{"id":57984,"date":"2021-05-22T07:07:17","date_gmt":"2021-05-22T12:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=57984"},"modified":"2021-05-22T07:07:17","modified_gmt":"2021-05-22T12:07:17","slug":"the-crisis-of-the-natural-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=57984","title":{"rendered":"The Crisis of the Natural World"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Crisis of the Natural World<\/a><\/h3>\n

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Mountain Goat, North Cascades National Park. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The natural world is in a state of crisis, and we are to blame. We are in the midst of the\u00a0Sixth Extinction<\/a>, the biggest loss of species in the history of humankind. So many species are facing total annihilation. Nearly\u00a0one-third of freshwater species<\/a>\u00a0are facing extinction. So are\u00a040 percent of amphibians<\/a>;\u00a084 percent of large mammals<\/a>; a\u00a0third of reef-building corals<\/a>; and nearly\u00a0one-third of oak trees<\/a>. Rhinos and elephants are being gunned down at rates so alarming that they could be\u00a0completely wiped out from the wild by 2034<\/a>. There may be\u00a0fewer than 10 vaquita<\/a>\u2014a kind of porpoise endemic to Mexico\u2019s Gulf of California\u2014due to\u00a0illegal fishing nets, pesticides and irrigation<\/a>. There are\u00a0130,000 plant species<\/a>\u00a0that could become extinct in our lifetimes. All told, about\u00a028 percent of evaluated plant and animal species<\/a>\u00a0across the planet are now at risk of becoming extinct.<\/p>\n

The rapid decline in species has occurred in recent years:\u00a060 percent<\/a>\u00a0of the planet\u2019s wildlife populations have been lost in just the last 50 years. Scientists warn that in the coming decades, if we don\u2019t take action,\u00a0more than 1 million species may vanish from the Earth forever<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Our fellow Earthlings are being overhunted, overfished and overharvested for our food, clothing and medicines. And the ones that we don\u2019t kill are losing their homes as we destroy their natural habitats to make space for our\u00a0farms<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0cities<\/a>\u00a0and to extract fuels, minerals, timber and other resources for human society. And the habitats that we don\u2019t completely eradicate we pollute with a vast array of toxic elements, from\u00a0pesticides<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0plastics<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0carbon dioxide<\/a>,\u00a0fracking chemicals<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0invasive species<\/a>…<\/p>\n

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

The Crisis of the Natural World Mountain Goat, North Cascades National Park. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. The natural world is in a state of crisis, and we are to blame. We are in the midst of the\u00a0Sixth Extinction, the biggest loss of species in the history of humankind. So many species are facing total annihilation. […]<\/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":[5493,8488,638,31261,7016,1215],"class_list":["post-57984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-counterpunch","tag-habitat-loss","tag-pollution","tag-reynard-loki","tag-sixth-extinction","tag-toxins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57984","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=57984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57985,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57984\/revisions\/57985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}