extinction
Here’s a well-written lament from The Atlantic about the ongoing extinctions of a huge number of native Hawaiian snail species.
Zooming out from just Hawaii, here’s a map of how many species are being pushed to the brink globally.
This is a sad photographic illustration of how littering - even when the litter is biodegradable - negatively impacts wildlife.
I’m not sure if it was possible to not hear about the horrific recent United Nations assessment on wildlife decline and extinction as it made front page news all over - but if you missed it, here’s one of the many stories covering its findings.
Relatedly, here’s an article discussing how meat consumption plays a huge role in climate change and needs to decrease by 90%. Of course, that’s only one of a multitude of corporate and cultural changes we would have to make…
This well-written and devastating feature in The New York Times Magazine, “The Insect Apocalypse is Here,” is worth reading. You might cry, though.
In conversation, sometimes, a student will wish mosquitoes away. I tell them that mosquitoes are an important part of the food chain for a number of species, and that while I, too, would like to be mosquito-free, we must understand that we are one small part of a whole. We may soon manage to become the whole, though, through chipping and choking everything else out. This article is about the decline of all insects and the overall functional extinction of many species - and our often unnoticed acclimation to it all.
Whew, my life has been very busy socially and professionally of late, and I've let blogging slip a little! Here is a selection of readings on our current environmental problems to make up for it:
Era of 'Biological Annihiliation' Is Underway, Scientists Warn
Environmental Defenders Being Killed in Record Numbers Globally, New Research Reveals
Scott Pruitt Is Carrying Out His E.P.A. Agenda in Secret, Critics Say
The Lords Of Yesterday Are Back And They Want America's Public Land
Shipping Executive: ‘We Have Deliberately Misled Public on Climate’
From The New York Times:
Since at least the 1970s, frog populations have been in decline. A new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that at least 3.1 percent of frog species have gone extinct, and another 6.9 percent may disappear within the next century.