Wildlife, biodiversity and climate
A habitable climate depends on wildlife and biodiversity, because:
- Climate is a consequence of biodiversity and biodiversity is everything that ecosystems represent to life on Earth;
- A stable climate and therefore, a habitable Earth, depends on stabilising ecosystems; and
- Animals are the only mechanism that can do that.
As wildlife declines, we are breaking down biodiversity structure and losing energy (in the form of carbon) out of food chains and into the atmosphere and ocean. This way, climate and our food security are inextricably linked. We’re not only stripping soils of the material needed to feed us, we’re also introducing chaotic free energy into our atmosphere and causing huge fluctuations in the weather. The latter makes it harder for us to know when, where and how to feed ourselves.
Climate change: fossil fuels v. wildlife
Climate change has always been the symptom of biodiversity loss … that’s to say, the breakdown of the complex connectivity between lifeforms that allows Earth to flex in response to changing conditions.
Only recently have we created artificial climate change by mining carbon buried deep underground by animals millions of years ago. The animals that did that are no longer around and today’s animals, that would be busy moderating modern-day carbon, have populations that are heavily depleted.
We cannot engineer our way out of this crisis. We can only rebuild ecosystems rich in a diversity of animal life.
Latest posts about why the oceans are important
Another day, another scientific paper implying that we should feel guilty about hunting prehistoric animals. Well apart from unnecessarily triggering people’s eco-anxiety, let’s be clear: humans are not responsible for prehistoric extinctions.
Science journals have become increasingly awash with titles that appeal to the masses. It’s about optimising readership through search engines. But it’s also feeding a general malaise which is profoundly and philosophically inaccurate.
Scholars like Paleoecologist Dr Jacqueline Gill have tried to make this point, even calling it out as racist, eugenics and illiterate, especially with regard to Indigenous wisdom. She says:
The idea that humans are a scourge, a virus, or a destructive force predestined to destroy the planet is racist, ahistorical, and unscientific. Humanity is not a monolith. It’s not that people are inherently bad for nature. It’s that many cultures have forgotten we’re part of it.
The vitriolic response she received on social media from that statement is a sign of how entrenched these ideas have become.
Animals both create and destroy, it’s in our nature
A paper in Science titled “Megafauna extinctions in the late-Quaternary are linked to human range expansion, not climate change” was promoted on LinkedIn a week ago. The conclusions stating that: ‘this study strongly supports Homo sapiens as responsible for the megafauna extinctions during the late-Quaternary.’
How can humans be responsible for something that happened 120,000 years ago? When our ancestors were living traditional lives, strongly connected to landscapes and the wildlife around them?
The paper also argues that climate was not the driver. But it looks at overall climate. This belies the true nature of animals and their role in ecosystems.
Let’s not forget that animals exist within climatic niches that are highly localised. Change happens as soon as an animal arrives on the scene. In building a habitable place to live, they also immediately begin to alter local humidity and temperature, along with ecosystem structure and function.
Large animals literally have a very big footprint on the Earth so the average lifespan of higher vertebrates is only between 200,000 and two million years[2]. Trampling the ground, ripping up vegetation and knocking over trees, changes things. The very basis of your existence and how all animals behave, is to alter one’s living environment and behaviour, to bring the two into some kind of alignment.
HOW ABORIGINAL PEOPLE MADE THE MOST SUCCESSFUL ECOSYSTEMS
Therefore, it’s just as likely (in fact quite likely) that megafauna created the conditions for their own demise. There is evidence this also made an opportunity for a new species (human) to thrive. Therefore, to blame humans for being animals is bizarre, yet that is the common preposition of many conservation papers.
To treat climate as a singular global issue is also to understate the relevance of animals and humans in the planet’s function. The matter of climate and megafauna are often reduced to two linear issues that are related in a more complex way than any scientist can properly deduce.
Climate change is more nuanced around animal impact
The United Nations just put up a poster about how climate change and biodiversity are linked. It lead one respondent to say “Biodiversity can regulate the climate” but this is both true and untrue.
In the traditional definition of climate meaning globally overall, it cannot work. We need to stop burning fossil fuels and live more efficiently. In the sense of climate on a smaller scale (humidity, water cycles, food etc) it is entirely dependent on animals. The UN still haven’t got this quite right.
Meanwhile, this explains why scientists don’t find a link between climate and megafauna extinctions. It’s impossible. Such resolution of data simply doesn’t exist in the fossil record.
There is nothing ostensibly wrong with these papers except they don’t need to make accusations of responsibility. It undermines their real significance. Which is to say, small numbers of humans could have a huge impact (as indeed any animal can). Therefore, we also have the power to reverse this.
We cannot predict the future
The aforementioned paper finishes with a conclusion that says “Human-induced megafauna extinctions will have consequences for millions of years.” So what? All major animal groups alter the planet’s ecology, which is ever-changing under the impact of animals (humans included). There is no consequence, either good or bad, for the outcome of what occurred 120,000 years ago, that cannot be thought of as simply ‘natural.’
Simply put, humans are not responsible for prehistoric extinctions. That doesn’t, however, mean we aren’t responsible for the decisions we make today. Decisions that might help us survive better in the future.
Recently there was even fanfare about a study that shows how continental drift might wipe out mammals. In 250 million years! It’s one thing to stare into the past, but how can anyone justify popularising a paper that guesses what the future will be like, that far ahead?
What’s the point in beating ourselves up all of the time? It’s frankly a bit self-obsessed.
