IT'S NOT CLIMATE BUT HUMAN OVERPOPULATION THAT THREATENS LIFE ON EARTH - Pollution of air, soil and water, as well as SPECIES EXTINCTION, they are all due to OUT OF CONTROL demographic growth - We are a parasitic species trashing planet Earth. - Switching to wind power won't save us. - We need to encourage countries to limit human fertility.

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• From 200,000 years ago until 1804 the human population rose to ONE billion. 
• Between 1804 to 1927 it rose to TWO billion. 
• By 1960 we were THREE billion. 
• In 2015 we are over SEVEN BILLION.  http://www.census.gov/popclock/
• Every new human will need food, water, housing, furniture, the farming of cattle and other animals for food, which in turn will have to be fed while they produce enormous amounts of waste.  

Paying other countries to switch from fossil fuels to green energy won't do it.  Paying them to restrain their demographic growth while taking care of seniors will.

 

Although Europe had managed to reach an actual slowdown in population growth, the EU elites decided that this was not good for the economy and have thrown their doors wide open to an influx of millions of migrants from the Middle East and other parts of the world where human reproduction is out of control. 

Migrants flooding Slovenia on their way to
Germany, Sweden, and other EU countries

 

Instead of helping other countries (such as Muslim nations, Mexico, and others) to slow down their population growth, the EU and the US are taking the pressure off those places by letting in millions of people who otherwise would be demanding jobs and services from their own governments. 

 

Opening the doors to migrants is not a compassionate act in the long term.  It is downright detrimental to the future of the planet.
 

Elephants massacred
for their ivory

No regard for the larger ecological picture.  The prospects for many key animal, vegetal, and microscopic species are dismal.  It's not only charismatic species such as tigers and elephants dying from poaching and destruction of habitat that we need to worry about.  There is also the cutting down of world forests, and the destruction of whole ecosystems.  

 

Most of the life on this planet is of microscopic size.  We don't really know how human pollution and overconsumption of resources are affecting those creatures - most of whom are crucial for the existence of larger species like us. 

 

Keep in mind that 90% of the cells in a mammal like us is bacterial.  We look human because our cells are larger, that's all.  But our gut, our skin, and just about every single part of us, are colonized by good bacteria that help keep us healthy and alive. 

 

Brazilian forest's jaguar

And so is the case with the entire planet, its soils, air and water.  There is a microscopic living web that keeps all other life thriving.  

 

While we routinely highlight big animals as victims of human depredations, they are not the most important part of life on this planet:  microbial life is.  

 

And we have no idea how we humans - with our own parasitic lifestyle of devouring living things, and polluting everything in sight - will affect those invisible species that keep us alive.  

While we tend to see plants and animals in a tropical forest, but the most important creatures in the web of life are invisible to the human eye. 

So if you think that humankind can survive quite well in spite of the extinction of elephants, tigers and other megafauna, think again.  We just don't know how we are modifying bacterial life. 

 

Super bacteria immune to antibiotics make the headlines, but the whole planet is in fact a world filled with microscopic life.  However, with out-of-control human population growth and severe technological modifications of nature, we may reach a fatal environmental tipping point sometime in the current century.  

This picture is our present.  Air pollution is so bad in China, that big cities such as Shenyang (shown here) and Peking are now almost unlivable.

 

But to illustrate the effects of human greed and cruelty, let's look at the most iconic animal species now on the verge of extinction.  

The following article appeared on this blog on September 29, 2014:

 

 

THE BIG EXTINCTION - HALF OF THE WORLD'S WILD ANIMALS HAVE DISAPPEARED IN THE LAST 40 YEARS due to human destruction of habitat, poaching, and other practices - Overpopulation has turned humans into a parasitic outbreak that is destroying life on Earth, say scientists  

Murdered to make medicine for the Chinese

• Mankind's need for land and resources, combined with hunting and poaching, are causing our wild animals to die out 
•  Wildlife populations around the globe have declined by 52 per cent on average since 1970, a new report has found
• The likes of forest elephants, African lions and tigers are under threat, as well as British harbour seals and birds
• Lion numbers dropped 90 per cent in 40 years, tigers by 97 per cent in 100 years and elephants 60 per cent since 2002

 

Continue reading

 The authors compiled data on 10,380 animal populations, including 3,038 different species, as an index to judge how global wildlife is faring as a whole.  It shows that British animals have not escaped the global decline. The audit, which is published every two years, found that 90 per cent of corn buntings, a bird once often seen perched on fences, have disappeared from our countryside.

