That we are currently in the midst of a civilizational collapse and human-authored Anthropocene Extinction is still a controversial idea to some, but the weight of evidence proves it is undeniable.
Reading about recent developments in climate and environmental science can be depressing. A theme very quickly emerges: everything is always much worse than we thought. Species are disappearing more quickly than previously estimated, the biomass of virtually all life is dwindling more rapidly than we used to believe, sea ice, permafrost, and glacier mass is vanishing sooner than anticipated. It is nonetheless important to stay informed and to face the reality of climate change so that we can better prepare ourselves for its ongoing and coming impacts.
The Bugs Matter survey asked members of the public to record the number of flying insects squashed on their number plate in 2019 and 2021, and compared it with data from a survey led by the RSPB using the same method in 2004.
Before making an essential journey in their vehicle, drivers cleaned their number plate, and afterwards counted the insects squashed on it using a "splatometer grid" supplied as part of the survey.
They then submitted a photo and count details via the Bugs Matter app and the data was converted into "splats per mile" to make it comparable between journeys.
The number of insects sampled on vehicle number plates fell by 59% between 2004 and 2021, the survey found. … Matt Shardlow, chief executive at Buglife, said: "This vital study suggests that the number of flying insects is declining by an average of 34% per decade, this is terrifying.
Most long-term data is from Europe, North America, India and some sites in Africa but more recent monitoring in Latin America and Asia shows similar results. The population of birds in the US and Canada has fallen by 3bn since 1970, while 600m have disappeared from Europe since 1980.
The review notes the extraordinary range of birds, from Antarctic petrels nesting 200km inland in Antarctica to the Hornby’s storm-petrel found nesting in the Atacama desert. A Rüppell’s vulture has been reported flying at an altitude of 11,300 metres, while emperor penguins can dive more than 500 metres below the sea surface. Birds have huge cultural value but are also vital to ecosystems, including dispersing seeds and eating pests.
Birds are affected by all the impacts of human activity. For example, 2.7m are estimated to die every year in Canada alone from eating pesticides, while domestic cats may kill 2.4bn a year in the US. The most threatened families of birds are those which are larger and take longer to reproduce, including parrots, albatrosses, cranes and stocky birds like the Australian brushturkey. All countries host at least one globally threatened bird species and 10 nations have more than 75, the review found.
It all starts by the affirmation that in spite of the fact that humans make up only a tiny part of all life on the planet, their impact upon biodiversity and wildlife is enormous. According to the study we have just mentioned above, the 7.6 billion humans on earth (equated to just 0.01 percent of all the world’s inhabitants) have caused the loss of 83% of all wild animals and 50% of all plants, since civilization was established. A great part of this loss is due to livestock farmed for human consumption. In other words, we do not just kill the animals we use for food, but we are actually devouring the whole planet!
70% of all birds on earth are farmed poultry, whereas those that are living in the wild are just 30%.
60% of the mammals on earth are livestock (mainly cattle and pigs), 36% are humans, and 4% of the living mammals on the planet are wild animals.
And what about marine life? Well… 300 years of whaling industry have led us to an 80% decline as far as life n the oceans is concerned.
Most coral assessments focus on specific regions or reefs, but Eddy and his colleagues from the University of British Columbia wanted to more complete assessment of coral losses. They used a combination of databases containing thousands of surveys of coral reef cover, marine biodiversity records and fisheries catch data to assess how each factor changed over time. They were particularly curious what dying corals meant for a reef’s “ecosystem services”—including providing habitat for diverse marine species, protecting the coast from storms and serving as a source of food and livelihood.
In addition to finding that half of living corals have died since the 1950s, researchers discovered that coral-reef-associated biodiversity dropped by 63 percent. Healthy reefs support thousands of different corals, fish and marine mammals, but bleached reefs lose their ability to support as many species. The scientists also found that catches of coral reef fishes peaked in 2002 and have been declining since then despite increasing fishing effort. And the study showed that the loss of coral species wasn’t equal across reefs—certain corals are proving more sensitive than others, leading some biologists to worry that some vulnerable coral species will be lost before they can be documented or preserved.
Sea urchins are dying in large numbers [95% in some areas] across the Caribbean, according to scientists who are racing to pinpoint the cause of the mysterious die-off.
The rapid and widespread deaths of long-spined sea urchins (Diadema antillarum) were first observed in February in the U.S. Virgin Islands but have since spread as far west as Jamaica, according to the Atlantic and Gulf Rapid Reef Assessment, an organization that monitors the health of coral reefs in the western Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.
