Posted on 04/07/2005 7:48:48 PM PDT by lafroste
Humanity is heading for ecological disaster if instead of foreseeing and preventing environmental degradation we just react to it. This is the conclusion of a United Nations report compiled by 1300 leading scientists from 95 countries.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Report previews the ecological state of the world in 2050. It lists 24 essential "ecosystem services," such as timber, clean air, and fresh water, and finds that 60% of them are being degraded or used unsustainably.
This degradation obstructs the UN Millennium Development Goals, set in 2000, the most ambitious of which was a halving of the world's population existing on less than a $1 (£0.53; {euro}0.78) a day or threatened by hunger or lack of clean water. Among the gravest threats to the environment are excessive "nutrient loading" from agricultural fertilisers and the progressive disappearance of biodiversity. The extinction rate of species is already a thousand times higher than the average rate shown by the fossil record and is set to increase 10-fold in the next 50 years.
"Humans are fundamentally and to a significant extent irreversibly changing the diversity of life on earth," says the report, noting that this could harm pharmaceutical research and development.
The scientists warn of possible "accelerating, abrupt, and potentially irreversible changes." These include the collapse of fish stocks, such as North Sea cod; rapid growth of marine algae, creating oxygen depleted dead zones in the sea; and emergence of disease.
In Africa, growing pressure on water supplies combined with regional climate change has the potential to greatly enlarge the areas in which cholera is a threat. The range of malaria bearing mosquitoes is also likely to increase.
The release of carbon into the atmosphere and the leaching of nitrogen based fertilisers into water pose serious risks for chronic disease, the report finds. Increases in ultraviolet B radiation, ozone and other air pollution, and pollen production are also predicted.
The report gives four sets of predictions for 2050, based on the approach currently adopted to counter ecosystem degradation. "The scenario we are closest to now is the one we call order from strength," said Dr Reid. This describes a world in which international cooperation is lacking, economic competition is fierce, and environmental threats are faced only after they emerge. This is likely to deliver the fastest population growth, the lowest economic growth, and the most environmental damage of the four scenarios, he said.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Report is available at www.millenniumassessment.org//en/Products.Synthesis.aspx.
We don't need a lecture from the death culture about population.
The Lord himself will dictate who is born, and when. Your racial motives are evident, but this also goes far beyond race into the very nature of life, which 'scientists' will never understand or mimic, and with which therefore have no right to tamper.
Or, even worse, followers of the Lord of Lords, and King of Kings.
Another fantasy prediction from the lunatic left ~ this old planet can handle anything human beings can do on it.
Get a clue, avoid DU.
If they spent money on getting people clean water and food they would save a heck of a lot more lives than all the money the UN spends on AIDS.
Math usually is not the problem, it is the underlying assumptions where things get all mucked up.
they were predicting the same thing in 1970.
At the end of the Permian, and again at the end of the Cretaceceous there were huge events which account for some 90% of species which died out.
Spread that over 600 million years, and you have really thinned the 'average' numbers down.
So, "a thousand times higher than the average rate shown by the fossil record" is rendered a meaningless comparison, and "is set to increase 10-fold in the next 50 years." is wildeyed speculation.
Unless they are having the spotted owl in wine sauce for dinner every night, that is...
These and other "facts" from the eco-freaks are largely imaginary. One example I recall was a sort of confession among friends by an environmentalist working for the Gov on the spotted owl habitat.
He admitted that to determine the expanse of critical habitat, they simply went for a drive through the area, and whatever countryside "looked like" good owl country to them was included in the "scientific" study's findings.
Many lumbering jobs, and the lives of families they supported, were ripped up by a couple of punks' afternoon drive through the woods.
Somewhere, I still have a copy of "The Limits To Growth". I'll have to look for it but if I recall correctly, according to that "study", we are all already supposed to be dead.
Do you not remember the teachings of public school? How many species are going extinct everyday I can't remember, but the number was staggering. The "scientists" have been lying for decades, now they are trying to see if they have planted enough seeds to buffalo the people into giving away their power to a worldwide authority, which will of course save us from ourselves.
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