There has been an increasing moved to deny science for a number of years, particularly in right wing governments. for big examples you need to look no further than Donald Trump in the USA and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.
However extension denial is more ridiculous. With climate change science you were looking at thousands, sometimes even millions of data points. It is relatively easy C4 for a confident fool to point at some particular dataset and say see it doesn’t show what you’re talking about.
Surely with the extinction of a species that doesn’t exist. Either the animal does exist or it doesn’t.
however in places like Brazil they have lent on this by suggesting that the initial studied designated a new species was incorrect.
The article splits this threat into three branches.
- Literal denial-usually this is reached by talking about now ow extensions only happened in the past but are not happening now (even the briefest of studies shows this is insanely stupid). In particular this denial relies first one stating that only extensions happened historically,and then refuses to accept any scientific data on the current status of wild populations.
- Interpretive denial- this one seems equally bizarre. It seems to conceive that animals are being pushed to extinction, but that by economic growth this will stop.aside from the fact that almost new economic growth has occurred without environmental loss, even if these two were decoupled why would economic growth mean less wildlife lost?
- The third one essentially argues that rather than needing to have a wholesale change in behaviour, we need more targeted conservation and technological fixes. With these two to human skin continue to behave however they like.
One paper last year Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) stated that as many as 1 million species around the world were threatened with extinction. Toby Young from the Spectator disputed the reports findings, attacked the authors and questioned the methods of the report. This it should be noted is despite in having absolutely zero expertise in the field.
The US Congress also chimed in,attacking the report and continuing to doubt any changes in climate change. It is unfortunate that it any change to the system humans are operating under will be attacked aggressively by anyone financially benefiting from the current arrangement. It happened with tobacco, regularly happens when trying to control the amount of alcohol people consume, global warming is another example and now the same people are jumping on to complain about concerns over loss of biodiversity.
This denial of simple facts,from those who stand to gain the most by maintaining current trends, is not new.in the world of lobbying that surrounds all western governments, those with vested interests get heard. However in the same way that climate change is going to damage at all biodiversity loss is going to cause horrific problems. The vested interests must not be able to be the only voice in the room.
They are wrong. Virtually everyone knows it, and most country is more than 90% are very happy to do things to save while species. We must keep the pressure on our governments, and force them to do what the public wants, not what the loudest or most well-placed voice does.