The former UK High Commissioner to India and the head of the UK’s Environment Agency, Sir James Bevan, will say in a speech that there is a biodiversity crisis and it poses a threat to human survival. He will say:
“The biodiversity crisis won’t just kill the plants and animals it is killing; it will kill us too. That’s because nature is indivisible and interdependent – nature provides us with a host of things we depend upon, such as clean water, clean air and food.”
And The Times newspaper tells us that humankind is heading towards an “irreversible climate breakdown”. And it’s happening 60 years from the birth of the modern green movement.
In his speech he will refer to the impressive opening text in the book of Rachel Carson, Silent Spring:
“On the mornings that once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, doves, jays, wrens and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh”.
She was referring to the destruction of whole ecosystems in America through the use of synthetic pesticides. The book was published in 1962 and Sir James Bevan added:
“60 years on we are closer than ever to that silent spring happen. Since we humans and everything we cherish depends on nature, we have the strongest possible interest in avoiding that outcome”.
His speech will mark the publication of a report by the Environment Agency which has found that 25% of England’s mammals (hedgehogs, water voles and red squirrels for example) face extinction. The agency will report that 41% of native flora and fauna species have decreased in abundance since 1970. And 15% face extinction. The numbers of birds, butterflies and moths, priority species, have plummeted by 61% in the past 60 years.
Sir James said further that “If that doesn’t make you angry, you haven’t been paying attention”. I have been angry about this for donkey’s years. I do what I can to help but it takes humanity as a whole to fix the problem and humanity is not paying attention. You can see it all around you.
One problem is that humankind tends to look at nature as if they are looking at a Discovery television series. It is as if humans are not part of nature. But we are.
PS: Raging fires are sweeping across Yosemite and they are threatening the world’s oldest trees. Is this due to global warming? The fires have entered the Mariposa Grove, which is home to more than 500 giant sequoia trees with a real concern that they could be destroyed.
And in another article in The Times newspaper, Melanie Phillips, complains that a desire to get down to net zero in the interests of curbing global warming is going to be ruinous to humankind as that policy has caused the bankruptcy of Sri Lanka where the Prime Minister directed that farmers should all go organic resulting in a catastrophic decreased in crop output and requiring the importation of grain and other foods because they are in such short supply.
I think her words are very dangerous. She clearly is a climate change denier and wants the world to drop any attempt to get down to “net zero” which means that the world is no longer a producer of carbon dioxide. She blames a net zero policy on contributing to Britain’s soaring fuel prices and the cost-of-living crisis. She is dangerous.
Below are some more articles on nature.
