That's right, forget about the global warming thing about how we're all going to die of too much heat in 50 or 100 years.
Apparently we are now killing other species that are vital to our survival much faster than that.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/...l-insects-gone
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2...-dead-insects/Changes in land use surrounding the reserves are probably playing a role. "We've lost huge amounts of habitat, which has certainly contributed to all these declines," Goulson says. "If we turn all the seminatural habitats to wheat and cornfields, then there will be virtually no life in those fields." As fields expand and hedgerows disappear, the isolated islands of habitat left can support fewer species. Increased fertilizer on remaining grazing lands favors grasses over the diverse wildflowers that many insects prefer. And when development replaces countryside, streets and buildings generate light pollution that leads nocturnal insects astray and interrupts their mating.
http://www.dw.com/en/insect-and-bird...any/a-41030897Experts mostly blame intensive agriculture and the use of pesticides over the past 50 years.
Since 2006, beekeepers in Britain have lost about a third of their managed bee colonies each year largely due to the loss of flower-rich grassland which has declined by 97 per cent from the 1930s, and the increased use of insecticides on crops.
In that light it is always interesting to see people claim the planet can easily feed 11 or more billions of people when our agriculture, economy and behavior are terribly self-destructive at 7 billion already. How are we going to feed 11 billion people with either no biosphere around us or without chemicals and monocultures?A study by the German Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) concludes that the total number of birds in Germany has been declining dramatically in recent years.
In the past twelve years an estimated 12.7 million pairs of breeding birds have disappeared. That's roughly 15 percent of the total bird population. The study is based on data provided to the European Union by Germany's federal government in 2013.
We need a one-child policy and an economic system that favors decline instead of growth.
Either way these developments seem quite worrying and could have an enormous impact relatively soon. And most of the solutions cannot be merged with more economic optimization and growth so far.
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