{"id":41590,"date":"2018-12-13T08:54:47","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T13:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=41590"},"modified":"2018-12-13T08:54:47","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T13:54:47","slug":"biological-annihilation-a-planet-in-loss-mode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=41590","title":{"rendered":"Biological Annihilation: a Planet in Loss Mode"},"content":{"rendered":"

Biological Annihilation: a Planet in Loss Mode<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n

If you\u2019ve been paying attention to what\u2019s happening to the nonhuman life forms with which we share this planet, you\u2019ve likely heard the term \u201cthe Sixth Extinction.\u201d If not, look it up.\u00a0 After all, a superb environmental reporter, Elizabeth Kolbert, has already gotten a Pulitzer Prize for writing a book<\/a> with that title.<\/p>\n

Whether the sixth mass species extinction of Earth\u2019s history is already (or not quite yet) underway may still be debatable<\/a>, but it\u2019s clear enough that something\u2019s going on, something that may prove even more devastating than a mass of species extinctions: the full-scale winnowing of vast populations of the planet\u2019s invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants.\u00a0 Think of it, to introduce an even broader term, as a wave of \u201cbiological annihilation\u201d that includes possible species extinctions on a mass scale, but also massive species die-offs and various kinds of massacres.<\/p>\n

Someday, such a planetary winnowing may prove to be the most tragic of all the grim stories of human history now playing out on this planet, even if to date it\u2019s gotten far less attention than the dangers of climate change.\u00a0 In the end, it may prove more difficult to mitigate than global warming.\u00a0 Decarbonizing the global economy, however hard, won\u2019t be harder or more improbable than the kind of wholesale restructuring of modern life and institutions that would prevent species annihilation from continuing.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, come along with me on a topsy-turvy journey through the animal and plant kingdoms to learn a bit more about the most consequential global challenge of our time.<\/p>\n

Insects Are Vanishing<\/strong><\/p>\n

When most of us think of animals that should be saved from annihilation, near the top of any list are likely to be the stars of the animal world: tigers and polar bears, orcas and orangutans, elephants and rhinos, and other similarly charismatic creatures.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Biological Annihilation: a Planet in Loss Mode If you\u2019ve been paying attention to what\u2019s happening to the nonhuman life forms with which we share this planet, you\u2019ve likely heard the term \u201cthe Sixth Extinction.\u201d If not, look it up.\u00a0 After all, a superb environmental reporter, Elizabeth Kolbert, has already gotten a Pulitzer Prize for writing […]<\/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":[141,5493,23468,287,12305,7020,16962,19120],"class_list":["post-41590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-counterpunch","tag-elizabeth-kolbert","tag-extinction","tag-insects","tag-species-loss","tag-subhankar-banerjee","tag-the-sixth-extinction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41590","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=41590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41591,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41590\/revisions\/41591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}