Climate Point: Can we save a million species? And why food may cost more next year
Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and the environment. I’m Janet Wilson from Palm Springs, California. Many folks are drawn to environmental causes because of wildlife. Polar bears without an ice floe to stand on and monarch butterflies fluttering to extinction are emblematic of those concerns.
In fact, the planet is now experiencing its largest loss of life since the dinosaur era ended, with at least one million plant and animal species threatened with extinction, per the United Nations. The causes are, you guessed it, us and our actions, reports The Guardian. Just weeks after a global climate conference, the UN convened its 15th biodiversity conference in Montreal this week to tackle the problem.
"Without nature, we are nothing,” declared UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who said that for 100 years, humanity has “conducted a cacophony of chaos, played with instruments of destruction.”
The plain-spoken UN chief cataloged key extinction causes, from deforestation and desertification to poisoning by chemicals and pesticides. He also noted human degradation of the ocean, which is accelerating the destruction of coral reefs and other marine ecosystems and food sources.
There is cautious hope that the gathering will produce an updated framework that would go further than a 2010 agreement, though not a single goal from that one was achieved. The new draft document has over 20 targets, including reduced pesticide use, tackling invasive species, increased funds for nature programs, particularly in poorer, less developed countries that contain more unbroken swaths of biodiversity, and reforming or eliminating subsidies for businesses that harm the environment.
"We need tough regulatory frameworks and disclosure measures that end greenwashing, and hold the private sector accountable," said Guterres.
In hot water
Bulldozing of habitat for development is a top extinction culprit, but sometimes it's just unthinking human frolicking that causes harm. I was reminded of that by a lawsuit notice that landed in my inbox this week. The darn cute photo of the Amargosa vole got to me.
It's one of those unique critters that depends on very limited habitat to survive, in this case a single hot spring in the California desert and adjoining marshy bulrushes. Federal officials have spent millions to try to save it.
But unthinking travel pieces in the past decade in my newspaper and others praising the joys of the natural hot spring an hour and half from Los Angeles have helped push the little mammal to the brink. The Center for Biological Diversity lawsuit demands the Bureau of Land Management regulate or ban nude bathers and campers who trash the area, trucks that line up with buckets to haul out supposedly healing mud, and other woes.
There are sometimes successful efforts to bring species back, including iconic bald eagles or California condors. Martha Psowski with the El Paso Times has a nice piece on how the U.S. and Mexico have collaborated on Mexican gray wolf recovery, including carefully shipping them from New Mexico to Chihuahua.
And Reuters has a gorgeous graphic and story up on one branch of terrestrial species that binds us all: insects. From flickering fireflies to lowly dung beetles, all are critical to life on Earth, and they are crashing at an alarming rate.
“Insects are the food that make all the birds and make all the fish,” said researcher David Wagner. “They’re the fabric tethering together every freshwater and terrestrial ecosystem across the planet.”
Read on for more, including on narrowly re-elected Democratic Georgia Sen. Rafael Warnock's winning environmental record, how California may demand oil companies provide customer refunds for sky-high gas prices, and how climate change is affecting beef cattle, rice fields, citrus trees, and likely your grocery bills.
And if you want a unique outdoor experience that helps track our favorite feathered species, sign up for an Audubon holiday bird count. The tallies underpin research in 38 countries.
For stories that require a subscription, sign up and get access to USA Today and 200 other news sites across the country. If someone forwarded you this email and you'd like to receive Climate Point in your inbox for free once a week, sign up here.