Gland, Switzerland ”“ The planet is being pushed to its limits as indicated by the increasing number of threatened species across the globe, according to the latest trends in the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN’s) Red List.
The Red List of Threatened Species acts as a barometer that shows the effects habitat loss and degradation, over-exploitation, pollutants and climate change are having on our planet.
“We’re at code red,”said Dr Susan Lieberman, Director of WWF’s Global Species Programme.
“It’s about time people stopped talking and realized this is not a game. The very future of our planet ”“ and the environment we leave to our children ”“ hangs in the balance. Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that got it so wrong?”
Species loss
According to WWF, the loss of species is a clear warning for humans. Sound ecosystems which include clean fresh water, safe seas and healthy forests with robust species populations, are critical to the livelihoods and survival of people.
WWF applauds IUCN for drawing attention to this situation and calls on governments to take immediate, concrete, action to address some of the root causes of species extinction.
WWF believes that the IUCN’s Red List classifications should be used as a tool to assist in prioritizing focus for limited resources.
For example, the western gorilla has moved from Endangered to Critically Endangered. The upgrade in status on the list should highlight the plight of these gorillas, whose population numbers prove the need for urgent attention to combat commercial hunting and further understand and prevent ebola outbreaks.
Orang-utans are also under extreme threat, primarily due to destruction of their habitat for activities such as the creation of oil palm plantations. WWF and its partners have issued new guidelines to ensure that oil palm plantations are better situated and managed more effectively to prevent conflict between the animals and humans. It is critical that oil palm companies in orang-utan range states take these on board.
Freshwater dolphins are suffering a dismal fate globally due to dam-building, entanglement in fishing nets, boat traffic and pollution. In 2005, WWF launched a River Dolphin Initiative with governments, other non-governmental organizations, industry, fishermen, and local communities to reduce or eliminate the threats to river dolphins and porpoises.Overexploitation of species for food, medicine, pets and other human uses is a direct driver of species loss. The impact of international trade on wildlife is tremendous, and when it is not properly regulated it causes rapid declines, as seen for some of the species highlighted by the IUCN’s Red List, particularly reptiles from North America.
New listings
Corals are also on the list for the very first time.
"The fact that corals are now present on the IUCN’s Red List should sound warning bells to the world that the oceans are in trouble", said Dr Simon Cripps, Director of WWF's Global Marine Programme.
Coral reefs are crucial as nursery grounds for thousands of species of fish and invertebrates, and provide revenue and livelihoods from fishing and tourism for a large proportion of the world's growing coastal population.
Corals across the world are being decimated by unsustainable and destructive fishing and by the effects of climate change. WWF believes that unless the world acts urgently, the corals now listed will soon be accompanied by yet more species, and a loss of revenue for dependent communities.
Political will
“World leaders have made various commitments to halt biodiversity loss, but this crisis has largely fallen off political agendas," Dr Lieberman added.
"Attention and funding have shifted to economic development and long-term security — without adequate attention to the link between these issues, a healthy environment, and truly sustainable development. It’s time to make the connections.”
WWF believes the IUCN Red list is an important science-based conservation tool that should be used across the globe by communities, governments and international fora to drive funding and decision making. Reversal of the negative trend is possible when political motivation is high and when local communities see the value and benefit from conserving species.The Red List is developed by a voluntary network of IUCN Species Specialist groups. WWF works in close cooperation with IUCN across the globe, through field interventions and by providing financial and technical support to the various Species Specialist groups of the IUCN Species Survival Commission.
1 comment:
Published on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
The ‘Feel Good’ Approach to Climate Distortion
by Joe Brewer
An article published today in the science section of the New York Times clearly demonstrates the importance of frames and narratives when discussing important political issues. John Tierney’s article “Findings: ‘Feel Good’ vs. ‘Do Good‘ on Climate” is currently among the most popular articles of the day. This widely read article is filled with distortions, redirections, and spin designed specifically to undermine public acceptance of one of the gravest threats we face as a global community
Several months ago, I critiqued a similar Times article by William J. Broad in my response, When Climate Message is Strong, Attack the Messenger!
Like Broad, Tierney seems intent on undermining the strong public acceptance of the significance of the climate crisis. He does this with the help of Bjorn Lomborg , a person whose expertise in statistics has been very helpful at distorting facts through the manipulation of numbers.
Set the Stage with Heroes and Villains
The persuasive power of Tierney’s creation lies in the story it tells. He starts out with the line “After looking at one too many projections of global warming disasters… I was ready for a reality check.” A hidden message lurks in this opening line. Here is a translation of the story implicit in his opening statement:
Alarmist environmentalists are naïve children who don’t really know what is going on. They are out of touch with reality. They have repeatedly bombarded us innocent victims with tales of disaster and doom.
Now we know who the villains are. All those pesky people who express concern about global warming are bad. They cannot be trusted. So who can we trust? Enter Bjorn Lomborg, an ‘expert’ in political science who has stood firm against environmentalists for years. He is the “scourge of environmentalist orthodoxy” - Tierney’s way of painting environmentalists as religious fanatics who refuse to give up their dogmatic ways. (One could instead interpret Lomborg’s steadfastness in the face of an entire community of experts as being dogmatic.)
