From The Heartland Institute
November 29, 2018
A new report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) claims humans have killed more than half the all the wildlife in the world since 1970.
A new report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) claims humans have killed more than half the all the wildlife in the world since 1970. The report attracted media mass attention, though if you read the entire 145-page essay, it doesn’t really say that, much less prove it. More ironic, the political focus is mostly on countries where the declining wildlife populations do not live, and the solution suggested is so vague it couldn’t possibly address the issue.
The hype about the document, an annual harangue called the “Living Planet Report,” is not surprising, considering the source. This is the same organization that told us a decade ago we would all have to leave. “Earth’s population will be forced to colonize two planets within 50 years if natural resources continue to be exploited at the current rate, according to a… study by the WWF. [The study] warns that the human race is plundering the planet at a pace that outstrips its capacity to support life. The report… reveals that more than a third of the natural world has been destroyed by humans over the past three decades.”
That was a remarkable conclusion, especially considering that 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is water. So humans would have to have destroyed virtually every square inch of land on Earth for the report to be credible.
This year’s diatribe claims almost 60 percent of all the fish, birds, and animals on the Earth have been killed by people in two generations. It proposes “a new global deal for nature,” a companion for the Paris Climate treaty. Except unlike Paris, the proposed “new deal for nature” has no numbers, no specific goals. In fact, there is no definition of what the agreement might entail. Rather, it includes vague suggestions that we’re not locking up enough land from public access, nor creating enough national parks, wildlife refuges, wilderness areas, and other unpeopled places.
The report’s language is decidedly European and American, using policy terms common to the western environmental industry. For example, it discusses the “progress” in removing dams in the U.S., especially criticizing agriculture in the Rio Grande Valley, and cites efforts to designate more wild and scenic rivers. It continues the ongoing criticism of western mining, timber production, and “unsustainable agriculture,” with which we’re all familiar. These people simply want to stop most human uses of land, water, and other resources of the American West.
There is just one major problem with using this report to further that goal. The wildlife it laments does not live in the American West. Keep in mind that the reported declines in wildlife populations are based on computer modeling, not actual counting of actual animals. Still, even if you give such a report the benefit of the doubt, as many will, the dangers cited are from “warming oceans choked with plastic,” toppled rain forests, and dying coral reefs. Thus, populations are said to be tanking worst in the tropics, including an 89 percent decrease in South and Central America. But make no mistake – the U.S. is nonetheless at fault. The report claims “crop failures brought on by climate change” are the reason caravans of Central Americans stream to the U.S. illegally. That’s why we must “urgently transition to a net carbon-neutral society and halt and reverse nature loss — through green finance and shifting to clean energy and environmentally friendly food production.”
HT/Marcus
We were also told that we were killing the polar bears(actually, we were when we hunted them aggressively awhile back) and models still show that it will happen.
The real world the last decade has been showing otherwise:
https://www.thegwpf.org/as-polar-bear-numbers-increase-gwpf-calls-for-re-assessment-of-endangered-species-status/
“Since 2005, however, the estimated global polar bear population has risen by more than 30% to about 30,000 bears, far and away the highest estimate in more than 50 years. ”
So we have speculative models based on theories on one side vs observations on the other side.
Models going out 100 years never get held accountable by reconciling projections with observations because everyone subjected to them today will be dead then.
In the mean time, we just re frame and move the goal posts instead of adjusting the models to reflect what the observations are telling us. Then we expect people to use them as substantive guidance to make key decisions about matters on energy, economics and the environment.
“This year’s diatribe claims almost 60 percent of all the fish, birds, and animals on the Earth have been killed by people in two generations.” – Article.
This is addressed to whoever put that report together:
Okay, fine. Give me a list of all those families and genuses, and within those categores, a list of species with a census count of the dead animals for each.
If you can’t do this, or simply refuse to do it using any excuse of any kind, then please drop the subject because I don’t believe anything you say.
If I can do a simple daily count of the numbers per species and the various species of sparrows, in addition to the mourning doves, red-bellied woodpeckers, cardinals and blue jays that come to my feeding station, not to mention the 4 pairs of goldfinches that took over my sunflowers last summer and ate the seeds while fattening up for their trip south, plus the geese, ducks, herons and cranes in my area, then these bozos can comply with my reasonable demand that they prove what they are saying or just stop saying.
