As we begin to experience the repercussions of climate change, statistics show that the other animals have been feeling it for decades. The WWF’s Living Planet report puts the number at a loss of 50% of the animal population over the past 40 years.
The steep decline of animal, fish and bird numbers was calculated by analysing 10,000 different populations, covering 3,000 species in total. This data was then, for the first time, used to create a representative “Living Planet Index” (LPI), reflecting the state of all 45,000 known vertebrates.
We focus on carbon and climate change while at the same time we keep “cutting trees faster than they regrow, catching fish faster than the oceans can restock, pumping water from rivers and aquifers faster than rainfall can replenish them.” Humanity isn’t just suffocating itself, it’s wiping out everything else at alarming rates.