Wild animals are spiraling to extinction. Can a bunch of bureaucrats save them?

https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/378593/cop16-united-nations-cali-columbia-convention-bioligical-diversity-nature-conservation

by rntn • 2 years ago

93 60 2 years ago

vox.com

GrantMoyer2• 2 years ago

Note that the human caused Holocene Extinction[1], among the 7 largest mass extinctions in the entire history of multi-celular life on Earth, is ongoing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

pfdietz6• 2 years ago

among the 7 largest mass extinctions in the entire history of multi-celular life on Earth

I strongly dispute this. Mass extinctions in the fossil record are typically measured at the family level, yes? Most of the then-extant species wouldn't even have been recorded.

If we were in the equivalent of one of the major mass extinctions it would be a "put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye" situation. We wouldn't be worried about the survival of uncommon animals. We'd be worried if rats were going extinct.

UniverseHacker4• 2 years ago

"That can't be true, because if it were that would be really bad" doesn't seem like a good way to reason about things like this IMO

excalibur• 2 years ago

If we were in the equivalent of one of the major mass extinctions it would be a "put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye" situation.

Gestures broadly.

slibhb2• 2 years ago

I think you're right. Even worst cases of climate change and habitat destruction won't match historical mass extinction events.

But there are a lot of people who are weirdly invested in humanity causing a mass extinction. I think for transparent psychological reasons.

GrantMoyer2• 2 years ago

Some particularly harrowing quotes from the linked Wikipedia article which make clear the scale of the current situation:

The contemporary rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than the background extinction rate, the historically typical rate of extinction (in terms of the natural evolution of the planet); also, the current rate of extinction is 10 to 100 times higher than in any of the previous mass extinctions in the history of Earth.
A 2018 study published in PNAS found that since the dawn of human civilization, the biomass of wild mammals has decreased by 83%.
The World Wide Fund for Nature's 2020 Living Planet Report says that wildlife populations have declined by 68% since 1970
A 2023 study published in Biological Reviews found that, of 70,000 monitored species, some 48% are experiencing population declines from anthropogenic pressures, whereas only 3% have increasing populations.

And finally, with regards to rats:

Bramble Cay melomys were declared extinct in June 2016.

jiggawatts• 2 years ago

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/land_mammals.png

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fx...

moffkalast3• 2 years ago

We join the excusive club of mass extinction causing species: cyanobacteria, methanogenic microbes, flowers, moss, and trees. And now humans.

Meetups are on Saturdays, flowers bring the honey, trees bring the table.

culi2• 2 years ago

I've heard of the others, but... Flowers? Trees? Moss?

Maybe by flowers you meant landplants in general? And shouldn't moss be grouped into this event?

nick3443• 2 years ago

Don't forget cats (although they hid the evidence).

whitehexagon• 2 years ago

I've just finished watching the 'Planet Earth III' series, and it was quite shocking to see our impact on our planets biodiversity. I knew it was bad, but seeing, and hearing it told, in the amazing way only Sir David can deliver, was quite another level of shocking.

abeppu• 2 years ago

One important piece of context to keep in mind is that although the US helped negotiate the Convention on Biological Diversity — the treaty under which COP16 takes place — it’s not a formal member of the agreement. In fact, the US is the only country, other than the Vatican, that’s not party to the Convention.

... and I'm guessing the US doesn't want to sign on because in general we're skeptical of treaties that oblige us to do anything? And a big rich country not participating probably contributes to that funding gap? Blaming the bureaucrats for this not being effective seems misguided. Bureaucrats only have the powers that we give them. It's not gonna work because rich and powerful stakeholders don't think it's valuable.

__MatrixMan__• 2 years ago

I don't know why you've got downvotes. If it's because your claim is false, I'd hope to see some evidence about why. If it's because your claim is uncomfortable... well I guess that's just another reflection the problem you're pointing out.

adamc• 2 years ago

In the US, I would bet the proximate cause is difficulty getting Republican party support.

mistrial93• 2 years ago

Eco-activists in California have seriously engaged this for the last thirty years. Environmentalist burnout and despair are not even newsworthy somehow. Literally, dominant media is about how to invest in oil or "energy transition" every week, while smaller scale environmentalist media regularly fail due to lack of resources.

About 20 years ago, wealthy environmentalist groups (poster-child Sierra Club and others) suffered infighting and lost public prominence. A very small number of very large environmentalist groups continue to engage in serious and long-term work to their credit (World Wildlife Fund and others)

slt20212• 2 years ago

if environmentalists were serious about saving environment, they would have supported Nuclear Energy & Dense housing.