And put their hands back in their own pockets. I have nothing to give them but contempt.
A marvellous comment, spot-on when identifying the best way to recognize pure invention masquerading as science: if I realize there is no way they can ever come up with a proof for their statement, there is no proof. Simple as that, and no need to read further. The numbers and percentages they come up with mean nothing, since we don’t even have the foggiest idea about how many species there are on earth. Do bacteria and viruses count? Where is the base, line?
By the way, in Ontario the goldfinches never leave for the winter; their plumage all becomes olive-green, the normal colour of females. The only time they leave my feeders is when the dandelions are shedding their seeds. Must be more delicious then my sunflower seeds.
I don’t know, Sara. Over many decades now of dependence on animalia for my own ‘sustainability’, I have without doubt consumed a significant count of cattle and pigs that are no longer with us, not to mention numberless fish, chickens, and recently one more turkey. So in all candor I would be quite personally responsible for their asserted declining numbers had not those danged farmers, ranchers, and hatchery workers not keep raising more of them than ever!
Yeah, they mean individuals, not species.
There are, I suggest, few animals living that were born in 1970, or earlier.
They would be ~48 years old, or older.
A few megafauna – elephants, possibly hippo and rhino; whales, sharks, sunfish, possibly, and possibly a few dolphin – orcas, for example.
Those are the sort of animals where individuals likely to be over 48 years old very likely exist. Now, the other species – thousands of mammals, ten-thousand or so birds [ostrich may do 48 years, plus!], lizards, fish etc. , have most likely had a 100% (Plus) turnover of individuals in those 48 years. Naturally.
We have certainly run through billions of pigs and chickens in those 48 years.
And many other food animals, I think.
But this seems to be a little away from a serious report.
Project Fear again!
Auto
Freeman Dyson points out that the human moderated ecosystem of England is way more biodiverse than what would be there without humans. link
Similar to your observation, I hear way more bird songs in my back yard than I do at my buddy’s house in the woods by a small lake. Also I see several/many squirrels every day. Sightings of raccoons, skunks, and rabbits are common. There are coyote warning signs on the trail by my son’s place right downtown.
My wife and I have probably expanded the wildlife population by a factor of 5 here in northern Virginia. We moved in to our place on 5 wooded acres in April 2014, and put out an array of bird and squirrel feeders. A pair of cardinals showed up at first; as I write this, I’m looking out at more than a dozen cardinals, a swarm of blue jays, and four woodpeckers. And this is a slow morning. We’ve noted 48 different avian species, including a pair of bald eagles. Racoons have always been swarming at night. The fox population has grown considerably, as has the deer population. The squirrel population seems to be leveled out, but it went from just a handful to an uncountable flock in very short order. (We spend an embarrassing amount on bulk nuts…)
Don’t feel like the lonely ranger! I buy suet cakes by the case and wild bird feed in 100 pound bags.
Well said, Sara!
Vastly more than 60%
Take Victoria in Australia.
Almost all crown land that was once an incredibly diverse ecosystem of native trees and animals are now a mono culture of cloned gums or pine trees in less than 20 years. That’s a 100% extinction event in those areas…….and then take into account that the herbicide and pesticide achieves further kill when it dribbles it way (Like many of the comments here.) in to streams, rivers and water catchment for drinking, and the extinction become contagious.
Extinction happens regionally at first, oftentimes with figures of 100% ,and then the pockets where something remains is supposed, perhaps a dozen Koalas, to indicate that it’s all right Jack.
The moronicity of some of the logic here cannot be measured.
So, your government did this and you are angry at us for pointing out they are the ones causing all the “problems” they are screeching about? I find it less than credible that the majority of Australia has been stripped of all native plants and animals. Try again.
When a region is converted from remnant native vegetation into a mono-culture, the result is a extinction of all (99%) species, flora and fauna with respect to the region/area.. The sum of this ‘plantation forest’ sterilisation conversion process is a certified 99% kill/extinction event.
