|
DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,886
|
Report: Just 23% of Earth's wilderness remains
#26218220 - 09/29/19 11:34 AM (4 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
Report: Just 23% of Earth's wilderness remains
A new paper in Nature adds urgency to the fight against climate change.
Evan Fleischer 02 November, 2018 bigthink.com/surprising-science/whats-left-of-the-worlds-wilderness-just-23?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1
"77% of land (excluding Antarctica) and 87% of the ocean has been modified by the direct effects of human activities," states a new paper in Nature. Just 5 countries—Russia, Canada, Australia, the U.S., and Brazil—contain 70% of the world's wilderness (excluding Antarctica). The paper emphasizes the urgent need to protect large-scale ecosystems, calling them a buffer against the Anthropocene.
Human exploration and activity has transformed the natural world, and a paper recently published in Nature gives us some numbers to accompany our sense of that ever-snowballing change. The Wildlife Conservation Society summarizes it in a news release: "23 percent of the world's landmass can now be considered wilderness, with the rest—excluding Antarctica—lost to the direct effects of human activities."
The criteria by which the Nature paper examined Earth included a focus on built environments, crop and pasture lands, population density, night-time lights, roadways, railways, and navigable waterways, and the scale of the details found using that criteria are shocking, as the authors, James E. M. Watson, James R. Allan and colleagues, write:
Between 1993 and 2009, an area of terrestrial wilderness larger than India—a staggering 3.3 million square kilometres—was lost to human settlement, farming, mining and other pressures. In the ocean, areas that are free of industrial fishing, pollution and shipping are almost completely confined to the polar regions.
Such a large impact seems to be relegated to comparably few actors as well. Twenty nations hold control over 94% of the marine and terrestrial earth. Five nations—Russia, Canada, Australia, the U.S., and Brazil—control 70%.
If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt ... we must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning. — Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President of the United States
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
|
Morel Guy
Stranger


Registered: 01/23/13
Posts: 15,577
Last seen: 4 years, 4 months
|
Re: Report: Just 23% of Earth's wilderness remains [Re: DividedQuantum] 1
#26218236 - 09/29/19 11:39 AM (4 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
Republicans will never believe it because it's not in the bible.
-------------------- "in sterquiliniis invenitur in stercore invenitur" In filth it will be found in dung it will be found
|
Vrokselgja
Stranger

Registered: 09/25/19
Posts: 4
Last seen: 4 years, 7 months
|
Re: Report: Just 23% of Earth's wilderness remains [Re: Morel Guy]
#26218295 - 09/29/19 11:53 AM (4 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
Nothing we can do.
|
DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,886
|
Re: Report: Just 23% of Earth's wilderness remains [Re: Vrokselgja]
#26218309 - 09/29/19 11:57 AM (4 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
Clearly. Especially considering the fact that we're going to add over 2 billion more by 2050.
Time to sit back and enjoy the crisis.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
|
Revok
I Am OTD

Registered: 08/29/12
Posts: 10,356
|
Re: Report: Just 23% of Earth's wilderness remains [Re: DividedQuantum] 1
#26229938 - 10/04/19 04:01 PM (4 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
I don't believe nothing can be done so much as I believe nothing will be done.
|
DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,886
|
Re: Report: Just 23% of Earth's wilderness remains [Re: Revok]
#26229953 - 10/04/19 04:06 PM (4 years, 7 months ago) |
|
|
You have a point.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
|
|