Biodiversity Is Essential For Life To Exist

[crunchbuttsteak]

[imnotrevealingmyname]

You can only reblog this on the 3st of January

[official-lucifers-child]

the 3st huh?

[transgirlsgetswords-deactivated]

the 3st.

[thatwantonhousewife]

The Thirst.

[gingerhastoomanyobsessions]

reblog to send three ghosts after elon musk

[amgeforns]

#each rb is an additional three ghosts right

[ur-daily-inspiration]

[biodiversityisessential]

THE MONARCH BUTTERFLY IS NOW OFFICIALLY ENDANGERED AND ON THE ‘RED LIST’

According to the 2021 count, there are roughly 1,914 monarch butterflies alive. A day ago, the monarch butterfly was put the on the endangered species list, also known as the ‘red list’. The red list is the IUCN’s list of endangered species and is updated every two years. It includes 41,000+ species, with 1,300+ of those species in the US. However, it is likely that around 1,000,000 (1 million) animal and plant species are threatened with extinction.

I will likely do this later, but if you’d like to see my usual profile on endangered species for the monarch butterfly, continue below.

The monarch butterfly is a type of insect.

Population: ~ 1,914

Scientific Name: Danaus plexippus

Date of Extinction: Not Reached

Range: Southeast Canada to Central Mexico

Vertebrate Class: Invertebrate

Diet: Herbivore

[biodiversityisessential]

This is a Higgins Eye, a type of pearlymussel. It is currently endangered, like most mussels. For more info, go below.

Population: > 250,000 (average mussel population is around 250,000)

Scientific Name: Lampsilis higginsii

Date of Extinction: Not reached

Range: Upper Mississippi River and similar rivers

Vertebrate Class: Invertebrate

Diet: Herbivore

[biodiversityisessential]

CLIMATE CHANGE ALERT

Hi!

I just wanted to let you all know:

CHEMICAL POLLUTION HAS PASSED A SAFE LIMIT FOR HUMANITY

That’s right, we have succeeded in beginning to extinct ourselves. Look at this quote from The Guardian:

“The cocktail of chemical pollution that pervades the planet now threatens the stability of global ecosystems upon which humanity depends, scientists have said.

Plastics are of particularly high concern, they said, along with 350,000 synthetic chemicals including pesticides, industrial compounds and antibiotics. Plastic pollution is now found from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans, and some toxic chemicals, such as PCBs, are long-lasting and widespread.

The study concludes that chemical pollution has crossed a ‘planetary boundary’, the point at which human-made changes to the Earth push it outside the stable environment of the last 10,000 years.

Chemical pollution threatens Earth’s systems by damaging the biological and physical processes that underpin all life. For example, pesticides wipe out many non-target insects, which are fundamental to all ecosystems and, therefore, to the provision of clean air, water and food.

‘There has been a fiftyfold increase in the production of chemicals since 1950 and this is projected to triple again by 2050,’ said Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez, a PhD candidate and research assistant at the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC) who was part of the study team. ‘The pace that societies are producing and releasing new chemicals into the environment is not consistent with staying within a safe operating space for humanity.’

Dr Sarah Cornell, an associate professor and principal researcher at SRC, said: ‘For a long time, people have known that chemical pollution is a bad thing. But they haven’t been thinking about it at the global level. This work brings chemical pollution, especially plastics, into the story of how people are changing the planet.’” (credit to The Guardian)

Yeah. I’ll probably make a big post about this soon, so look for it.

Have a good day/night!

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

The more I talk about recycling with people the more I realise just how many people recycle backwards.

[a-really-weird-cat]

Hey OP what the fuck are you talking about?

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

What I mean is, when a lot of people plan to recycle, they look at stopping products from ending up in landfill. This is a completely pointless thing to worry about. Some materials do require special handling to dispose of safely (batteries, fragile plastics, etc.), but if your goal is a general ‘how do I repurpose this so it doesn’t end up in landfill?’, that solves absolutely nothing.

