"Wildlife Populations Plummeting"

[bhikkhu]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7403989.stm

Wildlife populations 'plummeting'

Between a quarter and a third of the world's wildlife has been lost since 1970, according to data compiled by the Zoological Society of London.

Populations of land-based species fell by 25%, marine by 28% and freshwater by 29%, it says.

Humans are wiping out about 1% of all other species every year, and one of the "great extinction episodes" in the Earth's history is under way, it says.

Pollution, farming and urban expansion, over-fishing and hunting are blamed....

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Every now and then (since the '70's) a new report like this comes up, and then goes quickly down the memory hole. It's a good article, and a good reminder of why, at least in my case, I have a longstanding bias against the mantras of "growth and expansion".

[villager]

1. unchecked growth is the ideology of the cancer cell...

n/t

[tom_paine]

24. --Edward Abbey

[fascisthunter]

2. That's Alright.. We Have Oursleves

we can eat each other... it's the neo-Republican way. Why care about wildlife... it's for libruls to worry about. :sarcasm:

[ladjf]

3. The human race is a "death machine".

[greyl]

6. No, you must be confusing our culture with humans at large.

Please remember that there are still thousands of examples of human cultures which are not hellbent on destroying the very community of life that supports it.

[GliderGuider]

9. "Thousands"?

Can you name 10? Make sure they have a multi-thousand year record of sustainable existence, and are actively pursuing a non-growth lifestyle at the moment.

As far as I can tell, current human civilization consists of one single primary culture (that exhibits small regional variations in form rather than substance), with maybe a dozen surviving small tribal cultures that are trying to live sustainable lives. Even among those tribes, contact with the dominant global culture has already disrupted the sustainability of most of them.

If you can point to exceptions, I'd be very interested to hear about them.

On edit:

Sorry, I just remembered that you know all about Dan Quinn. Still, the question stands -- who do you see as current exemplars of sustainable cultures?

[greyl]

11. I think technically, yes, especially if they are identified by their particular names.

Nativeplanet.org is a decent resource showing that in Indonesia alone, there are the "Acehnese (Achinese, Atjeher, Orang Aceh, Acehnais, Acehno, Atjeh, Atjehnese, Achehnese, Achenese), Adabe (Ataura, Atauru, Atauro, Raklu-Un, Raklu Un), Adonara (Tusa Tadon, Waiwerang, Vaiverang, Sagu), Alorese, Ampanang, Andio (Masama, Andio'o, Imbao'o), Aralle, Tabulahan, Asmat (Asamat, Asemer, Asomat), Bagusa, Batak Alas-Kluet (Alas-Kluet Batak, Batak Kluet-Alas, Kluet-Alas Batak, Alas Kluet, Kluet Alas, Alas, Kluet), Batak Angkola (Orang Angkola, Anakola, Angkola), Batak Dairi (Dairi, Dairi Batak, Orang Batak Dairi, Pakpak, Pakpak Dairi, Sumut), Batak Karo (Karo Batak, Orang Batak Karo, Karonese), Batak Mandailing (Mandailing Batak, Batta, Orang Mandailing), Batak Simalungun (Simalungun Batak, Orang Batak Simalungun, Simelungun, Simelungan, Timur, Batta, Batak Toba (Toba Batak, Batta, Orang Batak Toba, Silindung Batak), Bauzi (Baudi, Bauri, Baudji, Baudzi), Damal (Uhunduni, Amung, Amung Kal, Amungme, Amuy, Enggipiloe, Hamung, Oehoendoeni), Dani, Gayo (Orang Gayo, Gayonese), Ketengban (Kupel, Oktengban), Kombai (Komboy), Kubu (Djambi, Orang Darat), Mentawai (Mentawei, Mentawi), Minangkabau (Minang, Padang, Orang Minangkabau), Moni (Migani, Djonggunu, Jonggunu), Moronene (Maronene), Nias (Batu), Nuaulu (Southern Nuaulu, Northern Nuaulu), Rejang (Keme Tun Djang, Orang Rejang, Djang, Tun Djang, Redjang Empat Petulai, Djang Lebong, Djang Bele Tebo, Djang Musai, Djang Lai, Djang Bekulau, Djang Abeus, Djang Aweus, Bang Hadji, Semitul), Sawang, Selako (Selako Dayak, Selakau, Salakau, Salako), Silakau), Tamiang (Malayu), Wandamen (Wandamen-Windesi, Windesi, Windessi, Bintuni, Bentuni, Bentoeni, Wamesa), Wolio (Buton, Butonese, Walio)"
http://www.nativeplanet.org/indigenous/ethnicdiversity/indigenous_data_asia.shtml