It is cumulative and very much like cancer. Extinction creeps.
Still waiting for proof that all native plant and animal life in Australia has been removed and replaced. That was you first assertion, now prove it.
Really? All ripped out and gone away, is it?
I do recall a couple of years ago a report on the aftermath in Australia of a wildfire which burned out a lot of stuff in an area which was said to have lost its diversity – what YOU, Mike, are complaining about – but when regrowth started, all the “MISSING” species of plants and insects and four-leggers and birds began to reappear like magic.
Either YOU, Mike from AU, aren’t paying attention to your surroundings, or you’re just taking someone else’s word for what’s missing. It’s also possible that you don’t spend enough time outside to recognize the varietals that exist everywhere.
I keep seeing articles about how all the song birds are being wiped out. And yet those “articles” are all based on “studies” done in the center of major metropolitan areas. Want more birds in your city? Start a program to get people to put out bird feeders year round. SHAZAM!!!!!! More birds. It is like a cause&effect sort-O-thang. And yes! Put them between 8 and 12 feet off the ground, stops the feral cats from turning it into an open buffet. Don’t thank me, just feed the birds.
Most likely he was just making it all up. Just like that WWF propaganda.
Let’s not get hyperbolic in any direction.
Asking for impossible standards of evidence is absurd. Valid sampling and modeling techniques are appropriate. The species-area curve is not.
On the other hand, claiming that the entirety of a state as vast as Victoria has eliminated all of its natural ecosystem is equally absurd. Maybe in your general area, you’ve had large plantations crop up. However, I do not believe such an action would be possible in 20 years if the whole of the population was dedicated to mass eco-destruction
Vastly more than 60%
Take Victoria in Australia.
Almost all crown land that was once an incredibly diverse ecosystem of native trees and animals are now a mono culture of cloned gums or pine trees in less than 20 years. That’s a 100% extinction event in those areas…….and then take into account that the herbicide and pesticide achieves further kill when it dribbles it way (Like many of the comments here.) in to streams, rivers and water catchment for drinking, and the extinction become contagious.
Extinction happens regionally at first, oftentimes with figures of 100% ,and then the pockets where something remains is supposed, perhaps a dozen Koalas, to indicate that it’s all right Jack.
The moronicity of it all.
Let’s bring some facts into this.
This is the Victorian Governments overview of how they manage crown land.
It does not correspond with the suggestions Mike from Au has made.
https://www.vgso.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/Dealing%20with%20Land%20in%20Victoria%20–%20What%20Government%20Agencies%20Need%20to%20Know.pdf
Mike from Au,
Geoff from Melbourne here, mate.
A decade or more ago my work took me on many airline flights each month, plus some in our corporate Biz-jet.
From 50,000 feet up you cannot see individual animals, but you can often see evidence of changes of vegetation, bushfire remnants, drainage paths etc, especially if you have a line of work that needs you to get your eye in.
Australia is a vast place. I have also had the pleasure of seeing a great deal of it on the ground. The far west of Tassie, south of Macquarie Harbour. The Paterson Desert. The wilds of Arnhem land east of the park. Remote parts of Cape York. But, in truth, you do not need to see these places to realise how puny Man is. I think, though I have never tested myself on this, that you could put me anywhere in Australia away from suburbia and I could show you significant areas that have not been touched, less than 50 km away from that point. Maybe not 100% of the time, but at least 97%, good enough for climate change.
Chill off and have a Fosters, mate.
Heartland is misstating the findings of the report: ” an overall decline of 60% in the population sizes of vertebrates between 1970 and 2014.”
First, this isn’t “all animals” by any means, it’s only vertebrates.
Second, “These values represent the average change in population abundance – based on the relative change and not the absolute change – in population sizes. ”
That means that if you have a population that only had 1000 to begin with, and the population is now down to 100, it’s 10% of the initial population. But the same species could have a population of 37000 elsewhere, which is at 90% of its initial abundance. Average the two, and you’ve got 50% – but only in terms of population change over time, not absolute numbers.
The WWF figures are easily misinterpreted to those who want to do so, but the report is transparent in how they are calculated, so really it’s Heartland that is at fault.
