Biodiversity – an ecology of dirty test tubes
by Brady Caldwell, Skeptical Swedish Scientists, Fri 10 Sep 2010 [here]
Hello fellow Life Lovers.
It looks like the love of our life is likely lost. All our plants and animals are going, going, gone… again! Hmmm…
But fear not! Our official Life Lovers are planning to save us…
“New UN science body to monitor biosphere – ‘IPCC for biodiversity’ approved after long negotiation”
Maybe not such a good idea… considering the (94 and counting) scandals we have had with the IPCC in the past.
Now we have an advance copy of this world biodiversity TEEB report.
…but the problem again is… even at this early stage it is riddled with “IPCC like” errors. These ecological errors have happened (lots) in the past too. Like world leading ecologist Prof. Paul Ehrlich’s famous 1981 prediction: “…half the world’s species extinct by 2000 and all gone by 2010-2025?”
Fact #1: This happened in the 1800s, so we have had more than 100 years to see the ‘barely hanging on species’ die out, and they haven’t. …
“No continental forest bird or mammal is recorded as having gone extinct from any cause.” … such as habitat reduction – WOW!
Let’s check this claim by crossing the environmental organisations’ “impartiality challenged” IUCN Red List of endangered, threatened, almost threatened, has-to-be worried, let’s include it anyway, you’ll never get off our list, and extinct animals …
“3 continental mammals have gone extinct — 1 antelope hunted to extinction, and 1 rare rabbit and 1 rarer antelope gone from unknown causes. 6 continental birds have gone extinct — 3 prolific terrestrial bird species hunted to extinction, and 3 single-habitat freshwater bird species hunted, drained dry, eaten by fish, and polluted to extinction. This historical record of 9 continental extinctions in 500 years contrasts starkly with Wilson’s predictions of over thirty continental bird and mammal extinctions per year, each and every year.”
NONE by habitat loss in these 500 years! … [more]