SA is 'turning off' systems that make our lives possible
Sustainability journalist David Le Page writes in BDLive that the world is full of beings and processes that support us in ways we take for granted, just as some take for granted their domestic workers. Yet this symphony of all life on Earth, "biodiversity", is profoundly threatened. The word is almost designed to sound inconsequential.
Yet biodiversity is the sum and wonder of all species on Earth - perhaps all species in the universe.
Faced with this crisis - and by the world's complete lack of alarm - technocrats have racked their brains to find new ways to preserve biodiversity. Last month, Le Page says, the Convention on Biological Diversity met in India. The world barely noticed, which is amazing compared with the attention given to climate change, because the biodiversity crisis is more advanced than the climate crisis. We have destroyed a safe living space for humanity more than we realise. Through crowding, pollution and reckless development, we're "turning off" the systems that make our lives possible.
There should be more money for biodiversity research, total commitment to stopping climate change and energetic support for better governance, and democracy, which in turn are dependent on economic equality, David Le Page says in his BDLive opinion piece.
Read the full article on www.bdlive.co.za.
