pollinator declines

Photo: Leonardo Re-Jorge, Wikim. Commons

With emerging effects from an array of newer pesticides, many pollinator species are declining.

https://ento.psu.edu/pollinators/resources-and-outreach/globally-pollinators-are-in-decline

"Honey bees, other managed pollinator species such as bumble bees and orchard bees, and wild bees suffer from exposure to parasites and pesticides, and loss of floral abundance and diversity due to increased land-use. In addition, habitat destruction limits nesting sites for wild pollinators."

Huge numbers of invertebrate taxa may be facing extinction:

https://www.pnas.org/content/112/25/7761

See these resources devoted to pollinator conservation:
 https://xerces.org/pollinator-conservation

This paper in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution lays out the problem succinctly:
 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0169534710000364

Declining Global Fisheries and Related Issues

Fisheries - Ph. Wikim. Commons

Earth's ocean fishes and myriad other organisms we use as "seafood" are experiencing varying levels of decline. These declines ripple though the earth's aquatic ecosystems and economies at large scales and smaller ones, affecting global trade, future fish populations and subsistence lifeways at either end of the economic and ecological spectrum.

Thai fish market - Ph. Wikim. Commmons

 

Learn more about how these multiple aspects affect humans and fish that we use in a series of resources linked below. Many people who consume fish, squid, shrimp and other seafood are not aware that some of these species are caught, processed, and transported by people trapped by the net of  21st-century slavery (scroll down).

 

 Declining Fisheries

Fishing trawler - Ph. Wikimedia Commons

http://thankyouocean.org/threats/declining-fisheries/

http://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/endangered_species/cetaceans/threats/fishstocks/

 http://www.fao.org/newsroom/common/ecg/1000505/en/stocks.pdf

http://www.seaaroundus.org/sea-around-us-new-atlas-reveals-why-the-ocean-is-giving-us-1-2-million-mt-less-of-fish-every-year/

Rebuilding global fisheries under uncertainty

https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15985

Orange roughy catch - Ph via Wikim. Commons - ScienceMag - Mark Lewus CSIRO

Evolution of global marine fishing fleets and the response of fished resources

https://www.pnas.org/content/116/25/12238.short
  
Global Fisheries Catch Declining, Despite Statistics

"Countries’ improvements to their fisheries statistics have been contributing to the false impression that humanity is getting more and more fish from the ocean when, in reality, global marine catches have been declining on average by around 1.2 million tons per year since 1996."

https://maritime-executive.com/article/global-fisheries-catch-declining-despite-statistics

Are your fish being caught and processed by people victimized by modern slavery?  

https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/findings/importing-risk/fishing/

http://keystonedialogues.earth/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Brief1-Slavery-in-global-marine-fisheries.pdf

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/02/01/582214032/was-your-seafood-caught-with-slave-labor-new-database-helps-retailers-combat-abu

Modern slavery and the race to fish

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07118-9

The sea is running out of fish, despite nations’ pledges to stop it

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/10/sea-running-out-of-fish-despite-nations-pledges-to-stop/

learning how climate change may affect our cherished species

Climate change is a huge threat to the natural world we all depend on. In 2019, let's do more to educate ourselves about this threat -- especially for those of us who care deeply about the natural world, wildlife, and our connection to their and our well-being.

Good places to start are these first few links regarding the effects of climate change on BIRDS:
National Audubon birds and climate change

BirdLife International birds and climate change

For many of us, an iconic species that is likely to be impacted dramatically - the polar bear - is symbolic of this issue in many ways

Beaufort Sea retreating
 ice - Wikim. Commons

. Read about the effect of climate change on this species:
Polar Bears International climate facts

Lastly, if you would like more excellent background information, go the Union of Concerned Scientists' climate change page.

Unifying Principles for Social Change Activists

Although not for everyone, I find this set of "unifying principles" from the Network of Spiritual Progressives,  very meaningful:

Unifying Principles for Social Change Organizations, Spiritual/Faith Communities, and Activists

"Set forth below are five principles that we think articulate values upon which those of us working for a loving, just, and sustainable world might agree. Please read them and then reach out to social change organizations, faith/spiritual communities, and others asking them to publicly commit to these principles by signing on here. We can be the change we wish to see in the world. To do so, we need to not only advocate for the world we seek, we must also live into that world now. Guiding principles to which we all commit can be the catalyst needed to unite our efforts and help ensure that we truly transform our world."

https://spiritualprogressives.org/philosophy/unifying-principles/

only 2 U.S. cities are in the top 80

Although Americans often focus on our own nation as if it were the "center of the universe", in fact the rest of the globe is proceeding without equally focusing on us.

Among the world's top 80+ cities by population,
 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_population
only 2 U.S. cities are in the top 80 in that list:
New York is #27 and Los Angeles is #63
Reflecting on this list may be good for one's perspective.

Chongqing, the world's largest "city proper"

forests and climate change

"Improving management of the world’s forests is a “no regrets” mitigation strategy that is also important for adaptation and the Sustainable Development Goals."

Read the information on forests and climate change at the World Resources Institute's website, listed under

Forests in the IPCC Special Report on Land Use: 7 Things to Know: https://www.wri.org/blog/2019/08/forests-ipcc-special-report-land-use-7-things-know

 

Ph by J M Miller

ecology and liberation

A new paper in The Trumpeter by Simon Appolloni, entitled

Eco-Tethered Liberation: A New Spirituality for the Anthropocene

 takes us to some important realizations. 

“While poverty and oppression continue to afflict the majority of the human world population,

anthropogenic global environmental degradation is increasingly plaguing the planet. These

realities mark our epoch, labelled by many as the Anthropocene. The situation before us could

be defined by what theologian Cynthia Moe-Lobeda aptly labels ‘complex webs of

exploitation’: they defy easy characterization and resist ready solutions. One of the major

reasons for this predicament, I suggest, is the multi-layered and interrelated nature of these

exploitations: environmental and social, individual and collective, local and global. The result is

that we can no longer compartmentalize an ethical approach to problems in our search for a

just and sustainable world. “

See more at http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/view/1594/1747