Declining Wildlife Populations

The Living Planet Report 2014 from WWF shows that representative populations for over 3000 species have declined by 52 percent since 1970.

Update (October 29, 2016):  This year's report estimates an average loss of 58 percent since 1970.

Update (October 30, 2018):  And the new report states a loss of 60 percent in just over 40 years.

Update (September 10, 2020):  The Living Planet Report 2020 shows continued loss of wildlife.

The Living Planet Index (LPI), managed by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) in partnership with WWF, tracks the abundance of 20,811 populations of 4,392 species across the globe. The latest version of WWF's flagship publication reveals that the LPI "shows an average 68% decrease in population sizes of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish between 1970 and 2016."

Update (September 13, 2020):  Matthew Rozsa quotes Jeff Opperman about the WWF report:

Our planet is sending alarm signals between recent wildfires, the COVID-19 pandemic, and other extreme weather events. We're seeing our broken relationship with nature play out in our own backyards. The steep global decline of wildlife populations is a key indicator that ecosystems are in peril.

Update (September 23, 2020):  Robert Hunziker also discusses the WWF report.

These warnings of impending loss of ecosystems, and by extension survival of Homo sapiens, depict a biosphere on a hot seat never before seen throughout human history. In fact, there is no time in recorded history that compares to the dangers immediately ahead. The most common watchword used by scientists is "unprecedented".

Heat Waves More Likely

A report published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society finds that "human-caused climate change greatly increased the risk for the extreme heat waves" investigated within the study. Human influence on other extreme weather events was less clear.

Don't Call it War

Nothing brings the country together like deciding we need to go overseas and kill some people. Chelsea Manning urges that we should exercise the discipline to let ISIS self-destruct.  But sanity is not a popular position in Congress.

Patrick Smith sees the incredible mess we have made in the Middle East as hastening the decline of the American empire.

There is next to no chance that Washington will “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State, to take Obama’s noted words for the mission. There is next to every chance that, as in Afghanistan and during Iraq Wars I and II, the military presence will win ISIS support because they speak for the perfectly well-grounded anti-Western resentment that spreads wide and deep across the Middle East.

It's an ugly situation largely of our own making.  It's as if Obama has no power to seek out any other path.  Hope fades.  And the discouragement over the fact that nothing ever really changes easily drives people, maybe especially younger people, away from the political engagement we desperately need.

White House attorneys ... can advance flimsy legal arguments for Iraq War III, but taking Americans into war without declaring one, without calling it one, without congressional approval and without public consent is illegal by any constitutional interpretation not intended to obfuscate. For Americans, this is as significant as the violence that is now to be inflicted in their names on innocent civilians in the Middle East.

Since we can no longer speak plainly of what we are doing, we export it from the language to the land — vast now — of the unsayable. To me this is an unmistakable expression of the burden of silent shame and a vaguely focused depression many, many Americans feel in the face of what is done in their names, even as they cannot articulate it.

A certain faith is required — a faith that something will follow this time, something one can assist in bringing forth. Ray McGovern, the honorable veteran of the CIA now an active opponent of our corrupted political culture, put it this way in a speech Alternative Radio recorded last autumn: We shift attention from the flooding rains to the building of arks.

Eleven billion

A report published by Science called "World population stabilization unlikely this century" gives an 80 percent chance for 9.6 to 12.3 billion people by 2100.  This contrasts with previous projections that had population stabilizing or peaking at around 9 billion.  Naturally, this complicates scenarios for carbon dioxide emissions and for food production.

Update (October 28):  A study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that various scenarios to reduce population have very little long-term impact.  This study projects a population of 10.4 billion by 2100.

Update (March 2, 2015):  The book Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot looks at the impact of human population on the planet.

Update (August 11, 2015):  A United Nations analysis projects 11.2 billion people by 2100.

Update (July 14, 2019):  A reminder from Stephen Corry that growing populations (such as in Africa) in and of themselves aren't the biggest problem.

[I]f overpopulation is a problem because it strains the world’s resources, then the first and most efficient way to address it is not in Africa at all, it’s to reduce consumption in the North, which currently uses far more than its share of resources. Secondarily, if rates of population growth continue to fall when standards of living go up, then the easiest way of addressing that – inside Africa – would likely be to stop the massive resource outflow from the continent, and ensure more of its vast natural wealth remains with and starts fairly benefiting its natural owners.

