This picture taken on October 18, 2018 shows newborn green turtles heading to the sea after being released from a protected area on Thameehla Island. - Peril plagues the young life of a baby turtle in Myanmar; if the crabs don't get them before they scramble from the beach to the sea, poachers or fishing trawlers may do - while habitat destruction also decimates their numbers. Myanmar's waters boast five of the world's seven sea turtle species, including the critically endangered hawksbill, the endangered green turtle as well as the olive ridley, leatherback and loggerhead turtles, all listed as vulnerable. (Photo by Ye Aung THU / AFP) / PHOTO ESSAY by Ye Aung THU (Photo credit should read YE AUNG THU/AFP/Getty Images)
Ye Aung Thu/AFP/Getty Images)
Even as American politicians uselessly quibble over whether climate change is real (it is) and how humanity should address it, the natural world does not need humanity to humansplain to them that the Earth is becoming uninhabitable.
According to a recent report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), a United Nations body, one million animal and plant species face extinction — and their problem is, ultimately, going to be humanity's problem. After all, as the authors of the report point out, "billions of people in all regions of the world rely on and benefit from the use of wild species for food, medicine, energy, income and many other purposes."
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