UN Report in Nagoya, Japan

[tineckbone]

This needs to be read by everyone!

[tineckbone]

Here is a letter that I am planning on sending out to all the area newspapers, comments are welcome!


I am a tree hugger. I wear the badge of being an environmentalist with honor. I do so because it identifies me with a group of people that care about this planet that we all live on. I am proud to be a tree hugger, I do not see it as derogatory or belittling. There are some that use that term in that manner, and they are misguided at best. We should all be tree huggers. If the current report on the environment released by the United Nations Environment Program is correct, then within a decade us tree huggers will all point our collective fingers and say I told you so. The report says that “We are destroying life on Earth”. Those are the words spoken by Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program in Nagoya, Japan. Whether you think that the report is alarmist or extreme or just plain junk, what if you are wrong? What will you do when we, as a planet of humans, are responsible for a mass extinction phase greater than any since the mass extinction of the dinosaurs? What will you say in 10years time to your child or grand child when they look at you and ask, “If you knew about this, why didn’t you do something”?
We are all faced with many problems and issues in our daily lives. Most of those problems are and will be ongoing. We struggle along as best we can and hope for the best. When it comes to the loss of biodiversity and the effect that it will have on ALL of us, we cannot ‘hope for the best’. Luckily, this is a problem that we are all capable of doing something about. The first thing we can do is to quit destroying our natural habitat with unnecessary development. Instead of clear cutting and bulldozing a natural area, use an existing building or knock it down and rebuild on that site. We can start demanding that any business that does have to plow over existing wild areas to restore as much as possible that which they destroy. This applies to our government as well. Development has to happen but it can be done in a better way. We can also quit trying to turn our yards into some page out of a horticulture magazine or some screen shot from a show on TV and restore some of the natural habitat that was lost when our house was built. A huge lush green lawn may look nice, but from a biodiversity standpoint it is worse than just pouring concrete and painting it green. We can start demanding that the plants that are sold at nurseries and garden centers are at the very least native to our region of the country that we live in, not from some country on the other side of the planet. If we all take simple steps we can bring the planet back from the brink of the devastating destruction and loss of life that the UN report is describing. We have the ability and the knowledge and the tools. We do not have to wait for some new invention or scientific breakthrough. All we need is the will power and the desire to not be the cause of our own extinction.

[BooBooBearBecky]

tineckbone-
Thanks for posting the link to the article
"U.N. environment chief: We are destroying life on Earth."
msnbc.com news services
10/18/2010

You're right, it's a very good article about species & habitat loss. Pretty scary stuff.

They estimate that the Earth is losing species at 100 to 1,000 times the historical average and warn that's pushing the Earth toward its sixth big extinction phase, the greatest since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago.

"If our planet is to sustain life on earth in the future and be rescued from the brink of environmental destruction, we need action by governments to protect our oceans and forests and to halt biodiversity loss," Nathalie Rey, Greenpeace International oceans policy adviser, said.

"We are nearing a tipping point, or the point of no return for biodiversity loss," Japanese Environment Minister Ryu Matsumoto told the meeting. "Unless proactive steps are taken for biodiversity, there is a risk that we will surpass that point in the next 10 years."