Friday, November 17, 2017

Sleepwalking To Extinction



The nations of the world have been meeting in Bonn trying to map out a strategy for dealing with climate change. But we face another crisis -- which, in itself, is related to climate change. William Rees writes:

Biodiversity loss may turn out to be the sleeper issue of the century. It is caused by many individual but interacting factors — habitat loss, climate change, intensive pesticide use and various forms of industrial pollution, for example, suppress both insect and bird populations. But the overall driver is what an ecologist might call the “competitive displacement” of non-human life by the inexorable growth of the human enterprise. 
On a finite planet where millions of species share the same space and depend on the same finite products of photosynthesis, the continuous expansion of one species necessarily drives the contraction and extinction of others. (Politicians take note — there is always a conflict between human population/economic expansion and “protection of the environment.”)

We are the dominant species -- and we have been crowding out all the others:

Competitive displacement has been going on for a long time. Scientists estimate that at the dawn of agriculture 10,000 years ago, H. sapiens comprised less than one per cent of the total weight of mammals on the planet. (There were probably only two to four million people on Earth at the time.) Since then, humans have grown to represent 35 per cent of a much larger total biomass; toss in domestic pets and livestock, and human domination of the world’s mammalian biomass rises to 98.5 per cent! 
One needs look no further to explain why wildlife populations globally have plunged by nearly 60 per cent in the past half century. Wild tigers have been driven from 93 per cent of their historic range and are down to fewer than 4,000 individuals globally; the population of African elephants has imploded by as much as 95 per cent to only 500,000 today; poaching drove black rhino numbers from an already much reduced 70,000 in 1960 to only 2,500 individuals in the early 1990s. (With intense conservation effort, they have since rebounded to about 5,000). And those who still think Canada is still a mostly pristine and under-populated wilderness should think again — half the wildlife species regularly monitored in this country are in decline, with an average population drop of 83 per cent since 1970. Did I mention that B.C.’s southern resident killer whale population is down to only 76 animals? That’s in part because human fishers have displaced the orcas from their favoured food, Chinook salmon, even as we simultaneously displace the salmon from their spawning streams through hydro dams, pollution and urbanization.

We have adopted the mantra of exponential growth. It has become our measure of success. But consider:

The past two centuries of exponential growth greatly have accelerated the pace of change. It took all of human history — let’s say 200,000 years — for our population to reach one billion in the early 1800s, but only 200 years, 1/1000th as much time, to hit today’s 7.6 billion! Meanwhile, material demand on the planet has ballooned even more — global GDP has increased by over 100-fold since 1800; average per capita incomes by a factor of 13. (rising to 25-fold in the richest countries). Consumption has exploded accordingly — half the fossil fuels and many other resources ever used by humans have been consumed in just the past 40 years. 

All of this is unsustainable. But we continue to follow the same old patterns -- sleepwalking to extinction.

Image:  USA Today


14 comments:

Lorne said...

These are heartbreaking numbers, Owen. Do you ever think that we have become the most virulent disease on the planet?

Owen Gray said...

Do you remember the comic strip Pogo, Lorne? "We have met the enemy and it is us."

Rural said...

There is little doubt in my mind that nearly all forms of life on this speck of dust in the universe are headed for extiction, Owen. The only question is how quickly that will happen and by what means, depleation of resources both natural and man made (from earths resoutces) or by 'natural' cataclysm (earthquakes, drought, floods etc etc) or self destruction by nuclear means. There are time when I am glad I aproach my own 'natural' end of life but fear for the generation that follows!

Owen Gray said...

We are living as if there isn't a generation coming after us, Rural.

The Mound of Sound said...


Imagine having to contemplate a mass extinction that our lone species triggered in just two centuries. Such a minuscule interval for such an enormous consequence. These inarguable facts are almost too horrible to accept.

What does this make our leaders other than nihilists?

We know that we're using resources at a steadily increasing rate that now stands at 1.7 times their replenishment rate, our Earth's maximum carrying capacity. We are neck deep into "overshoot." The evidence of this is everywhere. It's visible to the naked eye from the space station. Our excessive demands on our one and only biosphere are bad enough but what makes it so much worse is that our global civilization is absolutely, mortally dependent on these growing rates of pillage. We stop, we die and in unprecedented numbers.

At this point if you want to maximize the percentage of humanity that can withstand this looming apocalypse, you completely arrest growth and enter what Lovelock described as "sustainable retreat." There's not enough to meet our demands so we just have to accept less, better to be sure but still less.

It makes sense only our leaders won't have that. Despite mountains of empirical evidence and logic as sharp as obsidian they insist on pursuing perpetual, exponential growth. And yet we treat them as rational. We revere them and submit to them and entrust our grandkids' fate to them knowing full well their disposition and what they have in store for our future generations. Are we any less mad than they?

Owen Gray said...

We engage in magical thinking, Mound. We envision magical solutions to the crises we face. No no one dares to tell the truth. We truly are fools.

Hugh said...

Individual, mortgage and government debt is always growing.

The Govt measures debt as a ratio: debt to GDP.

So as long as GDP keeps growing, as debt levels grow, that debt/GDP ratio remains the same.

This ratio is what Govt wants us to focus on, not the total amount of debt.

So, according to Govt, GDP absolutely must grow every year.

This is what's behind everything the Govt does.

Steve said...

and the Mound thinks we are the first civilization to make these mistakes. The evidence is everywhere, that we have killed ourselves over and over again.

I site the Movie Made in America. Is this the truth of course not, was the CIA flying in hundreds of tons of cocaine into the USA, you dont have to watch the movie to have an opinion/ . Hypothiecily if you can supply the USA with Coaine for decades, what is the big deal about bringing down the twin towers if it meets a need?

Steve said...

One thing I want to highlight on my last post. The NYT, Washington Post and others where on point to destroy this story. The NYT was also on point to point to fictional WMD in Iraq. So take that you liberals, you have been had by the news forever.

Owen Gray said...

Canada's First Nations knew that Nature -- like everything else -- has its limits, Hugh. Rather than dominate Nature, they sought to live within those limits. We still have not learned the wisdom which they tried to teach us.

Owen Gray said...

If you've followed the Mound at his blog, Steve, you'll know he doesn't think we're the first civilization to make these mistakes. What does your second paragraph about the film have to do with biodiversity? And what, exactly, is your criticism of the NYT and The Washington Post?

Steve said...

Despite news articles by The Associated Press and the investigation by Sen. Kerry, the Contra-Cocaine scandal became one of Official Washington’s dirty secrets treated by the mainstream news media as a kooky conspiracy theory. The story was finally revived by journalist Gary Webb of the San Jose Mercury News in 1996, but the result was a fierce counterattack against Webb spearheaded by The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, resulting in the destruction of Webb’s career and contributing to his eventual suicide in 2004. But one result was a belated admission by the CIA’s inspector general that, indeed, CIA officers were aware of the Contras’ cocaine trafficking but chose to look the other way and protect these CIA clients. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Sordid Contra-Cocaine Saga.”]

full story because my links seem to fail way to often
http://www.blacklistednews.com/The_Charmed%2C_Doomed_Life_of_Barry_Seal/61669/0/38/38/Y/M.html

Owen Gray said...

So this goes all the way back to Olie North. But what's the connection to the biodiversity crisis, Steve?

Steve said...

a goverment that will poison its citizens for profit has no regard for the environment. OMG
have you seen what Monsanto has contributed to the American dream? Who is selling the OXY?
My big irreversible fear about the next Ontario Election is that Patrick Brown wins
and the wetlands and the green zone are history.