Posted on 06/17/2007 8:36:46 AM PDT by rface
Scientists estimate there are 10 to 30 million plant and animal species on the planet, most of them unidentified. Each year as many as 50,000 species disappear. Most die off, Tilman says, because of human activity.......
Scientists say wildlife extinction rates are soaring. The die-off, they claim, threatens the planet's web of life or biodiversity which sustains farming, forestry and oceans. At a Paris meeting last week scientists called on world leaders to catalog and save species. One of the speakers was University of Minnesota ecology professor David Tilman. He's known around the world for his research showing the effects of human activity on the environment.
St. Paul, Minn. — The 1200 scientists and others at the international meeting sponsored by the government of France issued a statement at the end of the 5-day-long event. It said in part, "Biodiversity is being irreversibly destroyed by human activities at an unprecedented rate. . . (demanding) urgent and significant action."
New plant and animal species are emerging, University of Minnesota ecology professor David Tilman says, but not nearly fast enough to make up for the toll caused by human activity.
"That's sort of a 1 million to 4 million year process, and yet we are causing species to be lost at rates of 100 to 1000 times faster," he says.
Tilman says the rate of extinction is approaching what scientists assume happened 65 million years ago. That's when many believe a giant meteorite struck the earth, causing a dramatic climate change that led to mass extinction.
"Thirty million years (later) things were pretty much back to normal, different species, dinosaurs were gone, mammals were here," he says.
Unlike then, Tilman argues, we can't count on time to heal the earth's wounds.
Scientists estimate there are 10 to 30 million plant and animal species on the planet, most of them unidentified. Each year as many as 50,000 species disappear. Most die off, Tilman says, because of human activity. "We take natural habitats convert them to agriculture, to suburbia, to roads, to monoculture forestry. We fish the oceans so heavily we literally have these trolling nets that scrape the bottom of the ocean clean," he says.
Dave Tilman is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the country's top scientific body, the author of four books and more than 140 scientific papers.
Unlike some scientists, he doesn't hesitate to give his opinion on what his research means. Tilman says human behavior is affecting the environment and that our treatment of the earth amounts to a form of theft.
"What that means morally is that future generations will have a lower quality of life because we overexploited the habitat now," he says.
Tilman cites meat production as one of our most wasteful practices. He says raising grain as feed for beef cattle requires vast amounts of land and uses up lots of petroleum to make fertilizer to raise the crops.
"We're using an organism, cattle, that are highly specialized on living on low quality food, and we're giving them high quality food which their guts aren't able to handle very effectively," he says.
A wiser practice which preserves biodiversity, Tilman argues, is raising cattle on grassland that resembles the prairie. Ten years of research by Tilman and others at the Cedar Creek Natural History Area 30 miles north of the Twin Cities shows pasture with plant variety is more productive, releases cleaner water and tolerates extreme weather better.
Tilman argues saving the planet's biodiversity will require modifying human preferences for driving bigger vehicles, eating more meat and generally consuming more of everything around us.
He says we can't count on the market place alone to send the right signals for preserving biodiversity.
He says the next phase of his research will attempt to show ways for finding a balance.
"Might we be able to not only produce more pulp in a more diverse forest for paper production but maybe have that forest provide other services, cleaner water, store more carbon so we can remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping get rid of some of our effects of burning fossil fuel. . . finding ways we can use biological diversity as a tool to help society have a more sustainable world?" he asks.
Two specific proposals emerged at the Paris meeting he attended. One is a 25-year-long effort to catalog all of the earth's species, and another is to spend $25 billion to save the 25 most threatened environments including the Amazon forest.
“most of them unidentified. Each year as many as 50,000 species disappear.”
Stopped reading right there.
LOOK, THERE GOES ANOTHER ONE!
Um. That too, I guess.
Like microbes that kill and maim people.
Or species that get in the way of mankind’s continuance.
The comet and Ice Age one day surely cometh; who you gonna call to save the planet? Bugs? Birds? Trees? Ghostbusters?
It's extinct because it perished before it could be found and indentified. Obviously, because you do not have the keen intellect of a liberal environmental scientist, you cannot possibly understand this.
this is major bullshit. where do they get this numbers? we want the names of these 50000 species, and their habitats.
You know how it is. When a beaver builds a dam, it’s natural and admirable. When a human builds a dam, it’s destructive and unnatural.
The global warming hysteria is a similar expression of the idea that things must not be allowed to change. The assumption that we live in the best of all possible worlds belies nature’s propensity to upset the order from time to time.
Somalia’s loss is Greenland’s gain. Who’s to say the Greenlanders won’t do a better job with a decent climate than Somalia has done with theirs?
Only because he concludes the Party Line.
What I am starting to wonder is...What EXACTLY does it take to major in "Ecology".
Do they take Physics, Calculus, and Chemistry?
I mean, in addition to Political "Science", "Womens' Issues", and "Sayings of Chairman Gore".
Clearly Homo sapiens caused the caveman extinction. Who do I make out the reparations check to?
We cannot have them, because they have not been identified yet.
Possibly Professor Doctor Climate Whore could cite examples as proof.
Unicorns, Gryphons, and Basilisks.
There. Now he has only 499,997 to identify. Where's my funding check?
My first comment to an environmentalist in training was: How many pairs of shoes do you have? How many feet do you have? She got the message real quick.
They use computer models to simulate the extinction rates...
It’s all part of an alien conspiracy!
(Unreasonable claims deserve unreasonable responses.)
Liberal "logic" at its finest. We haven't identified 'most' yet we know 50K of 'em are going extinct. Riiiiiggghhttt...
Just like we know there are 12 to 15 million of 'undocumented' aliens in the country. We have no tracking of them yet we know how many they are.
Riiiiighhhttt......
I don’t believe this garbage. It’s just like the phony 3 million homeless people; it’s made up.
Don’t mess with Mother Nature...
“He says the next phase of his research will attempt to show ways for finding a balance.”
Why do we have to wait years to hear him conclude that higher taxes and more laws criminalizing the possession of material things will be the only solution to saving the planet? Say it now.
Of course, once the democrat party takes over in 2008, we won’t have to wait on any pesky studies; we can just ram the solutions down everyone’s throat, and if they don’t like it they can extinct themselves.
this is major bullshit. where do they get this numbers? we want the names of these 50000 species, and their habitats.”
Since I am a life-long bookkeeper, my brain snaps at the sound of numbers...
A week or so ago, someone was pontificating on the fact that a MILLION people a day are dying in AFRICA, particularly Darfur.
While I do believe that there are alot of people dying every day in Africa, I think we die every day in every part of the world. There also births in Africa every day, as well as every other part of the world.
IF a MILLION deaths a day in AFRICA are preventable, etc, and IF they are really happening, that is 365 MILLION dead every year. Unless the dead are being replaced at a 1-1 basis, then someone is lying. 365 million is more than the USA population. Wouldn’t you think someone would notice such large burial problems???
YEC INTREP
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