The Life Slant - page 2

*About a decade ago, I began sounding the alarm on “The War Against Nature.” For those animal activists and guardians on the frontline, the bloodbath is gut-wrenching.

Dr. Reese Halter on radio.abc.net.au

On May 6, 2019, after having examined 15,000 scientific and governmental sources for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services, 145 experts from 50 countries concluded that one in every four species, or, one million forms of life, face extinction.

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*Last weekend, an Arctic heatwave caused the mercury to spike to 87 degrees (31C) in northwest Russia. Rapid sea ice loss in April set an all-time record, 479,000 square miles below the long-term average. The supremely adapted Arctic food chain is unraveling in real time, right now. Starvation is highly evident. Keep Reading

*Nature is declining globally at an unprecedented rate. The Man-driven Sixth Mass Extinction is accelerating as quickly as10,000 times the previous five others. Record numbers of Australia’s wildlife species face imminent extinction.

On Monday, 450 scientists and diplomats with the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services predicted that one million forms of life are facing extinction. Keep Reading

*The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists hippopotami as red, or, threatened. Their existence is in peril because of destruction of habitat and loathsome poachers.

Why has the Zambian government auctioned off 2,000 healthy masterpiece hippos to trophy hunters for $3.3M?

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*Nature is in crisis. Ladies and gentlemen, our only home is under utter siege by a handful of powerful, greedy, deranged men.

Accelerating fossil fuel heat has baked the Arctic. That pole is the warmest it has been in at least 10,000 years. In 2018, fossil fuels infused the equivalent heat into the oceans of detonating 100 million Hiroshima-style bombs. As a result, the Gray whales of northern California are starving to death. Keep Reading

*Orcas are the most widespread of the cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises). These beauties are the pinnacle of mammalian evolution, and so worthy of our admiration and protection.

With brains more than twice as heavy and as complex as that of humans, orcas are feared predators. It’s not just other cetaceans that must constantly watch their backs for sudden ambushes by pods of the intelligent ones. Orcas give great white sharks a lot of grief and occasionally much pain. Keep Reading

*Almost 1,200 dolphins are dead from the shoreline of France’s Atlantic to Greece’s Aegean. The culprit is unmistakably that of Man’s insatiable greed and heinous lust for the destruction of Nature.

Since January, more than 1,100 dolphins, most with their fins cut off, have washed ashore onto France’s Atlantic coastline.

They drowned in the Bay of Biscay as bycatch within fishery nets. 90 percent of these beauties were amputees with broken jaws caused by being trapped in nets, struggling unsuccessfully for life. Subsidized trawlers relentlessly overfishing for hake and sea bass are quickly wiping the dolphins off the French map.

Extinction means forever.

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*Around the globe, the dolphins are showing scientists that the planet has become unlivable. Dolphin deaths are piling up.

Globally, 44,000 floating slaughterhouses are marauding the oceans 24/7/365. Measuring a total of 13 million miles, with a couple of billion legal and illegal hooks, they are wiping, tunas, sharks, rays, sea turtles, cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises), sea birds and so many other masterpieces off the planet at an unprecedented rate. Keep Reading

*This week, Nature’s pageantry afforded Angelenos and others a rare and glorious spectacle. A cool wet winter has unleashed a super floral bloom and along with this magnificence came the throngs of painted lady butterflies.

From San Diego to Camarillo, these splendid butterflies danced across the sky. An estimated billion painted ladies brought smiles to millions of people, helping to officially usher the kaleidoscope of spring colors. Keep Reading