Sunday, November 30, 2014

VHEMT Is Worse Than Humancentric Natalism

Originally published on November 30, 2014. Modified on August 29, 2016.


Recent figures released by the World Wildlife Fund have validated a hunch I've long harboured; wildlife is depopulating at an exponential rate. While most of us were well aware that the number of animals in the natural habitat had been dwindling in some capacity, hardly anyone foresaw that the total amount of sentience on earth in 2014 would be sliced in half to the total amount that existed forty years ago. And yet here we are.

[Edit: On further inspection, 50% appears to be something of a stretch. See Brian Tomasik's speculative but detailed breakdown for a fairly lower figure, cautiously keeping species and individual organisms within species separate.]

This is quite the bombshell for preservationists. What's more, according to the findings, it is unambiguously clear that human impact played a pivotal role in the quickened diminution. While human activity isn’t the sole culprit behind every bit of non-human sentience that’s been halved over the last four decades, it does apply to the overwhelming majority it.