Kristi Silber December 2, 2018 at 12:28 pm
You are incorrect. You have lost 11% and have 89% remaining, not 50% remaining.
Aside from your incorrect maths, the whole report is still one huge model, I see no evidence that an actual census of any species ever took place. Just like the whole
Global WarmingClimate ChangeWeather Wierding fr**d, not one single bit of evidence proving that it was Man that did a thing. And in fact, based on reports on the ground, quite a few species have expanded their range. In my lifetime I have seen a rebound in population and like range of the armadillo, an an increase in range and likely population of coyote, as well as rebound in populations of bald eagle and most other raptors. So what you’re saying is, we should take all evidence-free, fact-free model-based press releases as gospel? No reason to argue with any of it? Oh, that’s right, I’m talking to the paid troll.Oh, yeah, I completely forgot about the wild turkey. I was 30+ years old before I saw my first wild turkey. Now I have a flock of them just over the ridge, I had to stop to let them cross the road awhile back.
Here in western PA turkeys are on the losing side of the fight, thanks to all the coyotes brought in by PGC in the 1990s. Rabbits and grouse and pheasants too. All still around, just not like they were 15-17 years ago.
We have six visible birds of prey from our window right now all introduced by environmental organisations who are also blaming human intervention for the loss of song birds. One variety in particular takes bird table as one supplying song birds for their next meal. So yes humans are to blame but not in the way the WWF implies.
The MSM will be all over this like a rash! Those who control the media control the discussion in the public space, sadly, so there will be yet another outbreak of hysteria on the BBC & elsewhere! I wring my hands in despair at the damage these people are doing to society and the fact that there is no accountability for their economic vandalism.
So the technique of covering many thousands of acres of land with solar panels/mirrors and windmills is being invoked to protect wildlife … strange logic.
They least they could do for the birds is insist that all the bird choppers be removed.
The Media and the Watermelons will love it and of course those who speak up against it will be labelled as anti the Planet. When will it ever end ?
MJE
We have been busy little bees. :((
They don’t seem to realize that by making such absurd claims they are doing their cause more harm than good.
Keep it up WWF.
I hear what you saying but I disagree Mike. Low information people with no grasp of rigorous logic and critical thinking accept the stuff that seems easy to understand. Sadly the majority of people are like this and sceptics have to understand this and present stuff that is easy to understand. Scary stuff like total breakdown resulting from total economic collapse caused by wasting all our money on unreliable and unsustainable renewable energy, abject eternal poverty for our grandchildren until they rediscover cheap energy
Not true. Absurd and misleading as the claims are so many young people seem to swallow it hook line and sinker to the point that suicides from depression on climate change is now a significant cause of deaths in one age group.
Merely asking to see where the fossil fuel use figures for an area with high temperature anomaly figures attributed to emissions has resulted verbal abuse and in one case attempted physical attack albeit pathetic thanks to a greater liking for food than for the environment in spite of his words. Few do numbers now any more.
If you want more wildlife just adopt the North American model of wildlife management ie. hunting and conservation. When humans hunt they have a vested interest in proper wildlife management, which means more animals to eat. Vested interest also means they are willing to spend their hard earned money to buy a license with that money going to hire professional wildlife managers.
Here is the major source of funds: the Pittman-Robertson Act** : funds are derived from excise taxes paid by the hunting, shooting, boating and angling industries on firearms, bows, ammunition and sport fishing tackle, some boat engines, and small engine fuel
**Wikipedia page
“Prior to the creation of the Pittman–Robertson Act, many species of wildlife were driven to or near extinction by commercial/market hunting pressure and/or habitat degradation from humans. . . . Notable species that have come back from the brink since the implementation of this act include white-tailed deer, wild turkey, and wood ducks.“
It’s the kind of stupidity that hurts. There’s no other way to describe it.
Meanwhile, here in the Midwest, there’s more of every stinking animal. Heck, there are so many animals, we even have a few bears and mountain lions moving in. Hopefully they’ll help thin out the deer population a bit. I could not careless what the WWF thinks.
