
WWF Report Reveals Staggering Extent of Human Impact on Planet - pierreneter
https://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/wwf-report-reveals-staggering-extent-of-human-impact-on-planet
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FailMore
Until we include the cost on the environment within the cost of our goods
things will not change. When we do we will encourage a wave of environmentally
friendly innovation. It will take a lot of courage for any government to do
this.

~~~
lotsofpulp
It can’t be any government that does it, it has to be all governments (and
therefore people) that do it.

~~~
FailMore
It will have to start with one

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IshKebab
Also, eyes.

It's really sad and I think it's especially sad that the core problem -
overpopulation - is pretty much never discussed. Everyone talks about drinking
straws or plastic or greenhouse gases or air pollution or whatever, but none
of those would be big problems if our population was 10 times smaller, and all
of them are guaranteed to be problems no matter what we do if our population
continues to grow.

I know there are predictions that the population will peak at around 10bn but
the variance on that prediction is high. There's nothing really stopping it
growing to 20 or 30bn. #thanoswasright

~~~
omegaworks
>It's really sad and I think it's especially sad that the core problem -
overpopulation - is pretty much never discussed.

Sorry bud, it's not... by a long shot.
[https://twitter.com/SofiePelsmakers/status/91776466335766118...](https://twitter.com/SofiePelsmakers/status/917764663357661184)

"Overpopulation" pushes a problem that is actually caused by the few richest
among us onto the poorest.

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usrusr
The tiny minority that owns almost all the money does not also eat almost all
the biomass.

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omegaworks
You're right, the tiny minority that owns almost all the money eats animals
that eat almost all the biomass.

You vastly underestimate the resources needed to produce beef, pork and
chicken.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3876224/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3876224/)

~~~
usrusr
Non-vegans are hardly a tiny minority. Life-long debtors who nonetheless have
access to as many two-dollar-burgers as they can stomach far outnumber the few
that own almost everything.

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agentultra
I've felt the impact. When I was a kid going up North for the summers meant
hiding out from the blackfly swarms, battling horse flies, catching pollywogs,
and watching out for moose. There are no pollywogs anymore, I haven't seen a
horse fly in years and frogs are pretty rare to see. You can find polar bears
digging in the trash where you'd never see them before.

I don't know if changing our eating habits will help regenerate biodiversity
or at least slow down the reduction of it but there are some easy things we
can do, that if we all do them, that could have a big impact on the world in a
positive way:

1\. Go veggie. Or at least try going veggie one or two days a week. Many
commodity crops are grown for cattle feed which leads to deforestation and
reduction in biodiversity and is a factor in anthropological climate change.

2\. Reduce your reliance on biofuels and fuels in general. Palm and canola oil
lead to deforestation, monocrops, pesticides, herbicides, etc. The economic
incentives and numbers of scale have decimated entire ecosystems for these
crops. If able and it makes sense try asking about remote working, use car
sharing, demand transportation and cycling infrastructure. Check the
provenance of your chocolate, beauty products, for canola, palm, etc oils and
buy alternatives without those ingredients.

3\. Support philanthropic efforts to protect and restore wildlife and land.
Support indigenous rights: there are plenty of corporations exploiting
indigenous land and betting on the local governments and people turning a
blind eye.

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wutangson1
So, rely on OPEC and domestic facking for fuel? At best, biofuels from canola
& palm make up <10% of diesel fuel blend.

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agentultra
I'd like to see a reduction in all sources, impractical as that may seem right
now. Palm oil extraction, along with soy crops, has led to massive
deforestation in many regions which contribute directly to threatening
biodiversity and climate change[0].

It seems unrealistic right now to stop using any source of fuel but I don't
really see nature waiting for us to figure it all out. So yes.. reducing fuel
use in general is good, palm oil based products are easy to avoid and don't
need to be so massively subsidized.

[0] [https://www.transportenvironment.org/what-we-
do/biofuels/why...](https://www.transportenvironment.org/what-we-
do/biofuels/why-palm-oil-biodiesel-bad)

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shoo
Arguably population decline without local or global species extinction isn't
the same as loss of biodiversity.

That said, here's a summary of a study with a few statistics to get more of a
feel for the scale of human agriculture versus remaining wild animal
population:

[https://www.ecowatch.com/biomass-humans-
animals-2571413930.h...](https://www.ecowatch.com/biomass-humans-
animals-2571413930.html)

> while humans account for 0.01 percent of the planet's biomass, our activity
> has reduced the biomass of wild marine and terrestrial mammals by six times
> and the biomass of plant matter by half.

> Humans account for about 36 percent of the biomass of all mammals.
> Domesticated livestock, mostly cows and pigs, account for 60 percent, and
> wild mammals for only 4 percent.

> The biomass of poultry is about three times higher than that of wild birds.

> Overall, animals have nothing on the other other kingdoms. Plants dominate,
> accounting for about 80 percent of all of the earth's biomass, followed by
> bacteria at about 15 percent.

> Since most plants are terrestrial, the study found that most of earth's
> biomass is found on land, but most animal biomass is found in the oceans.

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abandonliberty
visualized: [https://m.xkcd.com/1338/](https://m.xkcd.com/1338/)

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shoo
Can anyone suggest reading that explores the impact of biodiversity loss on
ecosystems?

Ideally something that is semi understandable to someone with no background in
ecology or biology.

