Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Rainforests cover only 2% of the Earth’s surface, or 6% of its land mass, yet they house over half the plant and animal species on earth. They originally covered at least twice that area.
By some estimates 137 plant, animal and insect species vanish everyday from the earth. 25% of Western pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforest ingredients. Less than 1% of the treasure trove of what is available has been tested by scientists. Think of all the possible cures for disease and possible future antibiotics that are being lost daily.
Achim Steiner, executive direct of of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) says,”the world is losing the intellectual patents of nature before we even have the chance to understand or unravel them.” Stiener also believes biodiversity is linked to the phenomenon of climate change.
The loss of biodiversity in our oceans is impairing the ocean’s capacity to provide food, maintain water quality and recover from stresses.
The depths of the oceans also hold untold treasures that are unexamined, making the loss of biodiversity in the seas even more heart wrenching. What has been lost with the extinction of species such as the southern gastric brooding frog, science is able to imagine. Having only been discovered in the 1980’s it has already gone extinct and with it a possible cure for peptic ulcers from which 10’s of thousands of people suffer. We are losing species everyday in our oceans we don’t even know about.
The problem with losing species we don’t even know existed isn’t just the loss of their existence and potential benefits to the environment and mankind, but not knowing what we have lost gives some sort of creepy credence to Donald Rumsfeld’s statement:
“…there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
Photo thanks: Science News. New fish discovered off Ambon Island, Indonesia.
Labels: Biodiversity, Donald Rumsfeld, Environment, Extinct Frogs, Ocean, Ocean Habitat, UNEP
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
The loss of biodiversity and Donald Rumsfeld; the connection is creepy!
Friday, October 26, 2007
But…maybe you can identify this man or woman, spend as much time as you need.
They shoot horses don’t they?
1,400 scientists have concluded humans have punched their dance card for the final time. Humans have danced themselves to the brink of annihilation and done it without taking so much as a break to sleep. However, it seems we have taken more than enough time to have sex and over eat.
Let them eat cake and reproduce into oblivion.
Earth’s population has grown by 34% since 1987.
Each person in the world requires 1/3 more of the earths resources than she is able to now supply. Just try to balance your checking account with that kind of cash flow. It can’t be done. The earth ‘audit’ was done by 400 scientists all experts in their field and then vetted by 1.000 others.
In the face of what seems to be the most dire predictions of doom awaiting the planet we are slapped the cold wet fist of industry:
damage sustained to the environment was of fundamental economic concern, and if left unchecked would affect economic growth
Is there no light at the end of this tunnel? There will be zero commerce when the stores and factories stand empty vanquished of consumers and workers. It seems patently obvious to most of us a symbiotic relationship between profits and consumers must exist. Killing the customer doesn’t make much sense, but that is exactly the monster that has been methodically created.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), said “The systematic destruction of the Earth’s natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged, and where the bill we hand to our children may prove impossible to pay.”
On the very same pages these stories are crying doom and extinction are listed a bevy of mind-numbing fluff.
Click here to see rugby legends discuss the topics you raised!
Love Sudoku? Play our brand new interactive game!
Play Fantasy CEO!
Play Fantasy Football!
New suspect in Madeleine McCann disappearance! (he has no face, but look at the sketch anyway)
Find out what was behind Marie Osmond’s Fall on Dancing with the Stars!
Oh please, can we become any more pathetic?
May my finger fall off if I try to click on one more totally irrelevant story designed to detour my mind from the real problems facing me, and the rest of us today!
See how the scientists were chosen
Labels: Environment, Humanity survival, U.N. Climate Change Summit, UNEP, United Nations
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Humanity’s very survival at risk!