Here in the Midwest we are awash in coyotes (which nobody wants), cougars, and bobcats, to name only a few. We also now have snowy arctic owls and snowy arctic gulls in the winter, and not just the odd one or two – more like a couple hundred and attracted to the free food (fish, land critters) and ample open and forested spaces.
Building more wind turbines and solar farms guarantees the destruction of more wildlife, birds and bats.
Yes, but with the death of the birds of prey and the bats, we get more rodents and insects.
So it all balances out. /sarc
You would have to be completely delusional to believe that the reason the so called refugee caravan is moving to the US is because of crop failure.
1) There is no evidence of crop failure in the areas these people came from.
2) They have been offered aid and support in Mexico, but have turned it down because the clothing is used.
they are moving because of central planning and because they want free stuff.
Maybe instead of dragging their young children 2000+ miles, maybe they should have overthrown their government with those numbers. Of course they wouldn’t do that with the prospect of free healthcare, education, etc on the line
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961, working in the field of the wilderness preservation, and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States. The Living Planet Report is published every two years by WWF since 1998; it is based on a Living Planet Index and ecological footprint calculation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Fund_for_Nature
Not enough cute fuzzy animals were going extinct, so it seems, so there was mission creep.
There are greater funds for stoping
“the degradation of the planet’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by:
>conserving the world’s biological diversity;
>ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable; [and]
>promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption. ”
Note: animals are not mentioned
One has to go outside to study animals, they stink, and bite.
I wonder if part of the reason for its change of name was the appalling revelation that in its previous incarnation it was revealed, by real environmental activists, to be in bed with illegal but highly lucatrive timber logging in the Congo. During this outrageous money-making it was necessary to forcibly remove indigenous forest people from their environment resulting in deaths and injury. But hey ho, it all provided money for the executives of WWF to be able to fly around the world posing as good people.
Funny that the mainstream media didn’t tak much interest in this story.
But you can always pose with a cuddly toy polar bear or whatever.
Would you have a link for this?
I just cannot find it….
Janus- sorry about delay in replying, this extract is a start point from survival international who are fighting to expose the WWF, the true inheritors of the mantle of King Leopold of Belgium. (If you haven’t read it, King Leopold’s Ghost is a barn burner work of history. Leopold would have been so proud of the WWF)
For WWF, partnering with Indigenous Peoples is an essential part of our conservation work.” This sentence comes from WWF’s latest newsletter from its international forest and climate team. The article is written by Jolly Sassa Kiuka and Flory Botamba who work for WWF in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Kuika and Botamba explain that WWF’s partnerships with Indigenous Peoples “often include supporting Indigenous Peoples to participate on the international stage at global meetings”.
They conclude that,
Indigenous recognition is one tool we have in the fight against global climate change and in building a more just and sustainable world. Indigenous Peoples play important roles in the conservation and management of forest ecosystems, as well as climate change mitigation and adaptation. It is incumbent upon us, as conservationists, to support their empowerment and participation in processes related to our work, for the future of forests and the futures of Indigenous Peoples.
Destroying lives
These ideals are in stark contrast with the reality of WWF’s operations in the Congo Basin. A new report from Survival International describes this reality:
In the Congo Basin, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is supporting squads of wildlife guards that abuse tribal people as well as a network of “protected areas” that is driving them from their ancestral homelands. This is not just destroying lives; it is harming conservation. By supporting projects that scapegoat tribal people, WWF is diverting action away from tackling the real causes of environmental destruction: logging and corruption.
Survival International’s report, titled “WWF and the loggers: A brief history of greenwashing in the Congo Basin” is available here.
Survival International this week awarded WWF with its “Greenwashing of the Year” award, for partnering with seven logging companies operating over almost four million hectares in the Congo Basin.
WWF has partnered with the following companies that are logging forests belonging to indigenous Baka and Bayaka “Pygmies” in the Congo Basin: the French Bolloré, Pasquet and Rougier Groups:; the Italian SEFAC Group; the Belgian Decolvenaere Group; the Austria-based Danzer Group; and the Chinese Vicwood Group.
In June 2016, REDD-Monitor sent some questions to WWF about its partnership with Rougier in Cameroon. I’m still waiting for replies to my questions.
