Sixth extinction? How do we know?: (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, May 10, 2019, 22:21 (1807 days ago) @ David Turell

This article questions predictions about species loss:

https://www.mercatornet.com/features/view/un-trumpets-an-extinction-crisis/22447

"This week the UN's Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) released a summary of a terrifying 1500-page forecast of humanity's relationship with Mother Nature (yes, “Mother Nature” is back in vogue).

“'Around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades, more than ever before in human history,” says the IPBES, “and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating.”

"Grim, unparalleled, catastrophic, shocking, terrifying were just some of the adjectives decorating the world’s headlines. One summed up the media consensus: “UN: Life on Earth is nearing a state of collapse”.

***

"Many of the IPBES’s dire predictions may be true and should be heeded. It's impossible for a 1500-page report with 15,000 references written by 150 experts to get everything wrong. The extinction of a species, especially a cuddly vertebrate, is regrettable. Who would not like to see live dodos, or passenger pigeons, or Tasmanian tigers? But can we risk implementing radical “transformative change” to save the Seychelles earwig or the pygmy hog-sucking louse?

"The media swallowed this turgid report whole without cutting it, chewing it or digesting it. It is an abdication of journalistic objectivity, scepticism and common sense.

***

"Are one million plant and animal species really in danger of extinction? That’s the marquee question which journalists should have tackled.

"For starters, how many species are there? This is a fundamental question, but, surprisingly, all scientists can do is guesstimate. An influential 2011 paper in PLOS Biology estimated that there are 8.7 million species in the world, plus or minus 1.3 million. The IPBES seems to have adopted this figure. (There are no footnotes in its summary, making it difficult to check its claims, and the full report will be released later this year.) Previous estimates of the number of species ranged between 3 and 100 million. But of these 8.7 million, only about 1.3 million have been named and catalogued.

"So the claim that a million species are at risk of being wiped out means that species are disappearing before we even know that they existed. This may be true, but it illustrates how mind-bending the extinction claim is.

***

“'Every day, up to 150 species are lost. Every year, between 18,000 and 55,000 species become extinct,” said Ahmed Djoghlaf, head of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in 2007. This is the kind of wild biodiversity rhetoric which coloured this week’s reporting.

***

"The Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature is regarded as “the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of plant and animal species.” According to the IUCN, “In the last 500 years, human activity is known to have forced 869 species to extinction”.

"Isn’t there a disconnect here? Using Mr Djoghlaf’s figures, 20,000 extinctions a year for 500 years implies that 10 million species have become extinct. Yet we can only name 869 of them. How can we prove that the other 9,999,131 species are extinct -- or even existed?

***

"But over-egging the case for reform with horror stories makes it politically impossible to sell. Reforms, however worthy, are destined to fade from the front page into obscurity unless the IPBES respects human dignity, national interests and the political process. Sir Robert Watson says that "by its very nature, transformative change can expect opposition from those with interests vested in the status quo, but also that such opposition can be overcome for the broader public good”. The threats swaddled in this globalist gibberish will be spurned in Washington and Beijing, as well as Brazilia and Antananarivo. Elected politicians understand, even if the UN doesn't, that the survival, welfare and freedom of human beings is far more important than the fate of critically endangered salamanders."

Comment: Just like the alarm over global warming. If we only recognize one in eight million estimated species, how can we possibly know one million are trying to disappear?