We aren’t lacking in landfill space. The shirt in the back of your closet that you never ever wear is exactly as bad for the environment in the back of your closet as it is in landfill; storing it is just delaying the point in time at which it’ll start to break down. If I buy something in a plastic bottle, and then repurpose that plastic bottle into a garden pot or something… that garden pot is still gonna go to landfill eventually. I haven’t saved anything. The plastic was landfill as soon as it was manufactured. That shirt was landfill (unless you choose to burn it, which isn’t environmentally any better) the moment the fabric was produced.

The critical point when it comes to making a difference with recycling isn’t before stuff hits landfill; it’s before the stuff is produced in the first place. “Reduce, reuse, recycle” only works because ‘reuse’ and ‘recycle’ are strategies to feed into ‘reduce’. Recycling glass bottles or aluminium cans is useful only because it reduces the amount of new glass and aluminium being produced (note: most of the plastic bottles you recycle go straight to landfill in other countries). Recycling fabric is useful only if it prevents the purchase of new fabric, and thus on a large scale, the production of new fabric.

For example, let’s say my pants are threadbare beyond repair, and I cut them up for dusters. Important question: do I use dusters? Do I need this many dusters? Is this, in short, an act that is stopping me from buying dusters made from newly manufactured material? If it’s not, then it’s not doing anything at all to help the environment. That same amount of fabric is still going to landfill. (That’s not a reason not to do it, it just doesn’t help the environment at all.)

Another example: I tend to cut up old clothes and pick up fabric that’s going to be thrown out a lot, to make bags and wall hangings and rugs and things. I recycle a LOT of fabric. Is this helping the environment? For some people doing this, it probably is, because they’re making stuff they’d otherwise buy. But for me, it’s doing nothing whatsoever for the environment. If I wasn’t making cushions and wall hangings, I wouldn’t be buying any. I just wouldn’t own any cushions or wall hangings. They’re fun to make, they brighten the place up, but they don’t affect my consumption (and therefore the incentive for cushions and wall hanging to be produced) at all; I’m buying zero of those things either way. Is this recycling? Yes. Does it have any effect whatsoever on helping the environment? No. It’s just delaying the amount of time before that exact same fabric ends becomes rubbish.

Same is true of the aformentioned plastic bottles into garden pots. That plastic is going into landfill whether you recycle it first or not. The question is, did repurposing it stop you from having to buy plastic garden pots? Will the cumulative effect of people doing this lower the amount of plastic garden pots being produced? Will that lower the amount of plastic being produced?

Stopping things from reaching landfill is largely an irrelevant and pointless practice. Recycling is only environmentally useful when it affects the future production of materials. Repurposing materials is often fun and practical regardless (I love repurposing materials), but it’s not automatically environmentally useful just because you’re reusing something.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#This is one of the reasons I am OBSESSED with green building materials#because so many of them are actually not that green at all#and the concept of recycled building materials is so over used while being under examined#and BOY DO THEY HATE IT WHEN YOU POINT OUT THAT THEIR GREEN PRODUCT IS NOT REALLY THAT GREEN#omg it makes them so mad#them being architects or company reps etc 

Still fuming over that “vegan leather made from cacti!” thing that turned out to be almost entirely plastic with like, a bit of cactus in there.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

This is mostly true except the assertion that “We aren’t lacking in landfill space”, which I must disagree with, because we are. Every landfill means another habitat dug up, more hydrology altered, and unless they’re properly constructed, a LOT of extremely harmful compounds entering the surrounding ecosystems via leachate. And it’s a particular problem if you live somewhere with a smaller landmass (e.g. UK, Iceland, Aotearoa, the Philippines, etc) - we are absolutely running out of landfill space, and anything that slows their filling IS a good thing.

But yes, it’s absolutely true that the behemoth in the room is our consumption patterns, and a lot of the green movement is just capitalism in a new colour. If we don’t stop making all the stuff we’re making, the planet dies. It really is that simple.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

That’s a good point. For context I am Australian.

