The threat of extinction (5/8/2019)

(if you allergic to the F-word ... you better turn around, I don't usually do not employ it much in my blog post but I could not help myself here in this post) 

So this week the word came out that more than one million species on this earth face imminent extinction. Over a hundred scientists from 132 countries concluded this in a 1,500 page report which will probably not be read by many people, very much like that other report that recently came out (but more about that some other time). The major conclusion of the report is (and I am putting my own spin on it) that in the current times that we are living, or the Anthropocene, we have such a huge impact on the world’s ecosystem that the abundance of native plant and animal life has fallen by 20 percent or more. Moreover, this is just the beginning and lot more of a decline can be expected. The current decline seems to have happened mostly during the time of the massive population explosion of the past century, during which we passed the 7 billion number when it comes to counting us people on this earth. Now combine this with global warming and you get the message. Folks we need to do something about this! It is not appear to be slowing down. 

When I say that we need to do something about this, I am not spouting some leftist socialist propaganda or ideology. Remember, we only have one small blue marble that floats in space where we can live on, if we screw this one up, we have nowhere to go! Even worst, if we fuck this one up, our spawn and their spawn have nowhere to go! It does not matter if you are rich or poor, republican or democrat, liberal or conservative, religious or atheist, Catholic or Baptist, Muslim or Buddhist, black or while, brown or yellow, straight or gay, male or female, tall or short, thick or thin, you get the message, there is no escaping this. We need to take care of the place we live in or on. 

A photo I took early April at Sky Meadow State Park in Northwestern Virginia.  Pictures or sights such as this are under threat of climate change. 

So what is happening? Well I have not yet read the 1,500 page report, neither have I read the 38 page executive summary. Then, who the heck am I daring the write about it? I am a biologist, an ecologist and someone who knows a little bit about the environment. I have written many posts about the issue already in my blog (just scroll through the labels), although of late it seems they have gotten the least attention of the posts that I publish. Oh well, I will not give up. 

My understanding from folks, who have summarized the summary, there are a few things going on: 

1. For one, our little blue marble is rapidly starting to exceed its carrying capacity. This simply means that there are too many people on this earth. We all need to eat, and what do we do? We clear more natural areas, more nature. Eventually we are going to run out of land and we will not be able to feed everyone (Malthus predicted this already in 1798). However, in the meantime all that clearing is causing that crash in abundance and biodiversity that is being reported. Plants and animals need a certain minimum area to survive, and when the area gets to small, it becomes susceptible to invasive species that kill the natives. If you have ever been in the southwest U.S. you should have seen what Kudzu can do. There are many other examples like the brown-headed cowbird that I write about in this bog post. In addition, Driving back and forth to work it seems that I have much less bugs crashing into my windshield than 5 or 10 years ago. Where have they gone? It seems, that they may have been replaced by the ticks and mosquitoes in my back yard.
2. Eating animals in particular cows (beef) is very inefficient. I once learned that approximately only 10 percent of the energy that is stored in the plants is past on in the meat of animals once it reaches us. So when we eat plants we can get a lot more energy out of the same acre of land than when we eat a hamburger (we would need 10 acres for the same energy we get from one acre of plant based nutrition). This is an argument often made by vegetarians, I am no vegetarian, but I do try to eat meatless at least one to three days a week, and eat seafood at least once a week. 
3. Global warming does not help either. First, we thought that the warmer climate might actually increase crop production. However, what we are finding now is that the nutritive value of these vegetables is much less than plants growing under conditions without global warming (or fertilizer for that matter). 
4. Global warming has another effect, some native plants that grown near the southern most limit of their range in the northern hemisphere or at the most northern limit on the southern hemisphere are not be able to survive when it gets much warmer. The question becomes: “what will replace them?” Native plants from warmer regions might not be able to travel fast enough, and the replacements may be invasive species that contribute nothing to the local insects and animal species, which will starve and die off. There are actually experiments underway in Minnesota and Rhode Island where they are planting southern trees in the forests and watching them thrive.
5. Finally, let’s not think about what the warmer climate will do to diseases and pests for all the plants and animals and maybe even our crops and livestock. But then, maybe there is hope and it will kill off some of the population and restore the worlds balance (that makes me a fatalist doesn’t it). 

I know that there will be folks who will tell me that the climate of our blue marble has been changing ever since the earth was formed so many years ago. The issue is that at no time was the change anthropogenic (or human caused, or at least human accelerated or magnified) and in this case the scientists are unanimous. Others tell me that their god (note I am not capitalizing god) has given them dominion of the earth and that they could do with her what they wanted. As I mentioned, I do not think god gave them permission to fuck the earth up the way we are doing it at the moment. I think we were tasked to take care of her.

I promise that I will read the summary and provide you with a more detailed overview of what the report says about the state of our world’s environment. In the meantime folks be aware of what you are doing to the environment, recycle, reduce your footprint, if possible foster diversity of plants in your yard, use natives, and try to use as little pesticides and yard chemicals as possible.