In other words, to address “overpopulation,” the richer countries must do two things – consume less and stop stealing Africa’s resources. Both imply less for the Global North, and of course that’s the real problem with my simplified explanation.

Moral Imperative

Economics is one aspect of preventing catastrophic climate change, but there are arguments for the ethics as well.  David Roberts paraphrases the choice outlined by White House science advisor John Holdren:

We will respond to climate change with some mix of mitigation, adaptation, and suffering; all that remains to be determined is the mix.

Suffering is, of course, the "do nothing" path.  And Roberts makes the case that while mitigation efforts benefit the entire world, adaptation only helps in a local sense.

[F]or every day mitigation is delayed, the need for adaptation grows, most especially in places that will depend on the ongoing largesse of wealthier nations to pay for it. That’s not a recipe for egalitarian outcomes.

In an interview, Naomi Klein sees the need to combine morality with self-interest:

It’s immoral to allow countries to disappear beneath the waves when we have the power to prevent that from happening. It’s immoral to leave our children a world that is depleted of life and fraught with intense dangers that are also preventable. But I also make the argument that the things we need to do to stop catastrophic warming, they underline how interconnected we all are. If you look at relationships between the global north and the global south for instance, you can make moral arguments for why we should have more aid going to developing countries, and those are good arguments. But what climate does is it also adds a self-interest to that, where it’s not only that there needs to be more equity between the global north and the global south, it’s that unless we do this, them we can be pretty much guaranteed countries like China and India will continue developing on a path that is going to destabilize the global climate system. So unless we embrace principles of climate equity, we’re all cooked. It’s both moral and it’s self-interested.

Joe Romm discusses the essential points from her book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate.

Because we have ignored the increasingly urgent warnings and pleas for action from climate scientists for a quarter century now, the incremental or evolutionary paths to avert catastrophic global warming that we might have been able to take in the past are closed to us. 

Humanity faces a stark choice as a result: The end of civilization as we know it or the end of capitalism as we know it. 

Choosing “unregulated capitalism” over human civilization would be a “morally monstrous” choice — and so the winning message for the climate movement is a moral one.

Update (September 24):  Lindsay Abrams investigates how inequality impacts international adaptation efforts.

Update (September 29):  Robert Jensen reviews Klein's book.

Update (October 24, 2015):  Jonathan Chait thinks Klein is offering dangerous advice.

Climate and Economy

A report from the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate called The New Climate Economy concludes that preventing a 2 degree Celsius rise in global mean temperature can be accomplished with about $4 trillion or about 4.5 percent more than projected energy spending.

Update (September 19):  Paul Krugman criticizes both those on the right who only seem to be defending fossil fuel interests, and those on the left who say the end of growth is the only effective climate action.

Climate despair is all wrong. The idea that economic growth and climate action are incompatible may sound hardheaded and realistic, but it’s actually a fuzzy-minded misconception. If we ever get past the special interests and ideology that have blocked action to save the planet, we’ll find that it’s cheaper and easier than almost anyone imagines.

But just because the economics are favorable, doesn't mean the political will is there.  Inequality comes into it simply due to the imbalance of political influence.  A net cost might be near zero, but leaving fossil fuels in the ground is going to a huge loss for someone.

Update (September 20):  Rebecca Solnit says that "only collective action can save us now".

Update (September 21):  About 300,000 in New York City at the People's Climate March with as many as a couple thousand other events in 166 countries.

Update (October 13):  A study from World Resources Institute also points to many economic benefits from combating climate change.

Rising Carbon Dioxide

The World Meteorological Organization reports that the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration averaged 396 parts per million in 2013.  The increase from 2012 to 2013 was the largest in nearly 30 years.  That seems to be due to not only greater emissions, but also reduced uptake in the biosphere.

Update (September 13):  More on the disruption of the carbon cycle.

Update (November 9, 2015):  The World Meteorological Organization says that the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration averaged 397.7 parts per million in 2014.

Losing Ground

A report from the Economic Policy Institute shows how rising income inequality in the U.S. costs most people money.  Real income has been growing faster at the higher end, which leaves the typical middle-class household worse off than they would have been.

Update (September 4):  A survey by the Federal Reserve reports that the top 3 percent earn 30.5 percent of all income and hold 54.4 percent of the wealth in the U.S.

Update (September 6):  Wealth trends from the Federal Reserve survey.

Update (October 11, 2015):  The tie between productivity and compensation was broken 40 years ago.