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I find it notable how indirect the author is about the “Why” in this story: > New modelling evidence suggests we can halt and even reverse habitat loss and def

I find it notable how indirect the author is about the “Why” in this story: > New modelling evidence suggests we can halt and even reverse habitat loss and deforestation if we take urgent conservation action and change the way we produce and consume food. > The British TV presenter and naturalist Sir David Attenborough said the Anthropocene, the geological age during which human activity has come to the fore, could be the moment we achieve a balance with the natural world and become stewards of our planet.

ojnabieoot 6y ago
Many people consider anthropogenic extinction immoral and the ongoing human-caused mass extinction event to be an urgent moral crisis. But let's suppose you were going to take a cynical argument along the lines of "these species are going extinct due to their poor adaptations to a changing environment, it's just evolution," or let's just say you think moral objections are irrational. Then from this (ignorant and needlessly cruel) perspective, - the destruction of the Amazon is likely to have profound climatological/geochemical impacts, including increased C02 in the atmosphere - widespread defaunation of predators could very well lead to increased pests or disease-carrying animals - loss of insect life could be catastrophic to industrial agriculture - overharvested fishing and agricultural resources means diminshing returns (and possibly famine) for future generations More generally, the destruction we've wrought upon the world in the last 150 years is scientifically uncharted territory, and it's deeply naïve to assume that 150 years of strong economic growth can be extrapolated to suppose that destroying the planet will work out for humans in the long term.
- dariosalvi78 6y ago
  which, from the Darwinian perspective, will cause either our extinction, or an adaptation, but only after many have died. It's probably all avoidable, but I don't see the human kind, in its current form and way of societal organisation being able to get out of this.

ojnabieoot 6y ago

Many people consider anthropogenic extinction immoral and the ongoing human-caused mass extinction event to be an urgent moral crisis. But let's suppose you were going to take a cynical argument along the lines of "these species are going extinct due to their poor adaptations to a changing environment, it's just evolution," or let's just say you think moral objections are irrational. Then from this (ignorant and needlessly cruel) perspective, - the destruction of the Amazon is likely to have profound climatological/geochemical impacts, including increased C02 in the atmosphere - widespread defaunation of predators could very well lead to increased pests or disease-carrying animals - loss of insect life could be catastrophic to industrial agriculture - overharvested fishing and agricultural resources means diminshing returns (and possibly famine) for future generations More generally, the destruction we've wrought upon the world in the last 150 years is scientifically uncharted territory, and it's deeply naïve to assume that 150 years of strong economic growth can be extrapolated to suppose that destroying the planet will work out for humans in the long term.

dariosalvi78 6y ago
which, from the Darwinian perspective, will cause either our extinction, or an adaptation, but only after many have died. It's probably all avoidable, but I don't see the human kind, in its current form and way of societal organisation being able to get out of this.