Animals That Won’t Last the Century

Animals That Won’t Last the Century

These are 4 of the 1 million species that may not survive the effects of a shifting climate —according to a United Nations report. What’s more, globalization and what the authors call “telecoupling” have made it easier and easier for resources to be extracted in one part of the world for use in another. That has long been a pattern in the global ecology as well as the economy, with oil, diamonds, timber and other goods and other environmental commodities pumped, mined and harvested from poorer countries in order to enrich already wealthy ones.

Polar bear numbers have declined 40% over the last decade according to the USGS. Along with arctic land and marine life, they could be gone in 40 years Nature Climate Change confirms. There are only over 100,000 orangutans left on Earth. Deforestation from palm oil plantations could see orangutans gone within 20 years. Coral Reefs in all 29 remaining World Heritage reef sites would cease to function by the end of the century IUCN states. Reefs like the Great Barrier Reef host ¼ of all marine life. Higher CO2 levels have lowered the nutritional value of eucalyptus, a staple of the Koala’s diet. The marsupials could be extinct by 2050. Increasing CO2 levels will also render milkweed toxic. This is the only food monarch butterflies eat. In California alone, monarch populations dropped 86% in just 1-year states the Xerces Society.

With 60 billion tons of environmental resources extracted globally each year, the economic pain of such an unequal system—which was felt mostly in the developing world and—is being eclipsed by environmental pain felt by the entire world ecology espcially in animal rights.

Brut.