Instead we have:

  hectares and hectares of land dedicated to wind&solar with all wildlife habitat destroyed, and gas plants still continuing to burn fuel.
  hectares of land dedicated to suburban sprawl
  hectares of land dedicated to new highways that connect sprawl to downtown cities

to be truly efficient, cities must reduce the footprint and leave more areas to wildlife and nature preservation sites:

  dense low footprint housing
  dense low footprint commercial RE
  safe, clean, cheap mass public transit that connects the two
  safe, clean nuclear energy that powers it all

forinti• 2 years ago

I live in a state that went from three years of drought to a record 100-year flood.

Most people are not going to worry about animals going extinct or about biodiversity in the abstract, but I think people would take the environment seriously if they realized dying of hunger might be a possibility.

mistrial93• 2 years ago

thank you for directly proving how difficult this topic is! lots of "environmentalists" support Nuclear Power, and lots of others are deeply against it due to toxicity, ignoring efficiency and playing into capital allocation. Others want to find the right answers, and that is difficult. Secondly, dense housing was exactly what plenty of people tried to build, while aggressive real estate developers found an easier profit by subdividing farm land and making suburbs. Since covid-19, not only has dense cities fallen drastically, but the ordinary small business that enables dense cities, ceased to function.

This "I told you to do this" comment is exactly the pressure and noise that pushes ordinary people out, since they cannot respond and are negatively reinforced socially with semi-hostile criticism.

ljsprague• 2 years ago

They would also support limiting immigration.

anonfordays• 2 years ago

In an ironic twist, with solar and batteries dropping in cost and rising in efficiency every year, EV adoption continuing to grow, work from home trending up, etc. living in the suburbs/rural areas may end up being more eco-friendly than living in the cities.

knowitnone2• 2 years ago

Sierra Club also championed the removal of nuclear power, one of the cleanest energy we have and one we have not been able to successfully replace.

mistrial93• 2 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger

ks2048• 2 years ago

The word “bureaucrats” is funny. Why is it in the title? It seems to be used only when people want to cast a negative light on people employed by governments.

This is about potential treaties to preserve nature. Of course it will be government officials and scientists employed or funded by governments. The article also mentions public and private scientists.

Theres really not much to the article - there’s an upcoming UN summit on biodiversity. The subtitle just seemed strange to me.

hawski• 2 years ago

I read this with a tongue in cheek tone.

kubb• 2 years ago

Free market capitalism will save the animals.

JKCalhoun• 2 years ago

Give them Bitcoin.

cynicalpeace• 2 years ago

Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

JBiserkov• 2 years ago

Does Betteridge's law apply to all headlines?

fracus• 2 years ago

I just want to say that, without having read the article yet, on the surface, that title is absolutely hilarious.

hendler2• 2 years ago

I care a lot about the environment, and worked in climate tech for 7 years. I also am very hopeful for AI's contributions.

When we say that AI will help save the environment, I can see short term gains in things like nuclear energy expansion and improvement, better educational opportunities, robotic labor and other efficiency automations, etc. On ecosystems and biodiversity, I don't see a clear path.

AI can improve our understanding, but a systems collapse requires very complex bio-chemical systems that are all interdependent. Maybe we all live in bubbles of AI controlled environments post Holocene, but we rely on larger earth systems that will be difficult to rebuild post collapse.

Does anyone else worry that AI will not be rapid or sufficiently impactful to deal with ecosystem collapse?

knowitnone2• 2 years ago

Do you think AI will propose new ideas or regurgitate our ideas that we don't implement? And even if AI proposes new ideas, will we implement them if we don't even implement our own ideas?

hendler2• 2 years ago

Your answer is part of why I am concerned. Maybe new incentives or leverage can be created. Giving AI the power to create new social dynamics seems both too dangerous and necessary.

spicyusername• 2 years ago

    The last summit, known as COP15, was arguably much more important. During the event, held in 2022, nearly all countries of the world agreed on a groundbreaking new deal to halt biodiversity loss by 2030.

I know this is a big deal and I should feel happy that something is being done, but I always hate how the date in these kinds of agreements is always just far away enough for people to handwave not doing anything this year or next year or the year after that.

metalman2• 2 years ago

my answer is "no" all beuaucracies are in the business of divying up nature for exploitation in one way or another and with an expanding population getting more per human per day,the beureaucrats, not wanting less themselves will happily create another layer of government that then can get churning up some more policy that the failure to impliment can be layed on the alter or budgetary realities

hcfman• 2 years ago

It doesn’t have to be just funded by governments. Corporations and individuals are also welcome to and encouraged to provide funding as well.

For example, Arm computing are now quite active in funding biodiversity activities, see on wildlabs.net

I’d like to take the opportunity here to appeal to folks with the cash to see if they can find a funding cause that appeals to them and improve their karma :-)

Wild animals are spiraling to extinction. Can a bunch of bureaucrats save them?

Related Stories