The world has lost 68 percent of wildlife species since 1970, according to the World Wildlife Fund, a global nonprofit. This represents a staggering loss of what scientists call biodiversity, a crucial metric of environmental health.
"If you begin to reduce or remove animals and plants from any ecosystem, the way it functions begins to unravel, and that's what's happening now," Rebecca Shaw, global chief scientist for World Wildlife Fund, told Cheddar. "Biodiversity then is under threat primarily from habitat destruction and over-harvest."
This steep reduction in biodiversity has serious implications not just for the animal kingdom but for humans as well.
"All of the species in an ecosystem play a role in delivering benefits to humans," she said. "We call them ecosystem services, because they're services that come from the ecosystem like clean air or clean water. So when we reduce populations of animal or plant species, we reduce the capacity of an ecosystem to deliver those services."
She pointed to one study showing that three billion birds are missing from North American skies, which has implications for crucial environmental processes such as pollination and seed dispersal for plants. Similar depopulations are taking place in marine ecosystems as well.
"Globally, hundreds of millions of people depend on their local fisheries for income and nutrition — I know my community does — and the decline of fish species leads to less productive fishery systems and undermines the health and welfare of those people that are dependent on those oceans," Shaw said.
There have been global efforts to counter this decline, but they've met with limited success in reversing the downward trends.
In 2010, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity gathered in Japan to establish the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, setting specific goals to halt or reduce the destruction of wildlife.
Shaw said the UN agency started evaluating the success of those targets this year.
"It doesn't look at all," she said. "While we came close to protecting 17 percent of the world's forests, which was a target, we failed miserably to protect the world's oceans and fisheries in the world's oceans."
The UN is set to meet again to establish goals for the next 10 years, but the date of this meeting has been delayed until the first quarter of 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In the meantime, Shaw said it is crucial that governments work with the food industry in particular to fight the loss of biodiversity.
"Production and consumption of food is the major driver of habitat destruction and over-harvesting on the planet," she said. "So the policy actions include working with companies that produce and sell food to make sure that the production of their products is biodiversity friendly."
As for the average consumer, a change in diet could help as well, including eating less red meat. "We need to eat smarter and reduce food waste," she added.
Catching you up on the stories you need to know this morning, mass shooting victims testify on Capitol Hill, the White House outlines its plan to vaccinate kids younger than five years old, and we break down how to protect yourself from monkeypox.
The pharmaceutical giant Moderna says its updated 'bivalent' booster shot provides a stronger immune response against the Omicron variant of COVID-19 specifically. This week, Moderna plans to submit preliminary data to U.S. health officials in the hopes that its new booster will be available later this summer. Dr. Sampson Davis, emergency medicine physician, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
NASA has announced that the first official full-color images will be beamed back to Earth from the James Webb Telescope on July 12. Gregory L. Robinson, the director of the James Webb Space Telescope Program in the NASA Science Mission Directorate, joined Cheddar News to discuss the anticipated image drop. “We expect to see the universe different," he said. "Webb will allow us to see much, much clearer and deeper into the universe."
On this episode of Cheddar Reveals, Professor Laurence Hurst, Director of The Milner Centre for Evolution, discusses the mystery of human evolution that's still baffling scientists: why are humans still evolving, and why has the process sped up? Neville Sanjana, faculty member at NY Genome and New York University, breaks down the latest innovations in CRISPR genetic engineering and its applications from 'designer babies' to curing genetic conditions and diseases; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'The Butterfly Effect.'
Neville Sanjana, faculty member at NY Genome and New York University, joins Cheddar Reveals to break down the latest innovations in CRISPR genetic engineering and its applications from 'designer babies' to curing genetic conditions and diseases.
Professor Laurence Hurst, Director of The Milner Centre for Evolution, joins Cheddar Reveals to discuss the mystery of human evolution that's still baffling scientists: why are humans still evolving, and why has the process sped up?
It can be tough to make sustainable choices, and even harder when sustainable materials don't hold up. Loliware has a solution to the plastic straw problem: its seaweed-based straws are stronger than paper alternatives and once used, can be composted and return to the earth or sea without causing harm. Sea Briganti, CEO of Loliware, joins Closing Bell to discuss the tech behind the straws, new product launches, and more.
Umbilical cord blood banking platform Anja Health raised $4.5 million dollars in a seed round led by Seven Seven Six, a venture capital firm founded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Anja Health offers a personalized, doctor-backed cord blood bank, which lets new parents freeze stem cells from their child's umbilical cord so they can be used to treat diseases in the future. It's a process Anja has called 'Hollywood's best-kept secret,' as celebrities like Kylie Jenner, Serena Williams, and more have all banked their umbilical cord blood. Kathryn Cross, the founder of Anja Health, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
After learning that the suspect in the Uvalde school shooting posted about his intentions on Facebook, activists are urging social networks to make changes. Lena Derhally, a licensed psychotherapist and author of "The Facebook Narcissist," joined Cheddar News to discuss the role social media plays in school shootings. "They're not really invested in taking down hateful content," she said about social platforms."In regards to the shooting, it was 15 minutes before that actual threat. It would be pretty hard for a social media company to trace that threat that quickly. But what they can do better is take down threats and hateful content much faster and more than they're doing now."
Esper Bionics CEO Dima Gazda breaks down how they're creating a mind-controlled bionic hand that guest smarter the more you use it, and what this innovation means for the future of the prosthetics industry.