[scarlet-rosepetals]

Friendly reminder that capitalism mangled “reduce reuse recycle” into just “recycle” for a reason. Corporations don’t want to reduce consumption at all so they’ll gladly sell you the lie that if you recycle hard enough you’ll save the environment. No amount of recycling will save shit if we do not reduce and reuse (and obliterate the capitalist system forcing us all into perpetual overconsumption)

[biodiversityisessential]

Please read this post. It’s very important.

[biodiversityisessential]

Dusky Seaside Sparrow such as the one above went extinct in 1987. This species was threatened by dehabitization (loss of habitat) and a contaminated food chain, meaning that animals from other food chain got into its and basically disrupted the entire system. Continue for more facts about this sparrow.

Population: 0

Scientific Name: Ammodramus maritimus nigrescens

Date of Extinction: June 16th, 1987

Range: East Coast of Florida, especially on Merritt Island. Suitable habitat for the bird was only 10-15 feet above sea level.

Vertebrate Class: Avian

Diet: Omnivore

[biodiversityisessential]

WHY DOES EXTINCTION MATTER?

What is extinction?

Extinction is when any species, be it animal, plant, or insect, no longer exists for any reasons, a.k.a they die off. This can be natural, or caused by some other force.

Why is extinction bad?

Food webs are when the basis of how animals and plants get their energy. Plants take in energy from the sun. Herbivores and Omnivores eat said plants. Carnivores and Omnivores eat Herbivores and smaller Omnivores. Then the top of the food chain, usually a carnivore, eats those. When things die, Decomposers break down the body, it turns to soil, and the process may start again. When you permanently remove something from a food chain or web, things above it began to die out unless they find another food source quick enough, and things below overpopulate. This causes a dangerous unbalance. This doesn’t just effect things in that food chain. It effects everything in that habitat’s food web. This causes serious problems. And since human eat or kill almost everything, this causes problems for us too. Don’t forget that humans are animals, and are part of most of the world’s food webs. Dying food webs hurt us too.

What causes extinction?

Numerous things can cause extinction. Dehabitization, poaching, overfishing, pollution, climate change, and natural causes such as the process of evolution all causes extinction.

How can we stop extinction?

The easiest way to stop extinction is to stop. Stop engrossing on the habitat. Don’t use any of its resources, nor destroy or ‘improve’ it. Let it be. Do not let pollution near it, try to get involved in ways to stop climate change that you can do yourself. Try set up or advocate for organizations and care centers to help the creatures. Support zoos that care about animals. Just remember to get more people involved, and to not negatively impact any of the creatures. The natural rate of extinction is far less than the human altered one.

How many species are extinct?

More than 99% of 4 billion species that have ever existed on earth have gone extinct. 900 species have gone extinct in the last five centuries. It is natural process. The difference is the rate, which is much accelerated with our contribution of negative impacts.

Above is an overview on extinction. I hope this has cleared things up for you and made an impact on how you think. Good day and night to you all! 

[biodiversityisessential]

Pure-bred Columbia Basin Pygmy Rabbit’s like this one when completely extinct in 2008. This species was threatened by dehabitization (loss of habitat) (a form of climate change). Below are some facts about this rabbit.

Population: 0

Scientific Name: Brachylagus idahoensis

Date of Extinction: August 18th, 2008

Range: Single Columbia Basin Area of Washington State, USA

Vertebrate Class: Mammal

Diet: Herbivore

[biodiversityisessential]

I’m going to start with endangered and extinct animals native to the USA and it’s surrounding regions. Most of these will be off the endangered species list. Posts will begin soon!

[biodiversityisessential]

Hi everyone!

Did you know that without biodiversity life will not work any longer?

Biodiversity is the diversity of all the different types of animals and plants and insects in the biosphere. And guess what? By overfishing, poaching (guess what, that’s one of the big ones!), polluting, and climate change (which we caused) we’re effectively destroying biodiversity.

In this blog I will talk about how we’re destroying biodiversity, and some of the most endangered animals and plants in the world. 

Reblog, follow, like, or comment. The world is changing and we caused it to happen.