Compilation: The sixth ‘great’ mass extinction, wildlife population decimation, biodiversity liquidation and the global climate EMERGENCY

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Updated Feb. 20, 2017

Nutshell

  • The projected rate of temperature change for THIS century is greater — and at least 10 times faster — than that of any extended global heating period over the past 65 million years, when somewhere between 75 and 95% of all species alive at the time were rendered extinct.
  • In the 2012 Living Planet Report, global populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish were thought to have declined by an average of around 28% between 1970 and 2008. In the 2014 Living Planet Report, with the incorporation of a new methodology, it was estimated that global wildlife populations had fallen by an average of 52% between 1970 and 2010, halved over 40 years from the impacts of exploitation, habitat degradation and climate change. In the 2016 Living Planet Report, the estimate is 58% (1970 to 2012). Vertebrate populations could decline by an average of  67% by 2020. Freshwater populations have fallen 81%. Terrestrial creatures, 38%. Marine populations, 36%. Meanwhile, estimated global human population increased by around 90% over the same period. (Also see: Compilation: Mass bee die-off.)
  • Oceans are at their most acidic levels in 65 million years / most rapid (and accelerating) rate of increase in what may be 300 million years. It has been suggested that an outcome of our current, carbon-intensive trajectory could be the potential collapse of marine life — and the foundational base organisms that are an indispensible necessity for ALL LIFE to exist — within decades.
  • In 2011, a major study concluded that phytoplankton (tiny organisms that make it possible for all other life on Earth to exist) have ALREADY declined (died-off) by 40% since 1950 and continue to do so at an accelerated rate — about 1% per year(!) — because of the impacts of global heating.

Reality

Difficult as it is to communicate, absorb and process, let alone accept, and as shrill / alarmist as it may sound…

Our shared atmosphere is on an accelerating course to reach a state of potentially unsurvivable, global climate extremes during the lives of today’s children and teens. (Compilation: +4°C by 2060s or sooner catastrophic / incompatible with organized civilization.)

No less than the fate of all generations of all peoples and most species hangs in the balance TODAY.  And only emergency international action at emergency (world war-time) speed FAST *may be* proportional enough to confront the scale, scope and urgency of what is ALREADY the greatest crime against humanity, most life and most future life EVER. (Compilation: Betrayal of Life.)

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