{"id":28145,"date":"2017-11-20T06:51:54","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T11:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=28145"},"modified":"2017-11-20T06:51:54","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T11:51:54","slug":"what-me-worry-humans-are-blind-to-imminent-environmental-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=28145","title":{"rendered":"What, Me Worry? Humans Are Blind to Imminent Environmental Collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"article__header\" data-dev-object-descrip=\"organisms\/article\/article__header\" data-dev-status=\"IN-PROGRESS\">\n<div class=\"container-fluid\">\n<h3 data-bind=\"title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetyee.ca\/Opinion\/2017\/11\/16\/humans-blind-imminent-environmental-collapse\/\">What, Me Worry? Humans Are Blind to Imminent Environmental Collapse<\/a><\/h3>\n<h4 data-bind=\"teaser\">Accelerating biodiversity loss may turn out to be the sleeper issue of the century.<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<section class=\"featured-media\" data-dev-object-descrip=\"02-organisms\/article\/featured-media\">\n<div class=\"container-fluid\">\n<figure class=\"figure \" data-dev-object-descrip=\"01-molecules\/blocks\/figure\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-img\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetyee.ca\/Opinion\/2017\/11\/15\/960x540xPollution.jpg.pagespeed.ic.7-EwshlMsr.jpg\" srcset=\"\/Opinion\/2017\/11\/15\/1440x810xPollution.jpg.pagespeed.ic.dTDbjSPQI2.jpg 1.5x,\/Opinion\/2017\/11\/15\/1920x1080xPollution.jpg.pagespeed.ic.tNw4Sit4S8.jpg 2x,\/Opinion\/2017\/11\/15\/xPollution.jpg.pagespeed.ic.H1BrcGB0rB.jpg 3x\" alt=\"Pollution.jpg\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption\">Nature can\u2019t compete with human activity overtaking the Earth. <span class=\"caption__media--credit\">Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/benchapmanphotos\/\">Ben Chapman<\/a>, Creative Commons licensed.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<article class=\"article__body main-col-container\" data-dev-object-descrip=\"organisms\/article\/article__body\" data-dev-status=\"IN-PROGRESS\">\n<div class=\"container-fluid clearfix \">\n<p class=\"lead-in\">A curious thing about <i>H. sapiens<\/i> is that we are clever enough to document \u2014 in exquisite detail \u2014 various trends that portend the collapse of modern civilization, yet not nearly smart enough to extricate ourselves from our self-induced predicament.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"aside hide-on-narrow-vp\" data-dev-object-descrip=\"01-molecules\/blocks\/aside\" data-dev-status=\"IN-PROGRESS\"><\/aside>\n<p>This was underscored once again in October when scientists reported that flying insect populations in Germany have declined by an alarming 75 per cent in the past three decades accompanied, in the past dozen years, by a 15 per cent drop in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2017\/10\/171019100927.htm\">bird populations<\/a>. Trends are similar in other parts of Europe where data are available. Even in Canada, everything from casual windshield \u201csurveys\u201d to formal scientific assessments show a drop in insect numbers. Meanwhile, domestic populations of many insect-eating birds are in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bsc-eoc.org\/download\/BWCwi08.pdf\">freefall<\/a>. Ontario has lost half its whip-poor-wills in the past 20 years; across the nation, such species as nighthawks, swallows, martins and fly-catchers are down by up to 75 per cent; Greater Vancouver\u2019s barn and bank swallows <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/british-columbia\/swallow-populations-plummeting-in-metro-vancouver-1.1385931\">have plummeted<\/a> by 98 per cent since 1970. Heard much about these things in the mainstream news?<\/p>\n<p>Too bad. Biodiversity loss may turn out to be the sleeper issue of the century. It is caused by many individual but interacting factors \u2014 habitat loss, climate change, intensive pesticide use and various forms of industrial pollution, for example, suppress both insect <i>and<\/i> bird populations. But the overall driver is what an ecologist might call the \u201ccompetitive displacement\u201d of non-human life by the inexorable growth of the human enterprise.<\/p>\n<p>On a finite planet where millions of species share the same space and depend on the same finite products of photosynthesis, the continuous expansion of one species <i>necessarily<\/i> drives the contraction and extinction of others.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What, Me Worry? Humans Are Blind to Imminent Environmental Collapse Accelerating biodiversity loss may turn out to be the sleeper issue of the century. Nature can\u2019t compete with human activity overtaking the Earth. Photo by Ben Chapman, Creative Commons licensed. A curious thing about H. sapiens is that we are clever enough to document \u2014 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[72,6612,5499,17115],"class_list":["post-28145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-biodiversity","tag-environmental-collapse","tag-the-tyee","tag-william-e-rees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28146,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28145\/revisions\/28146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}