Such a severe die-off of sea urchins has not been seen in the Caribbean since the 1980s, according to the research group. Scientists warn that the loss of urchins — which help maintain a healthy environment for corals to grow — could be devastating for the broader marine ecosystem.
"The 1980s die-off event is recognized as one of the main contributors to the decline of coral reefs throughout the region that we've observed since that time," said Joshua Patterson, an associate professor of fisheries and aquatic sciences at the University of Florida.
A recent report from the United Nations found that between 500,000 and 1 million plant and animals species face imminent extinction. At least 10% of insect species and more than 33% of all marine mammals and reef-forming coral are threatened, it found.
But one group is expected to suffer most of all: Amphibians. An estimated 40% of amphibian species face extinction, according to the UN report. A study published in the journal Current Biology estimated that at least 2,000 amphibian species are in danger of extinction.
This group includes frogs, toads, salamanders, and newts.
In the past 50 years, more than 500 amphibian species have experienced population declines worldwide, and 90 of them have gone extinct, due to a deadly fungal disease called chytridiomycosis (or chytrid fungus), which corrodes frog flesh.
According to a recent study in the journal Science, chytridiomycosis has wreaked havoc on frog, toad, and salamander species around the world. Amphibian deaths associated with chytrid fungus represent the greatest recorded loss of biodiversity attributable to any one disease, the authors found. Humans enabled the disease to spread further than it otherwise could have in large part because of the global wildlife trade.
Comprehensive assessments of species’ extinction risks have documented the extinction crisis1 and underpinned strategies for reducing those risks2. Global assessments reveal that, among tetrapods, 40.7% of amphibians, 25.4% of mammals and 13.6% of birds are threatened with extinction3. Because global assessments have been lacking, reptiles have been omitted from conservation-prioritization analyses that encompass other tetrapods4,5,6,7. Reptiles are unusually diverse in arid regions, suggesting that they may have different conservation needs6. Here we provide a comprehensive extinction-risk assessment of reptiles and show that at least 1,829 out of 10,196 species (21.1%) are threatened—confirming a previous extrapolation8 and representing 15.6 billion years of phylogenetic diversity. Reptiles are threatened by the same major factors that threaten other tetrapods—agriculture, logging, urban development and invasive species—although the threat posed by climate change remains uncertain.
Oceanic sharks and rays have declined by 71 percent since 1970, mainly because of overfishing. The collapse is probably even more stark, the authors point out, because of incomplete data from some of the worst-hit regions and because fishing fleets were already expanding in the decades before they started their analysis.
“There is a very small window to save these iconic creatures,” said Nathan Pacoureau, a marine biologist at Simon Fraser University in Canada and the study’s lead author. More than three quarters of oceanic shark and ray species are now threatened with extinction, jeopardizing marine ecosystems and the food security of people in many nations.
The research offers the latest data point in what is a dismal trajectory for Earth’s biodiversity. From butterflies to elephants, wildlife populations have crashed in recent decades and as many as a million species of animals and plants are at risk of extinction.
A new study reveals that 65 plant species have gone extinct in the continental United States and Canada since European settlement, more extinctions than any previous scientific study has ever documented.
Led by Wesley Knapp of the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program, a group of 16 experts from across the United States — including Richard Olmstead, a University of Washington professor of biology and curator of the UW’s Burke Museum Herbarium — collaborated on this first-of-its-kind project to document the extinct plants of the continental United States and Canada. Their findings were published Aug. 28 in Conservation Biology.
The team found that most plant extinctions occurred in the western United States, where the vegetation was minimally documented before widespread European settlement. Since many extinctions likely occurred before scientists analyzed an area, it is likely the 65 documented extinctions underestimate the actual number of plant species that have been lost. Previous studies documented far fewer plant extinctions on the North American continent.
The report has predicted an additional 69 gigatonnes of carbon emission from 2015 to 2050 due to land use change and soil degradation and a slowing in growth of agricultural yields. …
The Global Land Outlook 2 stated that at no other point in modern history had humanity faced such an array of familiar and unfamiliar risks and hazards, interacting in a hyper-connected and rapidly changing world.
“Humans have already transformed more than 70 per cent of the earth’s land area from its natural state, causing unparalleled environmental degradation and contributing significantly to global warming,” it said.
Up to 40 per cent of the planet’s land is degraded, directly affecting half of humanity and threatening roughly half of global gross domestic product ($44 trillion).
