You may go your entire life without seeing an endangered species. Yet, the earth’s biodiversity crisis threatens ALL of humanity in a myriad of unrecognizeable ways.
A massive UN report warns that ALL of Nature is in decline. Presently, 1-million species are threatened with extinction in the next 10-years if nothing is done. The earth’s oceans, seas, and rivers have declined by 4/5ths of all LIFE, in the last 25 years, while our human population numbers have grown by over 1-Billion people in the same amount of time. Beyond this point there’s no hope for reversal of the decline, unless we ACT IMMEDIATELY! Nature is essential for human existence and quality of life.
Food, energy, medicine, water, etc., and reversing climate change, are some of the 18 ways Nature helps keep us alive. You destroy Nature and I promise you it’s SELF-DESTRUCTION. In essence, you are committing suicide by destroying Nature.
Duke Univ. Ecology Prof. Stuart Pimm points out, as an example, how difficult it has been for China to recover from years of forestry destruction.
UNESCO’S “Intergovernmental Science-Policy on Bio-Diversity and Ecosystem Services” (ISBES) points to more than 2,500 wars and conflicts over fossil fuels, water, food, and land, just to show how important Nature is! UNESCO Director-General, Audrey Azoulay said, “Protecting earth’s biodiversity means protecting mankind, because, fundamentally, we depend on the diversity of the LIVING.”
Following are 4 ways humanity relies upon Nature:
1) FOOD – “Nearly all food comes from Nature,” said Co-author of the ISBES Report, Kai Chan, whom is an environmental scientist at the University of British Columbia. “Pressure on crops from pollution, habitat changes and other forces, have caused prices to soar and food riots to break out all over Latin America.”
The report goes on to convey that pollinators across the globe, not just bees, are in serious decline. Three quarters of the world’s crops depend on pollinators.
2) MEDS AND HEALTH – 70 percent of the pharmaceuticals used today are naturals or synthetics of Nature. Worldwide, 4-billion people rely on meds daily.
George-Mason University Professor of Ecology, Thomas Lovejoy, points to a single heat-thriving microbe, that exists ONLY in Yellowstone’s Nat. Park’s “Hot Springs,” and its importance in researching the scientific technique of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), that is used for Medicine, genetics, forensics tests and more. Much of today’s modern biotechnology could not be of help to us without it! Literally, Nature underpins all dimensions of human health.
3) CLIMATE CHANGE – The earth’s forestry and oceans absorb nearly 6.2 billion tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide out of the air each year. We produce 60 percent of that through usage of fossil fuels.
EROSION OF SHORELINES AND PROTECTION FROM STORMS – Expensive and time-consuming construction of seawalls being built, to fight back surges, is in essence, wasteful. Eventually, these will fail, no matter how big we make them. The same protections can be instilled through the planting of coastal mangroves. But, worldwide, mangroves are in trouble, as well. They’re being converted to shrimp farms, leaving the shorelines and us vulnerable to erosion and storm surges, as well as devoid of any biodiversity.
Well, what are you waiting for? Contact your representatives and demand they do something or your next vote will be for someone who WILL!
You may contact me by either of the following means:
Mark Blain #1154225
Nottoway Corr. Ctr.
P.O. Box 488
Burkeville, VA 23922
