64 Questions for the Environmental Conservationists of the World
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 7 Aug 2017
Anthony Judge | Laetus in Praesens – TRANSCEND Media Service
Raising the Question as to Why They Are Not Effectively Addressed
Produced on the occasion of Earth Overshoot Day (2 August 2017), namely the date on which humanity’s resource consumption in 2017 exceeds Earth’s capacity to regenerate those resources in 2017. The date is nearly a week earlier than in 2016.
Questions
The following questions can be explored as a complement to the 30 Questions for the Counter-terrorism Experts of the World, written on the occasion of the G20 Summit (Hamburg, July 2017) at which terrorism was a prominent agenda item. Any focus on “terrorism” can be usefully seen in the broader context of the sixth mass extinction heralding a new epoch with which such terms as Anthropocene and Chthulcene have been associated (Ben Westcott, Sixth Mass Extinction? Two-thirds of wildlife may be gone by 2020, CNN, 28 October 2016). The conclusions of an authoritative research report, indicating that The situation has become so bad it would not be ethical not to use strong language, have been summarized in the following terms:
The scientists found that a third of the thousands of species losing populations are not currently considered endangered and that up to 50% of all individual animals have been lost in recent decades. Detailed data is available for land mammals, and almost half of these have lost 80% of their range in the last century. The scientists found billions of populations of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians have been lost all over the planet, leading them to say a sixth mass extinction has already progressed further than was thought. (Damian Carrington, Earth’s sixth mass extinction event under way, scientists warn, The Guardian, 10 July 2017).
Preoccupation with terrorism, as now narrowly defined, obscures and denatures the degree of terror perpetuated by humans with respect to other species in nature. It also obscures the terror which is in process of being engendered by the effects of climate change on future human generations. The issue of climate change also figured on the G20 agenda, paradoxically associated with the unremitting growth and development which so directly engender environmental degradation (G20 Hamburg Climate and Energy Action Plan for Growth, 2017).
Sea levels and temperatures are now acknowledged to be rising much faster than expected with disastrous consequences frequently reported (Sea level rise accelerating nearly 3x faster than during 20th century, USA Today, 23 May 2017; Sea level rise isn’t just happening, it’s getting faster, The Washington Post, 26 June 2017; Latest Study Shows Ocean Temperatures Rising Faster Than Expected, Clean Technica, 6 July 2017).
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