The heroes go on a quest. But it is “not an arduous expedition.” Translation: “It is easy to show that the villains are wrong.” All you have to do is walk over to the Brooklyn Bridge and look at the water down below. Simple. But the story is just beginning.
Treat Future Events as “More of the Same”
A typical technique used by climate contrarians is to frame projections of likely future events as predictions and call climate scientists foolish for predicting the future. Tierney goes the other way and frames future events as reflections of the past. Check out this quote:
“Since record-keeping began in the 19th century, the sea level in New York has been rising a foot per century, which happens to be about the same increase estimated to occur over the next century by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
(emphasis added)
He does more than claim numerical equivalence. That alone would merely be inaccurate (the average of all scenarios for sea level rise over the next century is closer to 1.5 feet, but could be as high as 3 feet). Instead, he goes further to imply that the rise in sea level over the last century didn’t cause any harm. Therefore, another increase of the same amount will have the same consequence. Clever sleight-of-hand, isn’t it? He does the same thing with temperature:
“The temperature has also risen as New York has been covered with asphalt and concrete…that’s estimated to have raised nighttime temperatures by 7 degrees Fahrenheit. The warming that has already occurred locally is on the same scale as what’s expected globally in the next century.”
(emphasis added)
Tierney’s understanding of global temperature would earn him a failing grade in any physical science class. The warming in a small area (a city) for a short duration (overnight) is vastly different from the warming of the entire planet averaged over several decades. We can deduce that Tierney either sucks at physics (and doesn’t have the sense to ask a real expert) or he is intentionally seeking to mislead people.
He goes on to say that “the impact of these changes on Lower Manhattan isn’t quite as striking as the computer graphics.” This reinforces the misconceptions he has just peddled while undermining the credibility of the science. In effect, this is saying that dramatic pictures are exaggerations, in truth things aren’t so bad!
Learning a Lesson
We are meant to learn that “the lesson from our expedition is not that global warming is a trivial problem.” This is a classic example of negating a frame to reinforce it. It is like saying “don’t think of a white horse,” which immediately evokes imagery of billowy white manes and tails on four-legged beasts. Tierney has Lomborg agree that “global warming is real and will do more harm than good,” thus framing global warming as having unspecified beneficial properties that are not too bad after all.
And what would these heroes have us do to address a problem that is not “trivial”? We are told that “the best strategy, he says, is to make the rest of the world as rich as New York” and “buy air conditioners.” That will fix everything.
This solution emerges because the problem has been trivialized by Tierney when he pointed out a few “confounding factors” that even Al Gore couldn’t see. The first is “that winter can be deadlier than summer.” This frame hides the deadly truth that droughts are strongly contributing to famine, disease, and destabilization of the entire horn of Africa. The climate crisis will impact people everywhere, not just in the north where winters can be harsh. The second is “that the weather matters a lot less than how people respond to it.” We could take away from this the lesson that we should respond to the climate crisis as a serious threat, but that isn’t what he has in mind.
Technology to the Rescue (Only the Wealthy Need Apply)
So we should buy air conditioners. Just pretend they don’t run on electricity from fossil fuels. The global warming pollution involved is not a problem. Why is this a good thing? Because it doesn’t hurt the economy! (Finally, the truth creeps out.)
Tierney goes on to say that “preparing for the worst in future climate is expensive” and we shouldn’t do anything about it because it will mean “less money for the most serious threats today.” Unspecified threats are deemed more important than the climate crisis, implicitly undermining its significance. At the same time, the false dichotomy of environment against economy has reared its ugly head.
What’s worse, we are meant to infer that only wealthy U.S. cities matter. The ‘big problems’ Tierney wants us to focus on are giving “urbanites a break from the hot summer” and “reducing the urban-heat-island effect.” We should just ignore the impacts of global warming on all those starving Africans. Or that we can’t protect 17 million people who live at sea level in Bangladesh. He completely misses the fact that the climate crisis is a moral issue. The world’s poor and disenfranchised will be hit hardest by global warming, not the wealthy cities of the United States.
A Peaceful Ending to a Simple Quest
How does the story end? Lomborg and Tierney are “sitting safely dry and cool inside the Bridge Café.” All is well and there is nothing to worry about. In this little comfort zone, Lomborg reminds us that we should think of the children:
“I don’t think our descendants will thank us for leaving them poorer and less healthy just so we could do a little bit to slow global warming. I’d rather we were remembered for solving the other problems first.”
By presenting past change as equivalent to what is in store, coupled with simplistic solutions to the wrong problems, we should solve ‘real’ problems that have not been specified.
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of this nonsense. Six months ago I wrote this:
“Each day we fail to take responsibility for the mess we are in compromises our communities. Each day we fail to empathize with all creatures great and small we damage the health of our planet. Each day we fail to recognize our common good reduces the common wealth we have to share with each other. Why isn’t this message printed in the New York Times today? That’s what I want to know.
Isn’t it finally time to transcend this kind of madness?”
That pretty much sums it up for me.
Joe Brewer is a fellow at The Rockridge Institute
Post a Comment