'Entire species are being wiped out': Ecologists say half a billion animals may have been killed by

[Soph0571]

Australia wildfires

Ecologists at the University of Sydney are estimating that nearly half a billion animals have been killed in Australia’s unprecedented and catastrophic wildfires, which have sparked a continent-wide crisis and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes in desperation.

News Corp Australia reported Wednesday that “there are real concerns entire species of plants and animals have been wiped out by bushfires following revelations almost 500 million animals have died since the crisis began.”

[link:https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/entire-species-are-being-wiped-out-ecologists-say-half-a-billion-animals-may-have-been-killed-by-australia-wildfires/|]

Link to tweet

The new normal, except it isn’t.

It’s going to get much worse.

And the longer we delay climate action, the worse it will get

It is horrendous... and I think that it unlikely the landscape will have enough time to recover and replenish before this happens all over again.

[Cattledog]

1. Local TV headline here in Atlanta

"Wildlife threatened." No mention of climate change. WSBTV

[Cetacea]

2. This is our not-to-distant future

People are finally learning that climate change isn't about sea-level rise in the year 2099 (as if it's following a schedule).

We have the worst possible leaders at the worst possible time.

The 2019 Global marine animal mass killing numbers are staggering. Once the oceans go, it's over.

[Moostache]

3. It's over already...

We have lost insects, trees, glaciers, marine life balance, corals, forests, and so much more.

What is at stake now is the very ability of the species to survive into the 22nd century. Our current civilization, organizing principles and economies are toast already.

We've been lied to for decades about the severity of the situation and the reality is becoming too obvious to hide any longer...we're shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic instead of slowing the ship, correcting the course or simply getting the fuck off the doomed ship...

[roamer65]

20. We have lost 40 pct of ocean phytoplankton since 1950.

Once we get to less than 16 pct atmospheric O2, it’s game over for most mammalian species at a minimum.

[misanthrope]

27. GETS IT

Too bad there aren't more

[CousinIT]

9. "We have the worst possible leaders at the worst possible time."

That's precisely what I thought when TRUMP was installed.

[DemocracyMouse]

4. Shame on ourselves. We have put too much emphasis here on DU to snark like

... high schoolers rather than strategizing how to re-organize DU's culture and priorities.

For starters, DU's admins need to foreground stories which point out that tax breaks to oil companies total a figure many times the US education budget.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

5. 😭😭😭

💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔

[DanieRains]

6. Pay For Sequestration At The Pump

Starting tomorrow.

Problem solved.

It is simple.

Turn carbon back into fuel and stop drilling.

Only if we want to survive......

[maxsolomon]

18. It isn't simple.

The will to tax carbon, or leave it in the ground, does not currently exist among those with power in the US or large portions of the populace.

[CaptYossarian]

7. It's gone from party over country to profits over planet.

They were warned. Even the end of Planet of the Apes (from 1968) touched upon it with the Statue of Liberty scene. 98% of climate scientists agreed it was dire (the other 2% were afraid they'd lose research grants if they told the truth).

But the Kochs, Exxon-Mobil, and 8 years of the Bush/Cheney oil-based White House squandered decades of solutions. The f---ing 1% doesn't want to face reality.

It's everyone's reality, including the orange-faced assclown that occupies the Oval Office today.

The planet is dying. Stick that up your bottom line.

[Botany]

10. This is a world wide collapse of our flora and fauna

Remember in 1981 Reagan took down the solar panels on the White House.

[CaptYossarian]

11. Reagan. Horrible person and even worse president.

Also notice the pandemic of mass shootings since he emptied the mental institutions.

[Botany]

13. And he got rid of the fairness doctrine too. Which allowed the rise of a right wing sewer of hate

talk and misinformation which has polluted minds for now 2 to or three generations.

[CaptYossarian]

17. He also got rid of a lot of innocent people when he did nothing about HIV/AIDS and

Nancy's sooooo-effective "Just Say No" BS.

These rich pricks never said no to a Martini.

[lunatica]

26. California homeless number in the high numbers of

the mentally ill. You hardly ever hear of any violence, which puts the lie to all the white mass shooters being mentally ill, but they are living in the streets. All because of Reagan’s policies of closing down the state mental hospitals. Now Trump wants to make it illegal to be homeless.

Fuck Republicans.

