David Tilman
Posted on 06/17/2007 8:36:46 AM PDT by rface
Scientists estimate there are 10 to 30 million plant and animal species on the planet, most of them unidentified. Each year as many as 50,000 species disappear. Most die off, Tilman says, because of human activity.......
Scientists say wildlife extinction rates are soaring. The die-off, they claim, threatens the planet's web of life or biodiversity which sustains farming, forestry and oceans. At a Paris meeting last week scientists called on world leaders to catalog and save species. One of the speakers was University of Minnesota ecology professor David Tilman. He's known around the world for his research showing the effects of human activity on the environment.
St. Paul, Minn. — The 1200 scientists and others at the international meeting sponsored by the government of France issued a statement at the end of the 5-day-long event. It said in part, "Biodiversity is being irreversibly destroyed by human activities at an unprecedented rate. . . (demanding) urgent and significant action."
New plant and animal species are emerging, University of Minnesota ecology professor David Tilman says, but not nearly fast enough to make up for the toll caused by human activity.
"That's sort of a 1 million to 4 million year process, and yet we are causing species to be lost at rates of 100 to 1000 times faster," he says.
Tilman says the rate of extinction is approaching what scientists assume happened 65 million years ago. That's when many believe a giant meteorite struck the earth, causing a dramatic climate change that led to mass extinction.
"Thirty million years (later) things were pretty much back to normal, different species, dinosaurs were gone, mammals were here," he says.
Unlike then, Tilman argues, we can't count on time to heal the earth's wounds.
Scientists estimate there are 10 to 30 million plant and animal species on the planet, most of them unidentified. Each year as many as 50,000 species disappear. Most die off, Tilman says, because of human activity. "We take natural habitats convert them to agriculture, to suburbia, to roads, to monoculture forestry. We fish the oceans so heavily we literally have these trolling nets that scrape the bottom of the ocean clean," he says.
Dave Tilman is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the country's top scientific body, the author of four books and more than 140 scientific papers.
Unlike some scientists, he doesn't hesitate to give his opinion on what his research means. Tilman says human behavior is affecting the environment and that our treatment of the earth amounts to a form of theft.
"What that means morally is that future generations will have a lower quality of life because we overexploited the habitat now," he says.
Tilman cites meat production as one of our most wasteful practices. He says raising grain as feed for beef cattle requires vast amounts of land and uses up lots of petroleum to make fertilizer to raise the crops.
"We're using an organism, cattle, that are highly specialized on living on low quality food, and we're giving them high quality food which their guts aren't able to handle very effectively," he says.
A wiser practice which preserves biodiversity, Tilman argues, is raising cattle on grassland that resembles the prairie. Ten years of research by Tilman and others at the Cedar Creek Natural History Area 30 miles north of the Twin Cities shows pasture with plant variety is more productive, releases cleaner water and tolerates extreme weather better.
Tilman argues saving the planet's biodiversity will require modifying human preferences for driving bigger vehicles, eating more meat and generally consuming more of everything around us.
He says we can't count on the market place alone to send the right signals for preserving biodiversity.
He says the next phase of his research will attempt to show ways for finding a balance.
"Might we be able to not only produce more pulp in a more diverse forest for paper production but maybe have that forest provide other services, cleaner water, store more carbon so we can remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping get rid of some of our effects of burning fossil fuel. . . finding ways we can use biological diversity as a tool to help society have a more sustainable world?" he asks.
Two specific proposals emerged at the Paris meeting he attended. One is a 25-year-long effort to catalog all of the earth's species, and another is to spend $25 billion to save the 25 most threatened environments including the Amazon forest.
It’s that pesky human infestation again. Man, I hope they kill those suckers off soon.
while the new-species rate has sped up also to 50,000 species a year.
Why, as we speak, a new species of mammal is currently evolving on the Gaza Strip. It has shown a incredible ability to procreate, while at the same time seems to be driven to suicidal tendencies (taking along innocents).
If crabgrass becomes extinct, I’d be cool with that. Also most forms of bugs.
Is this the part where we’re all ggunna freakin die?
I’d better get busy,
Lots of creatures I want to taste before they disappear.
Here spotted owl, Here manatee,Now as for recepies?
I think I know what Tilman consumes.
In other words he’s a whiny anti-capatilist, socialist.
Can they name a few of them? Or even name one habitat that has been converted to human use?
David Tilman
Exactly!
Well,... there they go agin. Blaming humans for just what nature does and God Designed things to be.
Yup, a veggie-eater if I ever saw one.
While visiting the beach last week I saw a huge seal chase a surfer into shallow water. When I talked to the surfer, he told me that he thought that the seal was going to bite him.
I am waiting for the day that the eviro-wackos want to ban humans from the beaches because we are disturbing the wildlife.
Lets see they don’t know how many species there are and they don’t know whats in danger and they probably couldn't name anything that has actually gone extinct last year. But they confidently proclaim 50000 species are going extinct each year. Shilling for money I think.
This is the usual “happy horse hockey” served up by the “Scientific Community” looking for government grants.
The guy is a survivalist who gets dropped off in various environments and finds his way back to civilization,while demonstrating survival skills. One of my favorite programs. (There’s a Father’s Day marathon on Discovery right now!)
Anyhow, he’s in the Everglades,and he catches a 1 year old alligator. I figure, since he said that there’s over a million gators there in the Everglades, he’s going to eat the little bugger.
But he puts it down,saying it would be a good meal but IT’S PROTECTED!!
How is an alligator a protected species if there are millions??
There is emotion involved here, because our language speaks of species as "dying off". Poor widdle species!
But all critters and plants will die. The real question is, do all currently-existing species need to continue to have descendents forever? "Dying off", when speaking of a species, just means "stops having descendents at some point". But big deal. Why is it so important for all extant species to always have descendents? No one can answer that. I would answer it on a case-by-case basis, i.e. we like this or that species because of property XYZ (perhaps something as simple as: "because it's cute"), therefore we wish it to continue to have descendents. But that would insert human judgment into the equation, which is a no-no in the complainers' eyes. Why? Because they are fundamentally anti-human.
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