Not all of those listed are totally untouched by our culture, and many are considered assimilated. The number of untouched cultures may be in the hundreds, I think.

Before we arrive at a total, we'd have to agree on how to identify and divide human societies, but I hope my main point isn't lost; our global culture does not represent humanity at large, and humans weren't doomed to failure from the git go.

[GliderGuider]

12. Thanks for that.

I agree completely with your last point: "our global culture does not represent humanity at large, and humans weren't doomed to failure from the git go." This realization, coupled with the understanding that culture is memetic rather than genetic, goes a long way towards restoring some hope for the future of our species.

[One_Life_To_Give]

13. Untouched doesn't mean voluntarily sustainable

More often than not it means incapable of the unchecked growth that would cause instability.

[GliderGuider]

14. "More often than not"?

That sounds suspiciously like an opinion.

The inherent assumption of that position is that "unchecked growth" is intrinsic to the human animal, rather than his culture. it's a hard argument to make either way, but there is some anthropological evidence that a lot of hunter-gatherer tribes had practices that would limit growth, even if the immediate environment might have permitted it.

That is likewise of course an opinion, and since I'm not an anthropologist I can't support it very well. However,it's an opinion that gives me a perverse kind of hope, so I'm starting to investigate it more closely. If "infinite growth in a finite environment" could be shown to be a cultural imperative rather than a biological imperative, that understanding might do us a lot of good at some point.

On edit: I just picked up "Reinventing the Sacred" by Kauffman. My spidey-sense is all a-tingle about this book.

[One_Life_To_Give]

20. Opinion, probably but what other organism doesn't

I can't think of a single organism that does not grow, feed, multiply to the limits of it's food supply.
I see us behaving no better or worse than a bacteria colony. Except some seem to fantasize that some group other than us is smart enough to not do this. But I see no objective evidence upon which this is based.

[greyl]

16. I can't think of an instance of an untouched culture that is hellbent on consuming the Earth

and destroying the community of life on which it depends, though, can you?

[The2ndWheel]

17. There had to be at least one at some point

Or we wouldn't be where we are today.

[GliderGuider]

18. And one's all you need, isn't it?

The culture we all subscribe to today seems to have emerged from a single region and time, where presumably a change in practices prompted a change in worldview. The change in practices was totalitarian agriculture, and the changed worldview was "All your planet are belong to us." That culture seems to have spread out of the Fertile Crescent about 10,000 years ago. Driven by food surpluses it spread around the globe in its drive to conquer, rule and consume the planet.

It's entirely possible that the same culture could have arisen somewhere else at another time, but the point is that it seems to have been a rare (perhaps even singular) occurrence. This culture could have arisen any time within the previous couple of hundred thousand years, but it didn't. To me, that supports the claim that what we're seeing in a self-perpetuating cultural phenomenon rather than a biological imperative.

[One_Life_To_Give]

21. Culture or Capability

How can you define if a Stone Age Culture would or would not have pushed growth to this level. What evidence suggests they regulated population growth although they had more food than they could possibly use?

[GliderGuider]

22. I'd start with this observation

Nomadic hunter-gatherers on average worked for two or three hours a day to provide their food. Some of them (not all, it would depend on the environment) could easily have accumulated a surplus of food.

The fact that the human population grew so very slowly for so long in the presence of at least potential food surpluses hints that other factors were restraining the increase. It was probably not predators or disease, because we killed of most of our major predators very efficiently and deaths from disease actually increased after totalitarian agriculture was developed (based on forensic examinations of skeletons from the Nile valley).