I have seen articles over the past 30-40 years that a significant number of species of animals and insects are going extinct, and we don’t even know what many of them are.
The reason for this is the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
Farming practices in the area have improved somewhat, but much of the forest is just burned down to make way for farms in Brazil (you can see the fires from space). The soil is actually not very fertile (which surprised me), so farmers just keep moving on after a while.
Now, Global Warming is taking credit for this.
Try this search: Slash and Burn Agriculture
And then try a google search of …
Slash, Burn, Agriculture…
then follow up with…
Herbicide, Pesticide, Monoculture.
I always have problems with arguments that x species are going extinct, when they can’t even name the species. Species that supposedly haven’t even been discovered yet.
Why are you surprised. In the UK our moors are cleared forests and as agricultural land support a few hardy sheep and no more.
If you just make up numbers and say they represent the real world, you will charged with scientific fraud, but if you make up a computer model that just makes up numbers and say they represent the real world, you are a science celebrity with your own chair at NPR and your name on the front page of the New York Times.
We live in the Golden Age of bullshit. Never before and (hopefully) never again will crap be so highly praised and regarded.
Too bad they can never name the Genus & Species of the species they claim have gone extinct. Yet year-after-year you can expect at least one news story about the wonder of recently-discovered (or rediscovered) species of fish-fowl-animal, vertebrae & invertebrate, angiosperm and gymnosperm. Year after year. Yet, it’s always glittering generalities when they spiel the same stories about extinct species, simply to shake you down for another greedy contribution to keep their organization flush with funds.
As Willis has so often and eloquently put it “show me the bodies!” If we extirpated 60% of the wildlife, the carcasses should be piled pretty high in places. This looks like more climate porn.
Does this mean Loch Ness Monster and the Sasquatch are finally gone?
What about the Nargles…….., they gone too?
Yes.
In Australia the Bunyip and Rainbow Serpint are probably both extinct. According to eye witness accounts they were very large animals, but there have been no verified sightings since soon after the arrival of the First Fleet.
What about the drop bears? There were once so many of those that they filled all the forests of the South-East, surely they couldn’t be extinct now?
I believe that they were all displaced by invasive frightbats!
Where I come from, the critters are just as abundant as ever (well, with the exception of the Woodpeckers that the Sparrow Hawks took out, and the excess rabbits the Coyotes got). Does the Possum have any other predator than automobiles?
I’ll extend that to Armadillos too…
It’s Raccoons. They’re everywhere. They live in cemeteries, wait for Idiot Humans to show up with bags full of chow for them, sometimes with hams sandwiches (not kidding about that) and grow to 60 pounds. I think in a raccoon-coyote wrestling match, the raccoon would win.
We’re having a problem with coyotes and cougars and bears, oh my! Black bears have been spotted west of Chicago, over near DeKalb. Cougars padding their way across cornfields in southern Illinois (on video) and even the bobcat, a rather rare fellow, has been spotted in pairs around here.
If the snowy owls come down again here this winter from the Arctic, they’ll be looking for rabbits and squirrels. Sometimes, geese are silly enough to stick around all winter if the fields that were harvested haven’t been cleaned out by squirrels. There’s deer everywhere, too, so many that licensed hunters have to go in and reduce the herd numbers in the winter. I had mallards in my yard last spring. I have pictures of them.
“A new report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) claims humans have killed more than half the = (of)? all the wildlife in the world since 1970.” … twice !
LOL
“(WWF) claims humans have killed more than half the all the wildlife in the world since 1970”
Darn. You mean we missed half of them?
🙂
Grossly inaccurate reports such as this WWF one and the recent IPCC climate report from Seoul, make it obvious to even the public that truth is being sacrificed for political effect and simplistic polemic headlines. Half of species gone. Really? Disaster with another half degree of warming. Really?
Such “reports” are proving counter-productive. In the recent G20 conference of world leaders, the climate change language was unusually subdued. The BBC’s journalist-activists complainer despairingly that the IPCC “1.5 degree” report had not received any mention at all at the G20.
People who matter are just not taking such junk seriously.
