Half of the World's animals - GONE?!

Scientists have devised a way to accurately monitor the number of living animals on the planet right now. This new tool has been dubbed the "Living Planet Index," or LPI. It reflects the state of all 45,000 known vertebrates by analyzing 10,000 different populations, covering 3,000 species in total. The number of wild animals on Earth has halved in the past 40 years, according to this new analysis. These creatures across land, rivers and the seas are being annihilated as humans hunt them to extreme degrees, and pollute or destroy their habitats. The Zoological Society of London's director of science Ken Norris as said, "If half the animals died in London zoo next week it would be front page news, but that is happening in the great outdoors. This damage is not inevitable but a consequence of the way we choose to live." Nature was essential for human well-being. We have lost one half of the animal population and knowing this is driven by human consumption, is clearing a call to arms and humans must act, according to Mike Barratt, director of science and policy at WWF. More of earth needs to be protected from development and deforestation, while food and evergy has to be produced in a sustainable manner.

There is a lot more to this article in the later 3/4, but this is a good section that I'd like to share my thoughts on. I'm not trying to sound like one of those people that just complain about how humans are destroying nature and how we have to do something about it right this instant. That's not going to happen with how humans are, at least not on a large scale. Governments are not going to dedicate any amount of money or time to preventing ecological problems, unless it's to one-up an opposing country, or that country has no pressing matters and is fairly well off in a political and economical sense. They're too focused on war and being the best, and trying to deal with human ethics, rather than the basic "Hey, why don't we all just stop killing our planet first, then deal with trying to kill each other with nuclear weapons." While I am in no way trying to say that we should just ignore this problem, people need to realize that they can't wait for a law that says you can't throw away [insert miscellaneous item here] and then follow the rules. Humans have to take this into their own hands, spread the word and hope that their acquaintances, friends and family have the heart, and/or time to help the cause. It has to start small, and off the radar. Kind of like a revolution.