Food security at risk as web of life unravels

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://climatenewsnetwork.net/food-security-at-risk-as-web-of-life-unravels/

Food security at risk as web of life unravels

March 1st, 2019, by Tim Radford

LONDON, 1 March, 2019 – The biggest agricultural authority in the world has warned that the web of life is coming apart as the loss of biodiversity increases.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations says the wholesale destruction and degradation of natural ecosystems puts human food security at risk, and adds a warning that the same loss could also seriously affect human health and livelihoods.

Although conservationists and biologists have been warning for decades of the increasing threat of mass extinction of species, the FAO study focuses on what its authors call “associated biodiversity for food and agriculture” – that is the networks or ecosystems of living things that underwrite all human food, livestock feed, fuel and fibre, as well as many human medicines.

These ecosystems include all plants, animals and microorganisms – insects, bats, birds, fungi, bacteria, earthworms, mangroves, corals, seagrasses and so on – that create soil fertility, pollinate plants, purify air and water, feed and protect fish, and fight crop and livestock pests and diseases.

…

[2naSalit]

1. Nobody seems to want to be the first

to do something big so I guess we'll all be dead.

[Stonepounder]

2. I fear for my grand-kids. n/t

[DemocracyMouse]

3. Funny how speechless 😶 we become when there isn't a single personality to blame

[defacto7]

7. So true. That's an insightful thought.

[appalachiablue]

4. K & R

[liberalmuse]

5. This is the most serious threat that humanity has ever faced.

To do nothing while life on this beautiful planet is rendered extinct due to our activities is so egregious I don't think there's anything to compare it to. We're talking millions and billions of life forms that will be effected by human action and then inaction. Our earth may be the only planet of it's kind in the universe, or at the very least, it's one in a trillion. I'm looking at how my own actions are contributing and it's not a pretty picture. Each of us needs to take action on this now, in our own lives, and we also need to take action on a large scale to force elected (and unelected) leaders to act.

[rwsanders]

6. It would require a social transformation that I have doubts we would be able to achieve.

There was a great episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation that discussed the scope of what would be required:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708702/
But there are far too many people in power who don't want to lose that power and are willing to risk all of us to stay there.

I hate to say it, but even here people don't want to face it. If you follow up on this thread, it will probably end up with about 8 recs, about 600 views, and a handful of replies. But if you post a video of a puppy, it will get 600 recs, 5000 views, and 170 replies.

[defacto7]

10. I've written on this subject for years even here.

It's not easy to tell if many are listening or not but I'd imagine not. But maybe it's like DemocracyMouse said up thread and people are speechless when there's no single personality to blame. The buck stops with us all.

[rwsanders]

13. I'm not sure we all have equal blame,

I worked with someone who was quite right-wing that liked to pull the argument, "well we all drive cars"; but it is not like individually most of us have either the means or the know-how to choose differently. Also, individually not using neo-nicotinic pesticides isn't going to halt the destruction of the bees and other insects.
Not that I'm trying to build excuses for individual excess, but I think that collectively enough of us have to say it is time to reorder our priorities. But I don't think we'll reach that critical mass because not enough people want to see what is happening. Or maybe they can't.
I do think we need people smarter than me to help us make the next steps. I can see what is happening, but I'm not sure what steps to take. I'd love to live "off the grid" but don't know how. And all of us choosing that route wouldn't work either, there isn't the space or the resources to support that.
The only thing I'm fairly sure of right now is that I've lost patience with the right, conservatives, republicans or whatever other label they choose. The whole group is morally and intellectually bankrupt. Is there any way to wake the masses who don't bother to vote?

[defacto7]

8. This

[OMGWTF]

9. It's all connected.

[PatrickforO]

11. This is why EVERY SINGLE DEMOCRAT should be voting 'aye' on

the Green New Deal.

My grandkids need that NOW.

[jalan48]

12. Some aren't woke yet.