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Did you read the recent IPBES Global Assessment? An article on it from the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/climate/biodiversity-extinction-united-nation

Did you read the recent IPBES Global Assessment? An article on it from the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/climate/biodiversity-extinction-united-nations.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/climate/biodiversity-exti... "Unless nations step up their efforts to protect what natural habitats are left, they could witness the disappearance of 40 percent of amphibian species, one-third of marine mammals and one-third of reef-forming corals. More than 500,000 land species, the report said, do not have enough natural habitat left to ensure their long-term survival." A summary can be found here: https://www.ipbes.net/sites/default/files/downloads/spm_unedited_advance_for_posting_htn.pdf https://www.ipbes.net/sites/default/files/downloads/spm_uned...

boulos 7y ago
Fwiw, I was expecting your quote to include a number >50%. Not that this wouldn’t be catastrophic, but most does mean more than 50% :). Edit: though now I’m curious by percentage of animals (presumably 40% of species may be, or even is likely, more than 40% of animals, because of power-law-style distributions).
- rexpop 7y ago
  The initial disappearance of even this minority is significant enough to impact the rest. Ecosystems are fragile, symbiotic systems.
radford-neal 7y ago
Talk of "efforts to protect what natural habitats are left" does not seem to relate to warming from CO2 emissions. Except, that is, that if you're concerned about protecting habitats, you should be concerned about some of the boondoggles destroying them that are justified by "global warming" alarmism - such as replacing natural forests with monocultures of trees that are converted to pellets and shipped long distances to be burned in place of coal. See https://www.draxbiomass.com https://www.draxbiomass.com Also, "one-third" is not "most".
- cbHXBY1D 7y ago
  These percentages represent the percent of species currently threatened with extinction. The report makes it clear that the conditions which created our current ecological collapse are accelerating: "Human actions threaten more species with global extinction now than ever before. An average of around 25 per cent of species in assessed animal and plant groups are threatened(figure SPM.3), suggesting that around 1 million species already face extinction, many within decades, unless action is taken to reduce the intensity of drivers of biodiversity loss. Without such action there will be a further acceleration in the global rate of species extinction, which is already at least tens to hundreds of times higher than it has averaged over the past 10 million years." The report doesn't factor in insect decline and how that will effect the rest of the foodchain (they are the words biggest pollinators). It does bring up the staggering loss of insect biomass: "Population declines often give warning that a species’ risk of extinction is increasing. The Living Planet Index, which synthesises trends in vertebrate populations, has declined rapidly since 1970, falling by 40% for terrestrial species, 84% for freshwater species and 35% for marine species (established but incomplete){2.2.5.2.4}. Local declines of insect populations such as wild bees and butterflies have often been reported, and insect abundance has declined very rapidly in some places even without large-scale land-use change, but the global extent of such declines is not known (established but incomplete){2.2.5.2.4}. On land, wild species that are endemic (narrowly distributed) have typically seen larger-than-average changes to their habitats and shown faster-than-average declines (established but incomplete)." Edit: also, in the future, let's refrain from the "not smart enough to understand" style arguments on HN.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  Cutting off your thumb and half your forefinger is one-third of your hand, and I'm ok calling that 'most of' in context, especially if I hope to ever grasp things again :P
- mirimir 7y ago
  > Talk of "efforts to protect what natural habitats are left" does not seem to relate to warming from CO2 emissions. They're connected. I mean, everything is. Even if we didn't emit so much CO2, we destroy habitat for other species through agriculture and forest harvesting. And if we hadn't destroyed so much habitat, there'd be lots more slack for CO2 emissions. And as you say, destroying habitat through biomass energy production -- whether it's fast-growing trees for pellets, or palm oil for biodiesel -- just makes it worse.

boulos 7y ago

Fwiw, I was expecting your quote to include a number >50%. Not that this wouldn’t be catastrophic, but most does mean more than 50% :). Edit: though now I’m curious by percentage of animals (presumably 40% of species may be, or even is likely, more than 40% of animals, because of power-law-style distributions).

rexpop 7y ago
The initial disappearance of even this minority is significant enough to impact the rest. Ecosystems are fragile, symbiotic systems.

radford-neal 7y ago

Talk of "efforts to protect what natural habitats are left" does not seem to relate to warming from CO2 emissions. Except, that is, that if you're concerned about protecting habitats, you should be concerned about some of the boondoggles destroying them that are justified by "global warming" alarmism - such as replacing natural forests with monocultures of trees that are converted to pellets and shipped long distances to be burned in place of coal. See https://www.draxbiomass.com https://www.draxbiomass.com Also, "one-third" is not "most".

cbHXBY1D 7y ago
These percentages represent the percent of species currently threatened with extinction. The report makes it clear that the conditions which created our current ecological collapse are accelerating: "Human actions threaten more species with global extinction now than ever before. An average of around 25 per cent of species in assessed animal and plant groups are threatened(figure SPM.3), suggesting that around 1 million species already face extinction, many within decades, unless action is taken to reduce the intensity of drivers of biodiversity loss. Without such action there will be a further acceleration in the global rate of species extinction, which is already at least tens to hundreds of times higher than it has averaged over the past 10 million years." The report doesn't factor in insect decline and how that will effect the rest of the foodchain (they are the words biggest pollinators). It does bring up the staggering loss of insect biomass: "Population declines often give warning that a species’ risk of extinction is increasing. The Living Planet Index, which synthesises trends in vertebrate populations, has declined rapidly since 1970, falling by 40% for terrestrial species, 84% for freshwater species and 35% for marine species (established but incomplete){2.2.5.2.4}. Local declines of insect populations such as wild bees and butterflies have often been reported, and insect abundance has declined very rapidly in some places even without large-scale land-use change, but the global extent of such declines is not known (established but incomplete){2.2.5.2.4}. On land, wild species that are endemic (narrowly distributed) have typically seen larger-than-average changes to their habitats and shown faster-than-average declines (established but incomplete)." Edit: also, in the future, let's refrain from the "not smart enough to understand" style arguments on HN.
arcticbull 7y ago
Cutting off your thumb and half your forefinger is one-third of your hand, and I'm ok calling that 'most of' in context, especially if I hope to ever grasp things again :P
mirimir 7y ago
> Talk of "efforts to protect what natural habitats are left" does not seem to relate to warming from CO2 emissions. They're connected. I mean, everything is. Even if we didn't emit so much CO2, we destroy habitat for other species through agriculture and forest harvesting. And if we hadn't destroyed so much habitat, there'd be lots more slack for CO2 emissions. And as you say, destroying habitat through biomass energy production -- whether it's fast-growing trees for pellets, or palm oil for biodiesel -- just makes it worse.