Some 1.9 million species have been identified and described, out of some 8.7 million that may actually exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_description
Even after 250 years of professionals documenting thousands of new plants and animals every year, between 15,000 and 18,000 new species are identified each year, with about half of those being insects. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/new-animal-species
With its strong scientific base, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List is recognized as the most authoritative guide to the status of biological diversity.
https://www.iucn.org/resources/conservation-tools/iucn-red-list-threatened-species
The IUCN Red List now includes 87,967 species of which 25,062 are threatened with extinction.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-09/iufc-oat091317.php
It has listed 801 animal and plant species (mostly animal) known to have gone extinct since 1500 (518yrs).
According to IUCN data, for example, only one animal has been definitely identified as having gone extinct since 2000.
‘The Scimitar Oryx’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recently_extinct_mammals
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:IUCN_Red_List_extinct_species
The Aldabra banded snail, ‘went extinct’ in 1997…
but was re-discovered on August 23, 2014…
was it hiding or just on holiday ?
Probably on holiday in West London, where it might well have blended inconspicuously into the thronging hordes of Super-Hoops fans (the poor benighted souls supporting Queens Park Rangers).
Auto
Mods – /Sarc, obviously.
No snail – banded or otherwise – would support a London side!
”shifting to clean energy and environmentally friendly food production.”
So their answer to people migrating because of crop failures is to make agriculture less productive? Yeah, I can see that working, err.
In Malaysia and Indonesia where they have slashed and burnt the tropical jungle down for big Palm Oil plantations, this may be partially true. That is a wholesale crime against nature what they are doing there. I suspect they are cherry picking the worst examples, including what was happening in the Amazon 15-20 years ago. When you wipe out a thriving ecosystem for a monoculture agricultural crop, there is wholesale loss of species to that local habitat. We have covered that many times here and not many of us agree with the worst of what is going on for a bio crop or a slash and burn agricultural enterprise of some cows for a few years. Left to their own devices, people and hard strapped states will fill a vacuum and develop the wild places.
But the world is a big place, and to state that 50% of all animals has been killed globally, that we have erased these from the face of the good Earth, is without foundation. In USA/Canada, we have managed wildlife fairly well the last 50 years, although they would be more than correct about the Buffalo.
What a load of crap, was just in DC and there are animals EVERYWHERE. Not just squirrels and pigeons, deer, rabbits, song birds of all sizes and types raccoons and coyotes. Passed through NYC 4 times this summer, again animals everywhere, of all kinds. Sick of all these leftards lying all the time.
At some point they will turn and eat their own. Once they can no longer maneuver through the man made maze of windmills and solar panels, that will become a blight upon natures beauty, to farm for soybeans to make their tofu and yogurt.
They have monthly meetings in exotic places on lavish expense accounts to cook up these falling sky theories. Then they set forth like Don Quixote tilting at new windmills. And why wouldn’t they politicians and bureaucrats shower them with money as they set out on each new quest? Keep those off shore bank channels open for kickbacks honorable Congress Critters.
Two years ago, the wildlife killed in my part of NE and central East part of Oregon easily matches that statistic. At the end of the entire hunting season come spring carcasses where everywhere nearly cleaned of every scrap of meat with the now flattened skin still draped over a bare rib here and there. Many were just left alongside the roads. One reservoir even had dead elk carcasses under water! It was one hell of a hunting season! Heroic efforts to harvest meat!
Coldest snowiest longest winter we have experienced since the 50’s! Tell me which group I should belong to to shut down snow and cold. Or at least make winter restrict the number of kills. Maybe ban snowflakes all together?
Well it is true that humans in that time period have massacred about a billion birds.
With wind turbines.
At the WWF’s behest.
What hypocrites the WWF are!
Heartland is misreporting what the WWF said. Why doesn’t anyone complain about that?
Kristi Silber in your post of December 2, 2018 at 12:28 pm you demonstrated that you are innumerate, as I showed in the post following yours. Falsus in uno falsus in omnibus is a good working assumption, therefore you need to demonstrate that “Heartland is misreporting what the WWF said”. Mere assertion is not enough.
.Hmmmmmm…. an example would probably go a long way in helping most people to believe you…Unless of course, you are just whining..