COMMENTARY: A world 'crisis' that warrants a united response

By Berl Falbaum

I am going to pick up where I left off in my last column in which I wrote that not only will we not be able to stop global warming but, most likely, the temperatures will continue to rise with devastating, lethal results.

As calamitous as it sounds, that’s the good news. Here comes the bad: We are on the cusp of the Earth experiencing its sixth extinction, albeit the first one caused by humans—you and me.

The last extinction, the fifth, happened 65 million years ago when an asteroid crashed into the Earth, wiping out the dinosaurs.

I know what you are thinking: “This guy Falbaum has gone off the deep end.” You may be right but it’s not because of this prediction, so bear with me.

The root causes? We are destroying wildlife habitats—biodiversity—so vital to life on Earth, and caused by, among other factors, overpopulation and pollution.

Unfortunately, the mass media has not considered this threat to life on Earth newsworthy. But do a search on the internet on “sixth extinction” and you will find numerous articles by scientists and conservation periodicals warning that extinction is coming; some believe it already has started.

I actually found one story by The New York Times, which reported that some 200 countries—basically the entire world—apparently recognizing the threat, met in Montreal last December and agreed to try to save 30 percent of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030.

Basically, under this agreement the world will try to control logging, mining, fishing, farming, the use of pesticides, etc. The agreement increases biodiversity funding to $200 billion a year from a variety of sources. About $30 billion a year would be funneled to poor countries.

The world has tried protecting biodiversity before but failed and if you believe it will succeed this time, I have that famous bridge I would like to sell you.

The bottom line: It always comes down to economics. Unless we can create a financial system that makes saving the environment profitable, there is little reason to hope that the world will respond effectively. We live by the god of profits. We are ruled by the dollar, ruble, shekel, peso, euro, kopeck, dinar, franc. I would be more hopeful if the international conglomerates and corporations began offering stock in environmental protection programs.

“The agreement comes,” The Times wrote, “as biodiversity is declining worldwide at rates never seen before in human history.”

While we already have driven hundreds of animals and plants to extinction, researchers project that a million more are at risk in the coming decades. That’s one million!

The World Wildlife Fund reported in 2020 that we have lost two-thirds of our wildlife in the last 50 years.

You cannot drill, log, mine, fish, etc. without doing irreparable harm to the environment.

The major culprit: population growth. We are at 7.9 billion as I write this and projections are that we will hit 9.1 billion by 2050, less than 30 years away. This addition of 1.2 billion people will need clean water, land, shelter, food, energy, all of which will require the taking of more habitat from wildlife.

The dire warnings are not new; many experts in the past have tried to get the attention of the world on the extinction threat.

In 1968, Paul R. Ehrlich, and his wife, Anne Howland Ehrlich, two Stanford University researchers, warned in their book, “The Population Bomb,” that the Earth cannot sustain the growth it was experiencing. The population at the time: a mere 3.5 billion.

In 2016, Edward Osborne Wilson, a biologist known as the Darwin of the 21st century who won two Pulitzer Prizes, warned in his book, “Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life,” that to survive, mankind needs to reserve half the Earth to wildlife.

A “minor” example to give abstract forecasts some meaning let’s look at Kenya. In 1971, it had a population of 11 million which grew to 53.7 million by 2021. In 1971, the country had 160,000 elephants and 20,000 black rhinos. By 2021, those numbers had dropped to 35,000 elephants and 1,000 black rhinos and only two white rhinos (both female.) The same scenario is playing out throughout the world. (I chose Kenya as an example because I had the opportunity to visit the country on a photo safari in 1996. It was an experience of a lifetime.)

Let’s focus on a place closer to home: Oakland County. Every time friends would point to a “beautiful” new subdivision, I would reply, “that’s pollution” because it took habitat from insects, bees, deer, coyotes, raccoons, etc., all essential to the “circle of life.”

When I was in my teens in the 1950s (yes, I’m old), much of the county was farmland. I paid a farmer a couple of bucks to go horseback riding. It was a win-win for the farmer: He earned a few dollars and I exercised his horses. Now, when I sit in a traffic jam at Orchard Lake Road and Maple, I wish I was back in the saddle again.

In its story, The Times described the situation as a “mounting under-the-radar crisis.”

The problem: by the time the world understands the meaning of the flashes on the radar and tries to respond appropriately, it will probably be too late.
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Berl Falbaum is a veteran political columnist and author of 12 books, including “Code Red! Code Red! How Destruction of the Environment Poses Lethal Threats to Life on Earth.”