46 percent of Earth is still wilderness, researchers report

The San Jose Mercury News ^ | Wed, Dec. 04, 2002 | Paul Rogers Mercury News

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Despite population growth, logging and other environmental threats, nearly half the land on Earth remains wilderness -- undeveloped and nearly unpopulated, according to a study released today. The study by 200 international scientists, the most comprehensive analysis ever done on Earth's wild places and population trends, was seen by some experts as a surprising cause for optimism. Biologists also viewed it as a warning, since only 7 percent of the wilderness is protected.

[FourPeas]

``There's not a square centimeter on Earth that's not affected by humans and what we produce, from chemicals in the atmosphere to global warming

Notice the need to interject doom-and-gloom into the article. Obviously, we can't report good news about the environment, otherwise all those enviro-loonies would be seen for the junk scientists that they are.

[Pitchfork]

Noice that the good news isn't all that good. The largest areas of untouched wilderness are the Arctic, Antarctica, the Sahara (although not mentioned I suspect the interior of Australia) and the large Tiaga forests of Northern Canada and Siberia. They do mention the Congo and Amazon basins but we know that those areas are under pressure. Conspicuously absent are any non-desert temperate regions. This, of course, is where the wild-life lives. Bio-density in the deserts and conifer forests is not all that high when compared to warmer and wetter climates. But it seems these low productive regiona are all we're going to have left some day. The earth will have lungs like an emphazema (sp?) ridden chain smoker.

[Age of Reason]

46 percent of Earth is still wilderness, researchers report

That we are already down to only 46 percent is alarming.

Were we to see a graph showing the increasing rate at which wilderness has been disappearing, the problem would be more apparent.

When I was a kid, my older textbooks still showed maps having areas marked as "unexplored."

[TopQuark]

46 percent of Earth is still wilderness, researchers report

Now, it's not nice to stereotype like this the state of Arab culture. It's true that they are stuck in XII century, but to call Arab world wilderness is not nice.

/Sarcasm.

[cibco]

"The research was done over two years by scientists from such institutions as the World Bank; Cambridge and Harvard universities; Zimbabwe's Biodiversity Foundation for Africa;"

The Zim people seem to be working to increase the amount of wilderness in their own country and just too bad 1/2 of the people will starve in the process. Screw 'EM!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

LOL!

[plain talk]

They do mention the Congo and Amazon basins but we know that those areas are under pressure.

Under what pressure? It's friggin' jungle. I don't think they've quite got to the point where there are shopping malls there, have they? I just hope there's always some remnants of jungles to marvel at. Just like I hope there's always a few wacko fringe environmentalists around to laugh at.

[Brimack34]

We have only developed about 6% of the land. We have a long way too go. Lets see how other countries are doing.

[TC Rider]

Anyone flying over the SE United States would swear he was seeing wilderness, yet it's nearly all privately owned. Forests are managed and nurtured here in the south. I'm sure that they don't count for the 'wilderness' study though.

[blackdog]

Ask any pilot who has flown a single engine airplane accross the country on a routine basis. During the day I can tell you that about 80% of the continental US is void of any identifiable development. At night, while praying the metal keeps spinning, that number is much higher.

A single engine out at night emergency landing checklist.....Shut off fuel, unlatch doors, turn on landing light. If you don't like what you see, turn off landing light!

[hedgetrimmer]

Did you know 50% of California is own by local, state and federal governments? The push to create wilderness corridors in California is very strong. With 46% of the world as wilderness, why is it so important to push private property owners off their land in California?

[thetruckster]

The wackos make the argument that while malls are not yet present, those jungles are being cleared as fast as can be done, mostly for farming. They also say something stupid like the jungles possibly have some plants that purportedly might hold many benefits for humans in the area of medicine, most of which we haven't had the time and technology to discover (yeah, right). Well to that I say, "I want my birds-eye candlenut coffee table anyway." After all, I certainly don't make that much difference. Just one little coffee table. And really, what are the chances that I would be taking out the tree than held the cure for childhood leukemia, anyway?

[nicollo]

Is that what all that green stuff is that I see down there whenever I fly around the country?

[ArcLight]

Anyone who's ever spent a week in Detroit could have told them this...:-)

[Clemenza]

Overhead photos (if they were available) of New York State in the 1920s would show A LOT of land cleared for farming. Today, more has returned to wilderness and Deer, Bear and other fauna (to say nothing of the flora) have grown way above historical levels.

Then again, look at a nation like Haiti which became deforested in the 19th Century, but has never recovered.

[LiteKeeper]

bump

[aruanan]

``There is also an ethical and moral reason,'' Lovejoy said. ``We are all -- every amoeba, every person, every rhinoceros -- the end point of 4 billion years of evolution. You just don't snuff that out.''

Why not? There's certainly no basis for ethics and morality in Lovejoy's second sentence that is anything other than rationalized self-interest.

[vikingchick]

The developed world should do more to safeguard wilderness, said Thomas Lovejoy, president of the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment in Washington, D.C.

Think Ketchup Kerry is behind this?

[Issaquahking]

You forgot your sarcasm tags. I'm sure thats the case, because no intelligent human being is buying this bunk for a minute. Critical thinking skills of the conservative nature teach us that if it smells like BS then it is...no matter how a dumba$$ knee-jerk, reactionary liberal tries to label it something else.

Perhaps you need to review the definition of "junk science" vs "sound science"?