Monday, May 6, 2019

Move over K-T Extinction Event!

Have you ever found yourself wishing there were fewer species of plants and animals? I mean, who can keep track these days? Some of them walk around like they own the planet or something, and don't get me started on coral reefs.
Psscht...coral reefs...think they're so great just because they're home to 25%
of all marine species and form an integral part of the planet's delicate balance...

Well, experts, knew but
we never listen to them.
Well, soon the other life forms we share the planet with may no longer be a problem. Yes fellow humans, our species-the best species based on Avengers Endgame's unprecedented box office returns last weekend-may be on the brink of victory in our millennia-long struggle against the planet and all other life that lives on it. A new U.N. report says that there are over a million species of plants and animals in danger of extinction. A million. It boggles the mind, doesn't it? Who even knew there were that many to begin with?

The U.N.'s report is apparently unusually direct since these kind of things require all member nations to agree and sometimes that can be tricky given the willful ignorance of certain members of the Security Council...cough...not saying who...cough...us.
"We object to the Rape Prevention Resolution on the grounds
that a significant segment of our citizens are ignorant goons."

-U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley,
actual quote (*not an actual quote, but close)
"Huh...you know, this place is
kind of a shithole, isn't it?"

-Future astronauts
The report explains that human civilization is consuming land and resources at an exponential rate and that we're either farming or paving three quarters of the planet's land area, squeezing out the plants and animals that live there which, coupled with the related problem of carbon emissions, will, if left unaddressed, will leave the Earth just another lifeless ball of rock baking in cosmic radiation like, what's that other one we keep shooting Tesla's at? Mars? Like Mars.

What? From an ecological perspective
cats are useless at best. Invasive at worst.
Ok, plants and animals, but what have they ever done for us, amiright? Welp, turns out lots. The ever-expanding, all-consuming pavement blob that is humanity is like super-dependent on the natural world. Bees pollinate our crops, forests make the air we're so fond of breathing and cats do something. I suppose. Look, I'm not going to read the whole report, I'm a very busy person (full disclosure: no, I'm not), the point is we can't just let the planet's surface entire surface be nothing but highways and Amazon distribution centers.

We have to, grudgingly if necessary, admit that we need nature and make sweeping and immediate changes if we have any hope of surviving this mass extinction. Which, if were being honest we probably don't. I mean, how many of us view plastic bag bans as direct assault on the American way of life?
"What were we supposed to do? Buy reusable totes? No thank you."
-the last member of the human race, 
say fifty, fifty-five years from now?

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