Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A commentary published in Nature has claimed that careless human exploitation of natural resources poses a far greater threat to endangered species than climate change.
Biodiversity: The ravages of guns, nets and bulldozers
There is a growing tendency for media reports about threats to biodiversity to focus on climate change.
Here we report an analysis of threat information gathered for more than 8,000 species. These data revealed a contrasting picture. We found that by far the biggest drivers of biodiversity decline are overexploitation (the harvesting of species from the wild at rates that cannot be compensated for by reproduction or regrowth) and agriculture (the production of food, fodder, fibre and fuel crops; livestock farming; aquaculture; and the cultivation of trees).
Early next month, representatives from government, industry and non-governmental organizations will define future directions for conservation at the World Conservation Congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). High on the agenda for political leaders, non-governmental organizations, conservationists and many others will be taking steps to turn the 2015 Paris climate agreement into action. It is also crucial that the World Conservation Congress delegates — and society in general — ensure that efforts to address climate change do not overshadow more immediate priorities for the survival of the world’s flora and fauna.
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The basic message emerging from these data is that whatever the threat category or species group, overexploitation and agriculture have the greatest current impact on biodiversity (see ‘Big killers’).
Of the species listed as threatened or near-threatened, 72% (6,241) are being overexploited for commerce, recreation or subsistence.
… anthropogenic climate change — including increases in storms, flooding, extreme temperatures or drought that exceed background variability, as well as sea-level rise — is currently affecting 19% of species listed as threatened or near-threatened.
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http://www.nature.com/news/biodiversity-the-ravages-of-guns-nets-and-bulldozers-1.20381
The commentary suggests climate might become a bigger issue in the future.
I suspect even the claim that 19% of species are endangered by climate change is dubious, given that sea levels have barely shifted, hurricane activity is showing a long term decline, and global temperature has been so flat, NASA has been forced to resort to controversial temperature adjustments to keep the excitement flowing.
Can anyone point me to solid evidence that increased biodiversity is always a good thing?
Or is this just something we’ve all been taught and accepted based on zero evidence?
For example, if we eliminated mosquitoes completely from the planet, would this have any net negative impact on humans? Taking it further, what practical difference if any individual species goes extinct?
Science doesn’t decide good or bad but biodiversity measurements give some clues as to how things operate. For example, stressful places like estuaries and polluted places show reductions in some metrics, not always in numbers of individuals. There is a big literature about this, not very conclusive from what I have seen. There is an argument about more stability with more species, but exceptions seem to abound. Again what is stability. Spent more than half my life with mosquitoes, too much bias there to comment much, but still think that they are curious creatures.
Just remember that the only things we’ve ever exhausted are renewable. Socialism and luddites are what cause these problems. Make fish stocks a property right and the problems will fix themselves. Convert the world to the dreaded GMO’s and watch land usage plummet.
Eric,
I do like your last paragraph: it puts it all in perspective.
There is (here I go again) NO SUCH THING as “biodiversity”: we were all warned about this several years ago by LMofBr. He was right; he is always right.
“Biodiversity” in my humble opinion, is complete and utter bollocks: that is, nonsense, fiddlesticks, twaddle, bunkum, UN “speak” of the lowest order.
The word itself is meaningless.
They have corrupted the language to the point that they might aswell come up with: geo-diversity, pseudo-diversity, polar-diversity, solar-diversity etc..
It is good (for us all) to know that you EXPOSE these fruit-cake eco-tards in the way you do.
Keep ’em comin’ !
Regards,
WL
The commentary suggests climate might become a bigger issue in the future.
– no:
It is also crucial that the World Conservation Congress delegates — and society in general —
ensure that efforts to address climate change do not overshadow more immediate priorities for the survival of the world’s flora and fauna.
____________________________
And the following table shows
– anthropogenic global warming ONLY affecting 19% of species
– all other factors top AGW
http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/7.38249.1470654478!/image/IUCN_biodiversity_loss_by_threat_COMMENT_WEB.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_630/IUCN_biodiversity_loss_by_threat_COMMENT_WEB.jpg
Like it or not; and like biodiversity or not:
Man and his followers cat and dog are the greatest threat to biodiversity.
For me the table shows:
That world is an economy – so we should treat it as an economy. Where AGW may be a factor – anyway one of the least immediate factors.
We need more AGW to open the poles to bio-diversity, man and AGW are bio-diverse saviors.
The climate has been changing for eons and will continue to change wheather Mankind is here or not. The real problem is Man’s out of control population. If Man does not control his own population then Nature will, catastrophically. We ourselves may be one of the species that our out of control population drives to extinction.
My view too
Malthus has been disproved again and again and again and again and again and …
ends: haleluja! / even if you don’t recognize it /
https://youtu.be/UZFjdMsWobg
Fire is a threat to biodiversity? First.let me note that people claim fire is good because natural systems evolved with fire. Doesn’t fire make available space for new niches, or better put, it renews niches that have become senile?
Environmentalists are so hard to tolerate because they often argue for and against everything, and the only factor deciding which side of the argument to take currently being political expediency?
The people on this planet would be better off if efforts to insure biodiversity were redirected to any of thousands of other goals.