[CaptYossarian]

31. To shoot up any heavily populated area for fun is mentally ill. They just weren't diagnosed yet.

Some of it is video games on fragile minds. Once you're sick of shooting at cartoon characters, you go to the "next level"--live humans. That's where the NRA comes into the equation.

Then comes extreme bullying, from the traditional playground to the Internet. Then comes the piss poor wages and frustration of a possible lifetime in Mommy's basement.

Even with what someone thinks are valid reasons to shoot another human being, it is still a sign of mental illness.

After Hinckley, you'd think Reagan would have figured it out.

[lunatica]

32. You shouldn't lump in the warped and stunted mental growth

of children exposed to excess violence with mental illness. What you describe is brain washing, mental conditioning, childhood abuse, not mental illness.

And when Hinckley shot Reagan it was long after Reagan had done his worst damage regarding the mentally ill and AIDS victims. If it was karmic or if he could have learned anything from the experience is moot. He was already losing his mind to Alzheimer’s.

[CaptYossarian]

33. You're right on that first point and I didn't remember the exact timeline

on the second point. Of course, Jim and Sarah Brady still learned a lot more than Raygun did.

[2naSalit]

30. +1

[defacto7]

8. Just to clarify because it matters...

Do they really mean a half billion? I'm not disputing the figure but in Britain which is more closely related to Australia than the US, a billion is a US million. When Brits say a billion dollars they mean a million dollars. When they mean our billion they say a thousand million. I don’t know if it's the same in Australia.
Either way it's catastrophic.

[Ilsa]

14. That's weird. Numbers should have precise

Meaning. And a billion is a thousand million, not a million million.

[defacto7]

15. Excues me, you're right. I meant a thousand million.

I always wondered why the definitions were different when I was living there. The numbers are the same the word definitions are not always the same in Britain. I'll edit. I'm not sure about Australia.

[Soph0571]

16. Heh? When we say a billion we mean a billion! All over the world since 1974 - see link attached

Australia would be the same... So yes they mean a literal half a billion which is five hundred million

The old UK meaning of a billion was a million million, or one followed by twelve noughts (1,000,000,000,000).
The USA meaning of a billion is a thousand million, or one followed by nine noughts (1,000,000,000).
Increasingly in this country we are using the USA meaning of a billion for these big numbers, and a trillion for the old UK meaning of one followed by twelve noughts. The UK government has been using the American meaning of billion since 1974 for the numbers it gives out.

[link:http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/campaigning/past-campaigns/budget/how-much-is-a-billion.html|]

[defacto7]

21. When I was living in Britain in the 90's

there were publications and even news broadcasts that would use the old system. When I first heard this usage it was a bit confusing. It didn't just disapear in '74.

[Farmer-Rick]

12. And the climate deniers are out in force

I went to San Diego for Christmas. It was warmer in east TN than in San Diego. That is not normal.

This is the intentional destruction of a planet for capitalism and the filthy rich. It is worse than what the crazy king, lords and arictocrity did to our forests and fresh water.

[roamer65]

19. Too bad the animals couldn't fight back and eliminate the problem.

Where’s a few T. rex when u need them.

We are guilty of ecological genocide.

[NickB79]

22. We've already triggered a mass extinction event

One we can no longer stop or control. The future will be far worse than we can imagine.

Positive feedback loops from melting tundra, forest fires, dying rainforests and thawing ocean methane deposits guarantee we'll pass 4C of warming in the next 100 yr, even if we decarbonize in accordance with the Paris Accords.

And human civilization collapses across most of the planet at 4C.

Learn skills now to improve your odds of survival in a post-collapse landscape, and teach these skills to your children now. Study how our grandparents and great-grandparents survived the Great Depression as a start.

[roamer65]

23. I'm glad I have no children.

I would be utterly sick if I saw them die in this mess.

[misanthrope]

28. I've held that thought for two decades now

At first it was just because I'm on the lower end of the socio-economic scale and didn't want to provide more human souls to be ground up in this system, to provide the disposable humanity who make the world run for the upper crust. Now, it's obvious my decision saved even more heartbreak than I realized with the environmental ruin we've unleashed.

[StarryNite]

25. I fear you are right.

[StarryNite]

24. I am so heartsick over this.

[Crunchy Frog]

29. Am I a bad person if...

this is vastly more upsetting to me than any catastrophe involving humans?

If so, then I'll just slink away from here.