would it get there!

TBH this is an issue where most people in the UK have no responsibility (a lot of this detritus is coming from other sources) but at the same time the consequences are, given time going to affect everyone - the UK included - so it's something that needs to be thought about.

yorkie1999 · 24 March 2018

1 minute ago, leicsmac said:

TBH this is an issue where most people in the UK have no responsibility (a lot of this detritus is coming from other sources) but at the same time the consequences are, given time going to affect everyone - the UK included - so it's something that needs to be thought about.

Yes, probably from china, india, brazil and any other nation that doesn't really give a fvck about what waste they produce or where it goes to as long as their economy's grow...to the detriment of the rest of us that are going to end up having to clean it up and that means higher taxes for responsible nations to pay for it and the nations responsible will just carry on as normal dumping crap into the oceans and pumping toxins from fossil fuels into the atmosphere.

leicsmac · 24 March 2018

11 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

Yes, probably from china, india, brazil and any other nation that doesn't really give a fvck about what waste they produce or where it goes to as long as their economy's grow...to the detriment of the rest of us that are going to end up having to clean it up and that means higher taxes for responsible nations to pay for it and the nations responsible will just carry on as normal dumping crap into the oceans and pumping toxins from fossil fuels into the atmosphere.

All sounds unfair, doesn't it?

But it's that (along with applying at least some pressure to those countries to sort their shit out) or dire consequences for everyone in the future.

SpacedX · 24 March 2018

1 minute ago, leicsmac said:

All sounds unfair, doesn't it?

But it's that (along with applying at least some pressure to those countries to sort their shit out) or dire consequences for everyone in the future.

Encouragingly, having met its air quality targets in Beijing last year, China has launched a nationwide initiative to crack down on polluters. Meanwhile the Trump administration continues to relax key controls on toxic air pollution.

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