UN's Global Biodiversity Outlook bleak

[tommywho70x]

By Matthew Moore
Published: 1:25PM BST 09 May 2010

The world's biodiversity is threatened by the economic growth of countries like China, India and Brazil, the study will say.

While Western countries are increasingly aware of the need to protect endangered species, the developing world's appetite for raw materials is destroying vulnerable ecosystems, the report's authors will warn.


Don't write off organic foodPopulation growth, pollution and the spread of Western-style consumption are also blamed for hitting plant and animal populations.

Species at risk include the fishing cat, as its wetland habitats in India, Pakistan and southeast Asia are converted for agriculture. Maritime ecosystems are under particular threat, with the south Asian river dolphin among the species whose numbers have plummeted due to damming and overfishing.

The latest report – the third edition of the UN's Global Biodiversity Outlook – is based on data obtained from studies in more than 120 countries across the world.

It builds on recent work for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) which showed that 21 per cent of all known mammals, 30 per cent of amphibians and 35 per cent of invertebrates are threatened with extinction.

Speaking in advance of the report, Ahmed Djoghlaf, who heads the Convention on Biological Diversity, said that countries had failed to honour pledges to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss.

He said: “The magnitude of the damage [to ecosystems] is much bigger than previously thought. The rate of extinction is currently running at 1,000 times the natural historical background rate of extinction.”

He added: “It’s a problem if we continue this unsustainable pattern of production and consumption. If the 9 billion people predicted to be with us by 2050 were to have the same lifestyle as Americans, we would need five planets.”

 

[Old Rocks]

And this is before the Gulf oil disaster. The impact of that catastrophe grows hourly.

 

[waltky]

New biodiversity report released...

Scientists release survey into state of biodiversity
Sat, Mar 24, 2018 - Scientists were yesterday to deliver a comprehensive assessment of the state of biodiversity — the animals and plants that humankind depends on to survive but has driven into a mass species extinction.

The work of about 600 scientists over three years, four reports will be unveiled in Medellin, Colombia, under the umbrella of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The diagnosis is expected to be dire. “If we continue the way we are, yes the... sixth mass extinction, the first one ever caused by humans, will continue,” IPBES chairman Robert Watson said ahead of the much-anticipated release. However, the good news: “It’s not too late” to slow the rate of loss, he said.

Scientists say humankind’s voracious consumption and wanton destruction of nature has unleashed the first mass species die-off since the demise of the dinosaurs — only the sixth on our planet in half-a-billion years. The first major biodiversity assessment in 13 years comes in the same week that the world’s last male northern white rhino died in Kenya — a stark reminder of the stakes. “The IPBES conference is going to tell us that the situation is continuing to deteriorate, they are going to tell us some ecosystems are being brought to the brink of collapse,” WWF director-general Marco Lambertini said on Thursday. “The IPBES is going to make a strong case for the importance of protecting nature for our own well-being.”

The volunteer experts who compiled the reports, drawing on data from about 10,000 scientific publications, have been discussing their contents with representatives of the IPBES’ 129 member countries in Medellin since Saturday last week. The contents of five summary reports for government policymakers, each about 40 pages long, were negotiated word-for-word, line-by-line. The summary reports are condensed versions of five monumental assessments, each about 600-900 pages, which are to be published only after the conference.

The first four summaries were released simultaneously yesterday — one for each of four world regions — the Americas, Africa, the Asia-Pacific, and Europe and Central Asia. A fifth report, due on Monday, will focus on the global state of soil, which is fast being degraded through pollution, forest-destruction, mining and unsustainable farming methods that deplete its nutrients. Together, the five assessments cover the entire Earth except for Antarctica and the open oceans — those waters beyond national jurisdiction. The entire process has cost about US$5 million.

Scientists release survey into state of biodiversity - Taipei Times

 

[Two Thumbs]

but but, shouldn't evolution save everything?

 

[Old Rocks]

Evolution works in time periods of hundreds of thousands to millions of years, not decades. And that is the time period we have been destroying the habitat of these animals, and outright killing them. But then, that is the kind of dumb fuck comment we have learned to expect from you. Will you ever grow up?

 

[evenflow1969]

Evolution works in time periods of hundreds of thousands to millions of years, not decades. And that is the time period we have been destroying the habitat of these animals, and outright killing them. But then, that is the kind of dumb fuck comment we have learned to expect from you. Will you ever grow up?

We might survive it, we may not! At my age I am not sure it matters to me any more,my next dog will proly out live me. The earth will be fine! It will be us thats fucked. Some thing else will take our place eventually!

 

[whitehall]

You almost gotta laugh. The people who are allegedly responsible for the extinction of all sorts of critters are members of the freaking U.N. "biodiversity panel". If they couldn't keep the Japanese from killing whales for the last thirty years what do they expect to accomplish today? The dirty little secret is that the U.N. is an extortion operation dedicated to keeping themselves in 5 star hotels while the world falls apart.

 

[fncceo]

And this is before the Gulf oil disaster.

I remember the gulf disaster ...

That was one crazy weekend.