Target 2 of the GSPC is assessing the conservation status of all known plants by 2020, but we are still a long way from achieving this. Fewer than 20,000 plant species have been formally assessed so far at the global level using the IUCN Red List criteria, so the proportion of land plants that are threatened is not accurately known. Pimm and Joppa (2015) suggest that a third of all angiosperms are at risk of extinction, including most of those that have not yet been described, since these are likely to have small ranges and be locally rare. Brummitt et al. (2015) assessed the status of a random sample of 7000 plant species against the Red List criteria, including bryophytes, ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms (represented by monocots and the well-studied legumes) and concluded that 22% were threatened (IUCN categories Vulnerable, Endangered, or Critically Endangered) and 30% threatened or near-threatened. For the major groups assessed, the percentage threatened ranged from 11% for legumes to 40% for gymnosperms. Compared with other groups assessed in the same way, plants are more threatened than birds, similar to mammals, and less threatened than amphibians.
The global biodiversity framework replaces the plan for the last decade, which missed all 20 targets.
"To play our part, we need the UK to step up and turn our global promises into action at home, to show that we are not going to let another lost decade for nature slip past," said Beccy Speight, chief executive of the RSPB.
Biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in human history. Since 1970, there has been on average almost a 70% decline in the populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians.
It is thought that one million animal and plant species - almost a quarter of the global total - are threatened with extinction.
The valve had been in service since 1971 but can no longer draw water, according to the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which is responsible for managing water resources for 2.2 million people in Southern Nevada, including Las Vegas.
Across the West, extreme drought is already taking a toll this year and summertime heat hasn't even arrived yet. Drought conditions worsened in the Southwest over the past week, the US Drought Monitor reported Thursday. Extreme and exceptional drought, the two worst designations, expanded across New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado -- all states that are part of the Colorado River basin.
New Mexico's drought has been steadily intensifying since the beginning of the year, and extreme or exceptional drought now covers 68% of the state.
Further West, water officials in Southern California are now demanding that residents and businesses limit outdoor watering to one day a week, after a disappointing winter with very little rain and snow. It's the first time they've implemented such a strict rule.
Water companies legally discharged raw sewage into English rivers and coastal waters more than 400,000 times last year, government data has revealed.
Ten water and sewerage firms released untreated human effluent into rivers and seas over a total of 3.1 million hours.
Environmental campaigners say raw sewage kills fish and other wildlife, and risks spreading diseases such as hepatitis, E.coli and gastroenteritis.
The new figures are much higher than the year before, but the Environment Agency said this was down to an increase in the number of storm overflow pipes being monitored.
The report finds that the tropics alone lost 27.5 million acres of tree cover during 2021, with 9.3 million acres of that taking place in humid tropical primary forests.
This is equivalent to the total acreage of Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Jersey.
How it works: Tropical primary forests are areas of natural, mature, humid tropical forest cover that have not been cleared and regrown in recent history. They tend to be cradles of biodiversity.
Tree cover loss refers to the removal of tree cover due to either human or natural causes, including wildfires. If trees are not given the chance to grow back, then these losses will have contributed to deforestation.
The intrigue: Most of the 2021 forest loss had already happened before world leaders made their Glasgow commitment, said Frances Seymour, a senior fellow with the World Resources Institute, a nonprofit environmental group that helps run Global Forest Watch, during a media conference call.
Temperatures are forecast to reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit along the border of the two countries in the coming days, meteorologists warn, under a record-breaking ‘heat dome’ for April.
Late spring typically brings the hottest days of the year to India, before the cooling monsoon rains arrive in June. But it has been much hotter than average since early March as a result of climate change, imperilling millions of people and scorching crops the world is relying on.
"Well-off people will have air conditioners in their homes and offices, but here [in New Delhi], people like gardeners and those who work in the open areas, how will they survive in such heat?" gardener Prem Kishore asked AP earlier this month.
India’s increasingly intense heatwaves are a death sentence for hundreds of the country’s poorest people every year. Rickshaw drivers, street vendors, daily wage workers and the homeless are at greatest risk of heat exhaustion and heatstroke. At least 2,081 people died during a heatwave in 2015, the country’s worst since 1992.
