DAILY TRIFECTA: We're Taking The Whole Damn Planet With Us

We have bottomless pits in our stomachs

TITLE: ‘Untold harm to nature’ from wildlife trafficking, warns UN crime agency
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/05/1149646

EXCERPT: Latest data on seized trafficked species from 2015 to 2021 across 162 countries and territories indicates that illegal trade affects roughly 4,000 plant and animal species with approximately 3,250 listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Over the reporting period, law enforcement bodies confiscated 13 million items totalling more than 16,000 tonnes.  

Despite its significant role in driving the extinction of numerous rare species such as orchids, succulents, reptiles, fish, birds, and mammals, wildlife trafficking often goes unnoticed by the public, according to UN experts in wildlife crime prevention.

For example, illegal collection for trade is believed to have led to the recent extinction of several succulent plant species in South Africa. It has also caused substantial depletion of rare orchids, with newly discovered species quickly targeted by poachers and buyers.

In addition to directly threatening species populations, wildlife trafficking can disrupt delicate ecosystems and their functions, particularly undermining their ability to mitigate climate change.

Furthermore, experts in human and animal health have consistently raised concerns about the disease risks associated with wildlife trade in recent decades. These concerns encompass the direct transmission of diseases to humans from live animals, plants and wildlife products including bushmeat, as well as broader threats to wildlife populations, ecosystems and food production systems.

TITLE: Environmental Changes Are Fueling Human, Animal and Plant Diseases, Study Finds
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/08/health/environment-climate-health.html

EXCERPT: Several large-scale, human-driven changes to the planet — including climate change, the loss of biodiversity and the spread of invasive species — are making infectious diseases more dangerous to people, animals and plants, according to a new study.

Scientists have documented these effects before in more targeted studies that have focused on specific diseases and ecosystems. For instance, they have found that a warming climate may be helping malaria expand in Africa and that a decline in wildlife diversity may be boosting Lyme disease cases in North America.

But the new research, a meta-analysis of nearly 1,000 previous studies, suggests that these patterns are relatively consistent around the globe and across the tree of life.

“It’s a big step forward in the science,” said Colin Carlson, a biologist at Georgetown University, who was not an author of the new analysis. “This paper is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that I think has been published that shows how important it is health systems start getting ready to exist in a world with climate change, with biodiversity loss.”

In what is likely to come as a more surprising finding, the researchers also found that urbanization decreased the risk of infectious disease.

The new analysis, which was published in Nature on Wednesday, focused on five “global change drivers” that are altering ecosystems across the planet: biodiversity change, climate change, chemical pollution, the introduction of nonnative species and habitat loss or change.

The researchers compiled data from scientific papers that examined how at least one of these factors affected various infectious-disease outcomes, such as severity or prevalence. The final data set included nearly 3,000 observations on disease risks for humans, animals and plants on every continent except for Antarctica.

The researchers found that, across the board, four of the five trends they studied — biodiversity change, the introduction of new species, climate change and chemical pollution — tended to increase disease risk.

“It means that we’re likely picking up general biological patterns,” said Jason Rohr, an infectious disease ecologist at the University of Notre Dame and senior author of the study. “It suggests that there are similar sorts of mechanisms and processes that are likely occurring in plants, animals and humans.”

The loss of biodiversity played an especially large role in driving up disease risk, the researchers found. Many scientists have posited that biodiversity can protect against disease through a phenomenon known as the dilution effect.

The theory holds that parasites and pathogens, which rely on having abundant hosts in order to survive, will evolve to favor species that are common, rather than those that are rare, Dr. Rohr said. And as biodiversity declines, rare species tend to disappear first. “That means that the species that remain are the competent ones, the ones that are really good at transmitting disease,” he said.

Lyme disease is one oft-cited example. White-footed mice, which are the primary reservoir for the disease, have become more dominant on the landscape, as other rarer mammals have disappeared, Dr. Rohr said. That shift may partly explain why Lyme disease rates have risen in the United States. (The extent to which the dilution effect contributes to Lyme disease risk has been the subject of debate, and other factors, including climate change, are likely to be at play as well.)

TITLE: Cause and Effect | Interview: Science suggests multiple eco organs of Earth may be failing, says top scientist
https://www.hindustantimes.com/environment/cause-and-effect-interview-science-suggests-multiple-eco-organs-of-earth-may-be-failing-says-top-scientist-101715597261016.html

EXCERPT: In its Planetary Boundaries Framework, the Stockholm Resilience Centre outlined the nine key processes: climate change, biodiversity integrity (functional and genetic), freshwater use, land-system change, biogeochemical flows of nitrogen and phosphorus, the release of novel chemicals (including heavy metals, radioactive materials, plastics, and more), ocean acidification, depletion of the ozone layer and atmospheric aerosol pollution.

The 2023 update to the framework not only quantified the boundaries but also concluded that the first six of the nine boundaries have been transgressed due to the anthropogenic changes brought on by human actions.

"The 2023 update clearly depicts a patient that is unwell, as pressure on the planet increases and vital boundaries are being transgressed”, [Johan] Rockstrom, who was recently awarded the 2024 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, told HT in an interview.

The stability of these nine processes, all of which are inter-related, is essential to maintaining the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and ecosystems in the delicate balance that has allowed modern human civilization to thrive, the [Stockholm Resilience] Centre said.