The United Nations released a summary of a report last week on the health of the planet. Brad Plumer writes in The New York Times:
The 1,500-page report, compiled by hundreds of international experts and based on thousands of scientific studies, is the most exhaustive look yet at the decline in biodiversity across the globe and the dangers that creates for human civilization. A summary of its findings, which was approved by representatives from the United States and 131 other countries, was released Monday in Paris. The full report is set to be published this year.
Its conclusions are stark. In most major land habitats, from the savannas of Africa to the rain forests of South America, the average abundance of native plant and animal life has fallen by 20 percent or more, mainly over the past century. With the human population passing 7 billion, activities like farming, logging, poaching, fishing and mining are altering the natural world at a rate “unprecedented in human history.”
At the same time, a new threat has emerged: Global warming has become a major driver of wildlife decline, the assessment found, by shifting or shrinking the local climates that many mammals, birds, insects, fish and plants evolved to survive in.
As a result, biodiversity loss is projected to accelerate through 2050, particularly in the tropics, unless countries drastically step up their conservation efforts.
And what are we in Canada doing? Mr. Ford, Mr. Kenny and Mr. Moe are fighting the carbon tax all the way to the Supreme Court. Mr. Ford thinks we've done enough. And Mr. Kenney is removing the caps on Alberta emissions.
If there was ever a case of the blind leading the blind, this is it.
Image: The New York Times
4 comments:
Hi Owen. I tweeted your post, as I often do. Then I tried to put it on Facebook. Here is the message I got:
Your message couldn't be sent because it includes content that other people on Facebook have reported as abusive.
An Anonymous commenter told me last week that one of my posts had been taken down, Lorne. He said some "oily trolls" had complained. I answered that I wasn't on Facebook, so someone else must have put the post up. Perhaps it was you. I appreciate the attempt. But, frankly, if Facebook took it down, I'm not bothered.
It appears that Jason Kenny's strategy has been put into place.
Carbon taxes are as gestural as they are irrelevant, Owen. We've been given a terminal diagnosis on anthropogenic global warming and an equally dire diagnosis on biodiversity and our rapacious devouring of the planet's ecosystem.
Our leaders, with their devotion to perpetual exponential growth are like the High Priests in some Temple of Doom. They have us on a path to extinction. Hard as that is to hear much less believe, it's true.
The neoliberal scripture they follow is a death sentence for life on Earth. We can feel the wasting disease that is the only thing that neoliberalism delivers. The good stuff? That's illusion, sleight of hand. It was fun while it lasted.
We're six months away from our general election. That's plenty of time for our parties to rejig their platforms. Do you think they will or will they continue the drive to the cliff edge?
I'm not very hopeful, Mound. From where I sit, it looks like Wilful Ignorance rules the roost.
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