This commentary is by George Plumb, who is a longtime voluntary environmental and social justice activist. He is also the executive director of Vermonters for Sustainable Population and the creator of the “What is an Optimal/Sustainable Population for Vermont?” report which is presented in the current issue of Mother Earth News.
[O]n Oct. 1 was announced that the World Wildlife Fund had published the Living Planet Index. It revealed that the population of vertebrate species – mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish — on this planet has plummeted by 52 percent just since 1970. Thirty-nine percent of this decline was by terrestrial species and the other 61 percent by water species. At the same time, our own demands on nature are unsustainable and increasing. We need 1.5 Earths to regenerate the natural resources we currently use; we cut trees faster than they mature, harvest more fish than oceans replenish, and emit more carbon into the atmosphere than forests and oceans can absorb.
It is hard to believe that half of the animals on this earth have been destroyed in just the past 44 years, only part of my lifetime and less than the lifetime of many people alive today. During the same period the world populations of human beings have doubled from 3 billion to 7 billion, the U.S. population has increased by 50 percent, from 200 million to 300 million, and Vermont’s population has grown by 25 percent, from 500,000 to 626,000. The announcement briefly made some of the news, but since then it has been totally neglected.
I have noticed a similar decrease in wildlife on my own and surrounding land here in Washington, particular in the bird population but also in other land species as well. This is despite that fact that probably at least 95 percent of this land has remained undeveloped. I often wondered why and assumed that maybe it was because the land cover has changed a little. Although the open land has remained, it is no longer a dairy farm and the forests have matured from a primary cover of first generation younger trees to more mature older trees. Yes, that probably explains the disappearance of the woodcock, the barn swallow and a few others as well, but I could also give a long list of other species such as the red headed woodpecker, blue jay, ruffed grouse, and no more rabbits either.
Clearly something more is going on. Why else would the power lines that used to have all kinds of birds on them during the spring and summer now have practically none? The reason for the disappearance is, of course, human population growth. Approximately 50 percent of the land mass of the Earth has now been converted to development or agriculture to meet the needs of the human species. We are now facing the Sixth Great Extinction with an estimated 50 percent of all species, including flora, fauna and other forms of life to be gone by the end of this century.
As spiritual people and I assume most of us are spiritual in some form even if not religious, don’t we also have a responsibility to other species?
Where is our compassion for other species? Don’t other species have as much right to life as we do? Where is our recognition of the “Respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are all a part,” that is even the seventh principle of the Unitarian Universalist Association. What happens to other species could, at some point in the future, certainly affect us. And where is our love of beauty and how does the disappearance of the birds and the sound of the coyote affect our own quality of life? I know it adversely impacts mine.
Next to climate change, the disappearance of species is probably the worst thing that is happening to our environment. Yet the lack of attention being given to this issue is nothing but dismal. It is like we humans are the most important forms of life on Earth and the heck with everything else unless we need it to meet our needs. The Vatican recently said, although they should have said it years ago, that we have a moral responsibility to respond to climate change. As spiritual people and I assume most of us are spiritual in some form even if not religious, don’t we also have a responsibility to other species?
As Peter Sawtelle of Eco Justice Ministries writes: “Morally, spiritually, and practically, this devastation of creation must stop. The integrity of Earth’s ecology must be preserved, or we will not survive.” And two leading climate scientists state: “Unsustainable consumption, population pressure, poverty and environmental degradation are intricately linked, but this is appreciated neither by development economists, nor by national governments who permit GDP growth to trump environmental protection in their policies.”
What to do about it? Maybe it is time for each of us, male or female, to at most replace ourselves only once and if we have already had our children to suggest that they might want to consider doing the same. Nov. 7 is World Vasectomy Day. I had my fix as a young man many years ago because it was a much simpler operation than doing a similar fix in a female body. But also very important is that in addition we need to support our political, environmental, and religious leaders here in Vermont and the U.S. to address not just climate change but the decline of other species as well. They are both interrelated. And neither will be solved by continued population growth, either here in Vermont or any place else on this Earth.
Sources
http://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/living-planet-report-2014
http://time.com/3035872/sixth-great-extinction/
http://www.uua.org/beliefs/principles/282070.shtml
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2014/09/24/vatican_address_to_2014_un_climate_change_summit/1107182
http://www.eco-justice.org/E-141003.asp
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/leading-climate-scientists-call-on-religious-leaders-to-help-save-the-environment-9742080.html
http://worldvasectomyday.org/