Historical cumulative net CO2 emissions from 1850 to 2019 were 2400±240 GtCO2 (high confidence). Of these, more than half (58%) occurred between 1850 and 1989 [1400±195 GtCO2], and about 42% between 1990 and 2019 [1000±90 GtCO2]. About 17% of historical cumulative net CO2 emissions since 1850 occurred between 2010 and 2019 [410±30 GtCO2]. [FOOTNOTE 10] By comparison, the current central estimate of the remaining carbon budget from 2020 onwards for limiting warming to 1.5°C with a probability of 50% has been assessed as 500 Gt CO2, and as 1150 Gt CO2 for a probability of 67% for limiting warming to 2°C. Remaining carbon budgets depend on the amount of non-CO2 mitigation (±220 Gt CO2) and are further subject to geophysical uncertainties. Based on central estimates only, cumulative net CO2 emissions between 2010-2019 compare to about four fifths of the size of the remaining carbon budget from 2020 onwards for a 50% probability of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, and about one third of the remaining carbon budget for a 67% probability to limit global warming to 2°C.
U.S. Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), and James Lankford (R-Okla.), today introduced legislation, known as the Real Emergencies Act, to clarify the president cannot use climate change as the basis to declare a national emergency.
“Right now, Americans are paying astronomical rates at the pump—with our country having already surpassed the highest recorded average gas price ever. Instead of addressing this problem head on and promoting policies that encourage American energy independence, President Biden and his administration would rather ignore these problems. In the meantime, they are coordinating with extreme environmental groups behind the scenes to lay the groundwork to implement the administration’s zealous climate agenda by declaring a ‘national climate emergency.’ Our legislation would ensure the president cannot use made-up powers to circumvent Congress and govern by executive overreach,” Ranking Member Capito said. [Successfully passed 49-47]
The chances to limit global heating to an acceptable amount—a rapidly moving goalpost that has shifted from 1.5C to 2C and soon beyond—are rapidly dwindling, and world governments have proven themselves unequal to the task. In this long-established leadership vacuum, big polluters pooled and their think tank facilitators their vast resources to push a propaganda campaign to place the environmentalist onus of responsibility on the individual:
Similar criticisms have been levelled at terms like "carbon footprints" – which was first coined in a 2005 TV advert from BP. The advert appears to show members of the public being stopped in the street and asked what is "their carbon footprint". Most look a bit perplexed. BP explains that the carbon footprint is "the amount of carbon dioxide emitted due to your daily activities – from washing a load of laundry to driving a carload of kids to school".
The question of who is responsible for climate change is incredibly complicated, explains my colleague Jocelyn Timperley in an article for BBC Future's Climate Emotions series. Is it the companies who supply goods and services or the consumers who create the demand?
On the one hand, 70% of greenhouse gas emissions in the past two decades can be attributed to 100 fossil fuel producers, according to a report from the CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project). So their role is clearly important. But rich, Western consumers also contribute a disproportionate amount of emissions through the choices they make. Another assessment, co-authored by Diana Ivanova, a research fellow specialising in household consumption from the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of Leeds in the UK, suggests households contribute more than 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It depends on whom you hold responsible for Scope 3 emissions, which are "indirect" emissions resulting from using goods and services, for example.
Individual action can no longer stop or even meaningfully ameliorate the coming extinction, outside of abstaining from reproduction, which both significantly limits one’s carbon footprint and reduces the number of future victims of the planet’s death throes, which will cause an attendant social breakdown and inevitable turn toward fascist dictatorship.
Disasters tend to bring people together to weather a brief event, but this one is both too final and too protracted to spur significant communal assistance. If a tornado or earthquake strikes, it soon passes; floods and droughts tend to linger but there is hope of relief in the form of good Samaritans who were spared the worst and can provide help. The coming cataclysm is already underway, a slow cancerous burn that is all the more pernicious for its all-encompassing end. There will be no one spared, no neighborly largesse to hope for, no sudden and undeniable collapse to illustrate the need for action.
From The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be by J. B. MacKinnon:
Memory conspires against nature. The forgetting can begin in the instant that a change takes place: the human mind did not evolve to see its surroundings—what we now so clinically refer to as “the environment”—as the focus of our attention, but rather as the backdrop against which more interesting things take place. We generally don’t notice small or gradual changes. Our minds would otherwise be crowded with turning leaves and the paths of clouds across the sky—a beguiling madness, but a madness all the same.
Even a dramatic event can be overlooked in the moment, through a phenomenon known as “change blindness.” … The shifting baselines syndrome applies as much to the way we forget what houses cost ten years ago or fail to notice that fast-food portion sizes have tripled since the 1970s as it does to the natural world. Out of sight, out of mind: ordinary amnesia.
