More Than 800 Wildlife Species Now Extinct

Reuters:

More than 800 animal and plant species have gone extinct in the past five centuries with nearly 17,000 now threatened with extinction, the International Union for Conservation of Nature reported on Thursday.

Read the whole story: Reuters

Comments

[gladiator777]

Hmmm...temperature down 1 degree since the inconvenient lie came out.....well, I thought gore the bore said we'd all be dead and burnt to a crisp now?

[SamKnause]

As long as big corporations continue to pollute our air, water, and soil, this cycle will continue. As long as mountain top removal and drilling for oil in natural reserves continues, this cycle will continue. As long as oil's worth rules the world, and we don't switch to environmentally friendly fuels, this cycle will continue. As long as all of the a fore mentioned own our elected government officials, this cycle will continue. We have the answers and solutions to solve the majority of our environmental, economic, and pollution problems, as long as we are not allowed to implement them on a grand scale, because of the greed of the culprits who do the most harm, this cycle will continue. This is being done on purpose!!! If not, why is hemp and marijuana still illegal in the U.S?

[RTIII]

Ahem! THAT WE KNOW OF.....

Geez, like the exact number even _could_ be known...
.

[Paulofer]

The report should name the countries responsible for species extintion begining with Brazil, where deforestation is responsible for both species extintion and climate change. All of these neglected or sponsored by the Brazilian government. According to reports based on satellite images, in the last 20 years the Amazon rain forest lost an area equivalent to the territory of Italy.

[PDXTransplant]

I wonder how long before the Republican party is on that list? HEE HEE! I'm taking bets...

[Scent]

What nonsense.

Even the very cautious UN report said it was 40 species a year - and could be more.

More thorough investigations led to far different numbers. According to some findings we may right now lose as many as 150 species a year.

The giant comet that wiped out the dinosaurs eradicated no more than ten species per year.

There is no way around it: we are the worst thing to ever hit this poor planet, even counting giant meteors and the yellowstone park blowing up.

And this is not a bunch of football results. This is our future dying a very fast death. We have no idea whatsoever what this ecology needs to function in a way to let us live. Every single species we eradicate could be the one that starts the cascade that will make us one of the species lost to the future. Even if it costs us dearly we need to act decisively and fast.

[stylenease]

How tragic. Where is that Clown turned Senator from Oklahoma - Inhofe - on this? Oops, I forgot, he couldn't care less about any dumb old animals, there has to be plenty more on Noah's Ark...right? Oh yes, and global warming is just a hoax perpetrated on poor, uneducated, hyper-religious people who will believe whatever pablum they are fed by climate change deniers.

This world is in real trouble if we don't turn global warming around.

[PerryWhite]

Since the planet is now cooling, the term has been changed from global warming to global climate change.

[Tommygun264]

In reality, the proper term has always been "global climate change". The term is an oversimplification of the fact that as global temperatures will continue to rise on average over time, there will be greatly accelerated shifts in weather patterns, which will include cooling in some areas for brief periods. Basically if you think of weather swinging like a pendulum, it will be swing further and further to either extreme at a faster and faster rate, knocking the normal rhythm of plants, animals and insects that live and breed within a set pattern off kilter. An early spring will cause trees to bloom earlier than normal, but if the grubs and caterpillars that feed on the blossoms of those trees come out at the regular time, after the trees have blossomed, there won't be enough food, then the birds whose young hatch in time to feast on an overabundance of caterpillars and grubbs won't be able to feed their young, and so on.

[Nooooorm]

Since this article is posted in the climate change section of this site, are we to assume that the reason behind the species extinction is global warming?

If that is the case, please provide a list of species which have gone extinct by decade.

Certainly scientists have this data available.

[Rhetticent]

Hmmm. Do you suppose they count viruses? And would they be worried if we destroyed, oh, say, the entire species of flesh-eating bacteria, or would they insist that people volunteer as hosts for that one so it wouldn't go extinct? Now, if they can just figure out a way to pin the extinction of the dinosaurs on Big Oil.....

[Tommygun264]

While I have no doubt your comment was meant o be tongue-in-cheek, some international, single-government and privately funded organizations do in fact preserve samples of viruses and bacterias, many of which are highly toxic and which have been responsible for historic pandemics that ravaged entire cultures in the past. While it is easy to think that this is being done for sinister purposes, the primary reasons for keeping samples of horrificly toxic viruses and bacteria are anything but. As has been discovered with Polio, measles and smallpox, illnesses that seemed to have been eradicated years or even decades earlier can come back either in their original form or in a version slightly altered by mutation. In either case, having isolated samples already on hand can give doctors a valuable head start on containing a new infection before it spreads. There are also viruses which in their natural state have little or no ill effects on humans that are being preserved and studied for potential use in gene therapy.

[Freesia2]

lol I'm going to send one of those e-cards to my husband.

And someone must send one to Garrison Keillor. If Michele isn't an inspiration for a character in Lake Woebegon I'll eat my hat.

[Freesia2]

Oops. Beg pardon. My post went up on the wrong article.

[Dredd]

Technically humanity and all life on this planet are extinct. But thanks to the way-back machine we have an opportunity to deal with it.

http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/06/ecocosmology.html

[crablover]

Let's hope your kids and grandkids will live long enough to invent one!