 

 

Massacred to harvest their ivory to satisfy the demand for trinkets in the Asian market, particularly in China.  At this rate, elephants will be extinct in the wild in one decade. 

 

Orphans are left traumatized after seeing their families murdered.  They are often cared by animal sanctuaries, and then released into the wild to be killed by poachers.  In this way sanctuaries are unwittingly helping the illegal ivory trade.

 

Short nose common dolphin dying out 

 

Leatherback turtles dying out

 

Source - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2774093/Half-world-s-wild-animals-disappeared-40-years.html

 

Related

 

It makes no sense  for activists to agitate for pro-environmental policies when they remain peculiarly SILENT about our unsustainable growth in human population.  We can't continue to reproduce at this rate and still save the planet. 

 

But how can we honestly address any of our environmental problems without even mentioning our reproductive rate, which has been out of control for a long time.  

 

Science writer David Quammen on his book SPILLOVER presents the scientific facts demonstrating that our out-of-control demographic growth is clearly a species outbreak.  He quotes entomologist Alan A. Berryman, who defined an outbreak as follows: 

 

 

 

"From an ecological point of view an outbreak can be defined as an explosive increase in the abundance of a particular species that occurs over a relative short time.   "From this perspective, the most serious outbreak on the planet earth is that of the species Homo sapiens."

The numbers support his assertion.

• From our beginning as a species 200,000 years ago until 1804 the population rose to ONE billion. 
• Between 1804 to 1927 it rose to TWO billion. 
• By 1960 we were THREE billion. 
• In 2015 we are over 7 BILLION   

 

Every new human will need food, water, housing, furniture, the farming of cattle and other animals for food, which in turn will have to be fed while they produce enormous amounts of waste.  

 

We are simply exhausting the planet and its limited resources.   To the exploitation of the environment and out-of-control pollution, we need to include the creation of monster technologies, such as nuclear power, genetic engineering, overuse of antibiotics, and the many extreme sciences that have no respect for Earth's billions of years old web of life.

Parasites often kill the host. 

And that is exactly what humans are doing to planet Earth.

Read more -

http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2014/09/book-bits-spillover-animal-infections.html

 

Humans are a plague, said Nature documentary presenter and writer David Attenborough.  

David Attemborough - PBS photo

“We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.” 

Read more

http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2013/09/david-attemborough-humans-are-plague.html

 

World Population Statistics

http://www.worldpopulationstatistics.com/category/world/

The endangered dolphins -
http://www.dolphins-world.com/endangered-dolphins/ 

ELEPHANT BABY ORPHANS FORM NEW FAMILIES AT A WILDLIFE CENTER - AFTER THE TRAUMA OF LOSING THEIR MOMS AND FAMILIES TO POACHERS
http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2014/08/elephant-baby-orphans-form-new-families.html

At least 100,000 elephants massacred in only three years
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/elephant-slaughter-by-poachers-in-africa-soars-to-100-000-in-3-years-1.2740317

Muslim terrorists poaching elephants to fund their activities
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2450807/Kenya-mall-massacre-terrorists-funded-poaching.html

  

 

LINK to the September 29, 2014

article on the Big Extinctions on this blog:

http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2014/09/the-big-extinction-half-of-worlds-wild.html

 

 

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More References for this page

 

 

Humans have ten times more bacterial cells than human cells

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080603085914.htm

RELATED BOOKS

For more on the microbial world, read "The Amoeba in the Room" by Nicholas P. Money.

It's a fascinating overview of the microbial world, starting with the inhabitants of a pond in the writer's home.

I'm currently reading it for the second time. 

A companion book to help you sort out the many kinds of microbial life on this planet, read "Microbiology for Dummies".

A book to show how the human genome contains countless viral genes, read "Virolution" by Frank Ryan.  Just like a detective, he has pursued evidence of the still ignored contribution of viruses to animals' evolution, including that of humans.  

All three books above are for the non-scientist reader.

China under heavy cloud of smog
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/peoplesdaily/article-3310317/Shocking-images-air-pollution-China-suffocatingly-severe-residents-forced-wear-GAS-MASKS.html

Beijing orders the closing down of schools due to health hazards from air pollution
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3349446/Beijing-orders-schools-shut-outdoor-construction-cease-issues-red-alert-smog-levels-city.html


The illegal Ivory Trade, leading to the extinction of elephants in the wild in perhaps less than ten years.  This trade is mostly pushed by China's fondness for ivory trinkets.
http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2015/10/dozens-of-elephants-poisoned-by-their.html

 

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