Hunter-gatherers did things to restrain their population (delayed marriage, birth spacing, infanticide etc.) Possibly they had no concept of the value of a food surplus or how to create one, even though they had all those hours left in the day to work on the problem. Or perhaps they just didn't see "growth" as essential to their survival.

Read Daniel Quinn's "The Story of B" for a more thorough look at this idea.

[One_Life_To_Give]

23. Will have to check it out

Nomadic Hunter Gatherer groups didn't really have a storage capability. So spoilage would of been an issue.

Much of our population growth has been a result of Food Supply, Industialization and Medicine. The only Infanticide I am familiar with was the removal of an additional mouth to feed. That is a short term advantage as opposed to the longer term we aspire to when discussing loss of biodiversity. Birth spacing is likewise a question as to why this would have been historically practiced. Disposable diapers, heated apartments, bottled food all make it much simpler to have multiple small children living under your roof.

Businesses talk about growth as being necessary for survival. Or at least to drive up the value of the company stock. Life just seems to expand when and where it can. We think we are so smart because we planned what we will have for dinner over the next week. But I don't see us or any other life form on this planet which will not given a finite resource not grow to the maximum capacity which the system can endure given the opportunity.

[ladjf]

19. Quite true. However, I was speaking in general terms based

on the deaths that already occurred due to our behavior.

[phantom power]

4. The holocene extinction.

[greyl]

8. Yes.

The Holocene extinction, left unchecked, will ultimately claim us as well. All it will take is the wrong cascade, or simply weakening the earth's ecosystems to a tipping point that can no longer support our way of life. Cereal grains are fickle; a temperature change of a few degrees might kill them all off. With 90% or more of our diet coming from just a few, closely-related grasses, our entire, global population is essentially in the same precarious boat as the Irish of 1845.

Diversity is strength; diversity ensures survival. The human population is growing, while the number of species takes an unprecedented nose-dive. The amount of life is not changing, but biodiversity is plummeting. We are, pound by pound, replacing every single lifeform on this planet with a corresponding unit of human flesh. We are reducing the planet's biodiversity to a single species.
http://anthropik.com/2005/07/the-holocene-extinction

Mass Extinction Underway, Majority of Biologists Say Washington Post
Tuesday, April 21, 1998
Page A-4

By Joby Warrick, Staff Writer

A majority of the nation's biologists are convinced that a "mass extinction" of plants and animals is underway that poses a major threat to humans in the next century, yet most Americans are only dimly aware of the problem, a poll says.

The rapid disappearance of species was ranked as one of the planet's gravest environmental worries, surpassing pollution, global warming and the thinning of the ozone layer, according to the survey of 400 scientists commissioned by New York's American Museum of Natural History.

The poll's release yesterday comes on the heels of a groundbreaking study of plant diversity that concluded than at least one in eight known plant species is threatened with extinction. Although scientists are divided over the specific numbers, many believe that the rate of loss is greater now than at any time in history.

"The speed at which species are being lost is much faster than any we've seen in the past -- including those related to meteor collisions," said Daniel Simberloff, a University of Tennessee ecologist and prominent expert in biological diversity who participated in the museum's survey.

Most of his peers apparently agree. Nearly seven out of 10 of the biologists polled said they believed a "mass extinction" was underway, and an equal number predicted that up to one-fifth of all living species could disappear within 30 years. Nearly all attributed the losses to human activity, especially the destruction of plant and animal habitats.
http://www.equalearth.org/wildlife.htm

[formercia]

5. I can just see two Dinosaurs talking to each other

One says: This Asteroid thing is going to be the death of us.

The other replies: It's some little rodent plot to stampede us into hasty decisions.

[tex-wyo-dem]

7. Growth, expansion and ever increasing consumption -- the engine of capitalism --

are what's killing this planet...and ultimately, humankind.

[GliderGuider]

10. The engine of capitalism -- and communism -- and democratic socialism...

In fact there isn't a political/economic system on the planet today that doesn't have growth as its core principle.

That's why this cycle of civilization is hosed.

[hatrack]

15. Welcome to the Eremezoic, as E.O. Wilson aptly put it nt

.