Last updated 2022-4-28

Preface.  Human over-consumption is driving extinction far more than climate change. Humans  began reducing biodiversity 4 million years ago, when large carnivores in Africa began disappearing (Faurby, S., et al. 2020. Brain expansion in early hominins predicts carnivore extinctions in East Africa. Ecology Letters.)

The WWF report singles out habitat destruction caused by humans as the main threat to the world’s biodiversity (McGreevy 2020 here).

And extinctions can cascade through ecosystems, threatening humans. The loss of one species can trigger secondary extinctions of additional species, because species interact, yet the consequences of these secondary extinctions for services remain under-explored (Keyes 2021, Leytham-Powell 2021).

Alice Friedemann  www.energyskeptic.com  Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, & “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”.  Women in ecology  Podcasts: WGBH, Planet: Critical, Crazy Town, Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, Kunstler 253 &278, Peak Prosperity,  Index of best energyskeptic posts

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Einhorn C (2022) From King Cobras to Geckos, 20 Percent of Reptiles Risk Extinction. New York Times.

The first global analysis of its kind found that logging and farming are taking away reptile habitat at an unsustainable pace, exacerbating a worldwide decline in biodiversity. Other threats are urban development, logging, dams, energy production, mining, transportation, pollution, fires, invasion, disease, hunting and fishing, and climate change.  Scientific paper: Cox N et al (2022) A global reptile assessment highlights shared conservation needs of tetrapods. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04664-7

Lewis S (2020) Animal populations worldwide have declined nearly 70% in just 50 years, new report says. CBS news.

The report blames humans alone for the “dire” state of the planet. It points to the exponential growth of human consumption, population, global trade and urbanization over the last 50 years as key reasons for the unprecedented decline of Earth’s resources.

The report points to land-use change — in particular, the destruction of habitats like rainforests for farming — as the key driver for loss of biodiversity, accounting for more than half of the loss in Europe, Central Asia, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Much of that land is being used for agriculture, which is responsible for 80% of global deforestation and makes up 70% of freshwater use. Using this much land requires a vast food system that releases 29% of global greenhouse gases, and the excessive amount of land and water that people are using has killed 70% of terrestrial biodiversity and 50% of freshwater biodiversity.

Destruction of ecosystems has threatened 1 million species — 500,000 animals and plants and 500,000 insects — with extinction.

Where and how humans produce food is one of the biggest threats to nature, the report says. Much of the habitat loss and deforestation that occurs is driven by food production and consumption.  Species overexploitation, invasive species and diseases and pollution are all considered threats to biodiversity, the report said. However, human-caused climate change is projected to become as, or more important than, other drivers of biodiversity loss in the coming decades.

“This report reminds us that we destroy the planet at our peril — because it is our home,” WWF U.S. president and CEO Carter Roberts said in a statement. “As humanity’s footprint expands into once-wild places, we’re devastating species populations. But we’re also exacerbating climate change and increasing the risk of zoonotic diseases like COVID-19.

McGreevy N (2020) Humans Wiped Out Two-Thirds of the World’s Wildlife in 50 Years. Smithsonian.

Threats to global biodiversity are also threats to humans, experts warn.

Two major reports released this month paint a grim portrait of the future for our planet’s wildlife. First, the Living Planet Report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) found that in half a century, human activity has decimated global wildlife populations by an average of 68%.

The study analyzed population sizes of 4,392 monitored species of mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, and amphibians from 1970 to 2016, reports Karin Brulliard for the Washington Post. It found that populations in Latin America and the Caribbean fared the worst, with a staggering 94 percent decline in population. All told, the drastic species decline tracked in this study “signal a fundamentally broken relationship between humans and the natural world,” the WWF notes in a release.

We’re seeing very distinct declines in freshwater ecosystems, largely because of the way we dam rivers and also because of the use of freshwater resources for producing food to feed a growing population of people worldwide.

Then, on Tuesday, the United Nations published its Global Biodiversity Outlook report, assessing the progress—or lack thereof—of the 196 countries who signed onto the Aichi Biodiversity Targets in 2010. This ten year plan outlined ambitious goals to staunch the collapse of biodiversity across the globe. Yet according to the U.N.’s report, the world has collectively failed to reach a single one of those goals in the last decade, reports Catrin Einhorn for the New York Times.

2016-8-13. Climate change isn’t the biggest danger to Earth’s wildlife, our thirst for natural resources is even more damaging

2016-8-10 “Biodiversity: The ravages of guns, nets, and bulldozers” Nature)