America's extinction crisis: Data shows more than 33% of biodiversity could disappear
Daily MailAUG 2023
The conclusions of the report are a terrifying call to action. The data shows the need for the public to help prevent the disappearance of many of our plant species and act to counter threats to biodiversity including habitat degradation and land conversion, invasive species, pollution of rivers, and climate change. The report can help lawmakers understand the urgency of passing protection, such as the Recovering America's Wildlife Act.
While this data is alarming and more must certainly be done to protect our plants and animals, this latest report should be taken with a grain of salt. Extinction rates are notoriously difficult to predict accurately, and doomsayers have warned of mass extinction for decades. There seems to be a general trend of over-exaggerating in the face of uncertainty, and why would this time be any different?
Democracy is about compromise, but the urgency of climate change waits for no one. The structural mismatch of democratic systems with the urgency of the rapidly altering environment is clear domestically in the US, but is most evident internationally, when nations with diverse political and social aims struggle to agree on a cooperative course of action. Inaction on these issues is not necessarily the fault of politicians, but the fundamentally flawed nature of democratic systems in their current form.