West Coast Publishing Ocean 2014 affirmative page

Biodiversity of Ocean in Trouble

General Biodiversity

Biodiversity Declining

Global biodiversity collapsing – human destruction key.

Robin McKie, science and technology editor, February 15, 2014, The Observer, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/16/sixth-extinction-unnatural-history-elizabeth-kolbert-review (accessed 5/4/2014)

One-third of all reef-building corals, a third of all fresh-water molluscs, a third of sharks and rays, a quarter of all mammals, a fifth of all reptiles, and a sixth of all birds are headed toward oblivion," states Elizabeth Kolbert in this compelling account of human-inspired devastation. "And the losses are occurring all over: in the South Pacific, in the North Atlantic, in the Arctic and in the Sahel, in lakes and on islands, on mountaintops and in valleys." As a result, we now find ourselves in the midst of a great extinction event, the sixth to strike our planet over the last half billion years. Past culprits have included asteroid impacts, which did for the dinosaurs 66m years ago, and soaring carbon dioxide levels which, 252m years ago, triggered extreme global warming and the extinctions of 96% of all marine species and 70% of all terrestrial vertebrate species. "As in Tolstoy, every extinction event appears to be unhappy, and fatally so, in its own way," adds Kolbert. The crucial point about the current extinction is that the agent involved is not an inanimate object or a geophysical force but a living creature, Homo sapiens. We may have succeeded extravagantly on Earth but we have done so at the expense of just about every other species.

Global biodiversity falling – we’re already in the danger zone.

Angel Borja, PhD in Marine Biology and Head of Projects in Marine Research Division at AZTI-Tecnalia, February 12, 2014, Frontiers, http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fmars.2014.00001/full (accessed 5/4/14)

Currently, the global species extinction rate far exceeds that of speciation, this difference being the primary driver for change in global biodiversity (Hooper et al., 2012). The rate of biodiversity loss is one of the 10 planetary boundaries within which humanity can operate safely that has already been exceeded (Rockström et al., 2009). The effects of this global decline in biodiversity provide evidence of its importance in sustaining ecosystem functioning and services and preventing ecosystems from tipping into undesired states (Folke et al., 2004).

Human activities wiping out species – 50% will be extinct by 2050.

Caspar Henderson, journalist and winner of the IUCN-Reuters award for best environmental writing in western and central Europe, February 14, 2014, The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/14/sixth-extinction-unnatural-history-kolbert-review (accessed 5/4/14)

At first glance, the footprint of industrialised humanity on the biosphere may look small compared with that of the Chicxulub asteroid. The additional input of heat into the world's oceans resulting from greenhouse gases put there by the combustion of fossil fuels, for example, is equivalent to only about four atomic bomb detonations, or well under a tenth of a megaton per second. But first glances are sometimes misleading. Humans are affecting the Earth system in many ways, and have been doing so every moment for decades and indeed centuries. It may seem like a diffuse, drawn-out affair to us as individuals but compared with many natural processes (for which animals and plants are, in Jacob Bronowski's phrase, equipped with "exact and beautiful adaptations"), it is virtually instantaneous. Perhaps the current transformation will turn out to be more like the end-Permian 252m years ago, the third of the "big five" extinctions, which is thought to have been kicked off by massive pulses of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, each of which lasted only a few decades, but which together resulted in the death of up to 95% of all life. Or not. A lot is uncertain. What is beyond reasonable doubt is that something big is under way. The best estimates are that the Earth is losing species at many times the background rate (the natural churn in which a few species go extinct every year while new ones evolve), and that 30% to 50% will be functionally extinct by 2050.

Biodiversity loss = extinction

Biodiversity loss causes human extinction.

Robin McKie, science and technology editor, February 15, 2014, The Observer, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/16/sixth-extinction-unnatural-history-elizabeth-kolbert-review (accessed 5/4/2014)

Cuvier would no doubt be appalled to discover just how common extinctions would become. Yet they are a certain facet of modern existence and remain our greatest biological concern – for in destroying all these other species, it is not at all clear that Homo sapiens will be able to withstand the forces it has unleashed. As ecologist Paul Ehrlich puts it: "In pushing other species to extinction, humanity is busy sawing off the limb on which it perches."

Biodiversity critical to human survival – no return from species loss.

Bradley J. Cardinale, associate professor in the School of Natural Resources & Environment at the University of Michigan, February 20, 2013, The Scientist, http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/34448/title/Opinion--Biodiversity-Impacts-Humanity/ (accessed 5/5/2014)

Even so, it is naive and dangerous to ignore our fundamental dependence on other life forms. It is clear that the loss of certain key species can have strong impacts on biological processes, and while it is sometimes obvious which species play the biggest roles, other times we don’t realize their importance until they are gone. It is also naive and dangerous to think we can bioengineer a planet that will be able sustain the growing human population. If we were unable to build a life-support system that could support 8 people in Biosphere II, who believes we can engineer a planet able to support 9 billion? We are taking the very genes and species that have made Earth an inhabitable and biologically productive planet over the past 3.8 billion years, and we are lining them up on the edge of a cliff from which there is no return. If the ever growing human population is to continue to prosper, we must better appreciate how our own well-being is directly linked to the great variety of life that is the most striking feature of our planet.

Global consensus – human survival impossible without halting species loss.

Beth Buczynski, freelance writer with M.S. Public Communication & Technology, October 18, 2010, Care2, http://www.care2.com/causes/un-humans-are-rapidly-destroying-the-biodiversity-ne.html (accessed 5/5/2014)

UN officials gathered at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Japan have issued a global warning that the rapid loss of animal and plant species that has characterized the past century must end if humans are to survive. Delegates in Nagoya plan to set a new target for 2020 for curbing species loss, and will discuss boosting medium-term financial help for poor countries to help them protect their wildlife and habitats (Yahoo Green). “Business as usual is no more an option for mankind,” CBD executive secretary Ahmed Djoghlaf said in his opening statements. “We need a new approach, we need to reconnect with nature and live in harmony with nature into the future.”

AT: Climate Change = Impacts Inevitable

Climate change not key - Species can adapt to climate change but only if we mitigate other anthropogenic causes of ecosystem loss.

Craig Moritz, Research School of Biology and Centre for Biodiversity Analysis, The Australian National University, and Rosa Agudo, The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization Ecosystem Sciences Division, August 2, 2013, Science, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6145/504.full (accessed 5/4/2014)

The discord between predictions of high extinction under future climate change and relatively high resilience through paleoclimatic change could be partly due to the limitations of the fossil record (see above) but may also reflect the fact that, with the possible exception of Holocene megafauna, species were previously able to respond in the absence of other human-caused impacts on natural systems. Thus, even though the rate of expected future change may be much faster than that over the past century, there is value in examining how species have responded to climate change over the 20th century.

Species can adapt to climate change but natural habitats key.

Patrick Barkham, natural history writer for the Guardian, April 7, 2014, The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/07/endangered-butterfly-species-defies-climate-change-quino-checkerspot (accessed 5/5/2014)

Many environmentalists fear that climate change is happening too quickly for species to adapt but, according to Parmesan, this surprising example shows that some apparently doomed species may be more resilient than we imagine. However, she warned that this case showed that nature reserves, and linking together unspoilt habitat, was more important than ever to enable species to survive a changing climate. Without undeveloped land to the east of Los Angeles and San Diego, the quino checkerspot would have had nowhere to go and would have become extinct. "We have to give these species the space to adapt," said Parmesan. "In the early days of climate change people worried that nature reserves would be no longer useful because the species they protected would move out. Now we know that new species move in, and so they are more important than ever."