# 2026: Year Zero for wildlife? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 6, 2019, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2026-year-zero-for-wildlife/836633 "2019-07-06T18:46:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2026-year-zero-for-wildlife/836633/1 "2019-07-06T18:46:26Z")
A friend recently told me about this; I’ll let [them speak for themselves](http://www.climatehealers.org/awakening-to-survival-2026): > [@](#): > > Since 1970 more than half of wild animals have been killed. At the rate we are killing wildlife, we will have virtually no wild animals left by 2026. This loss means whales, penguins, monkeys, koalas, tigers, eagles, giraffes, none of these animals would be left, except in zoos. [And another site here](https://www.preventyearzero.org/research): > [@](#): > > AT CURRENT RATES OF DECLINE, VIRTUALLY 100% OF WILD VERTEBRATES WILL DIE OFF BY YEAR ZERO : 2026 > > LPR2014 reported that 52% of wild vertebrates died between 1970 and 2010. From 1970 to 2010, both human population and human per-capita consumption roughly doubled so that human impact on the planet increased by a factor of 3.8. If we extrapolate an exponential curve that has increased by a factor of 3.8 from 1970 to 2010 to determine when 100% of wild vertebrates would die off, the answer is around 2026. The precise equation for this exponential loss of animals is > > Percent Decline since 1970 = 18.5 \* (exp(#years since 1970 /30) - 1) > > This exponential model for the loss of animal biomass is closer to reality than the standard predator-prey model since human beings deploy newer and advanced technologies to meet consumer demand for the killing of animals, something that normal predators cannot do. For example, as fish populations declined in the ocean, corporations have been deploying satellite imagery and big data software technologies to locate the last remaining fish in the ocean. Our model calculation was corroborated when LPR2016 reported that 58% of wild vertebrates died between 1970 and 2012. Thus, even with just a linear extrapolation, at an additional 3% rate of decline per year, 100% of wild vertebrates will die off by YEAR ZERO : 2026. This seems unlikely to me, but this is the first I’ve given the matter any thought, so I don’t have much invested in it either way. And [they do have numbers](http://www.climatehealers.org/blog/2018/10/21/on-the-year-zero-calculations), I just don’t know if those numbers are correct or even applicable in the way they used them (I’m not a statistician; I’m a snowboarder, eh). If true, it definitely seems like something to be alarmed about tho. So I’m turning to my fellow Dopers on this one. Is the planet doomed to have virtually no newborn wild animals in just 7 years so, or is it considerably less dire than that? What’s the Straight Dope here? ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2026-year-zero-for-wildlife/836633/2 "2019-07-06T19:04:24Z")
‘Biased’ doesn’t even begin to cover that site, and the ‘other site’ was using the same wording, it looks like just the same people with a different name. For better data, looking at actual individual species and ecosystems, try the [IUCN](https://www.iucnredlist.org/). A huge project that’s been assessing conservation on a species level for over 50 years. From there; 27% of species on their database of 98,500+ species are currently assessed as at risk of extinction (at least in the wild) without action. A large number, extremely concerning, but not close to 100% or thereabouts in 7 years. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2026-year-zero-for-wildlife/836633/3 "2019-07-06T19:08:00Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > ‘Biased’ doesn’t even begin to cover that site Oh yeah. From the get-go the bias/purpose is real obvious; that’s part of why it seemed “unlikely”. But bias doesn’t necessarily mean wrong. Plenty of people speak passionately about stuff that is real. The numbers at the Climate Healers (CH) website all come from the National Academy of Sciences or the World Wildlife Fund; are those number incorrect? ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2026-year-zero-for-wildlife/836633/4 "2019-07-06T22:11:02Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > This seems unlikely to me You think? Let’s just put their dodgy-ass math and wild assumptions aside and just apply a tiny bit of logic to this. Just to pick some random examples out of a hat, what exactly do you think is going to eliminate the 30 million+ deer( of all species )estimated to live in the U.S. in the next six and a half years? Every raccoon rooting through your garbage? Every seagull stealing your sandwich on the beach? Every betta fish swimming in a rice paddy in Thailand? It’s absurd. And it kinda pisses me off, because the outlook for global diversity is truly pretty grim. A LOT of big mega-vertebrates are in fact in pretty awful shape, especially large predators. A lot of fish stocks are threatened. Many amphibians are struggling. Habitat loss issues are everywhere. But these sensationalist assholes don’t help. Because by putting out absurd claims it just trivializes the real threats out there. Honestly it makes me want to go on a shooting spree\*. - With my camera of course, for my upcoming gallery show _Morons of the Internet_. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2026-year-zero-for-wildlife/836633/5 "2019-07-06T23:00:47Z")
One can gain a wealth of information by extrapolating current trends. But that doesn’t mean it’s _good_ information. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2026-year-zero-for-wildlife/836633/6 "2019-07-07T03:48:04Z")
They may be _technically_ correct. They’re not saying the die-off would actually happen. They are saying “_at the current rates of decline_, 100% of wild vertebrates will die off by 2026.” That’s a statement of fact about the current rate of decline, not a prediction. ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2026-year-zero-for-wildlife/836633/7 "2019-07-07T10:15:27Z")
I’m old. There has been pending planetary doom as long as I’ve been alive, and I’ve heard every version of it - from climate change, global warming, global cooling, peak oil, nuclear winter, the population bomb – going all the way back to the 60s when we hid under our school desks because missile attacks were coming. The world has been on the brink of total Armageddon my entire life, and the science has _always been settled_. So I learned a long time ago to ignore the doom-sayers. They’ve been shrieking at me as long as I’ve been alive – and I will not insult my own intelligence by giving them a second’s consideration any more. The world (and the animals) will be fine in 2026. And it will be fine after whatever following end-of-the-world event they dream up next. Whenever I see an imminent doom article, I just skip over it. Trust me, you’ll be a lot less stressed if you ignore this stuff. Extrapolation from a small observation window is useless. One of my kids just moved back home. Based on last week, we should have 523 people crowded into this house in just 10 years. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2026-year-zero-for-wildlife/836633/8 "2019-07-07T12:48:11Z")
**pullin** – my position and sentiments on this matter, match yours fairly closely. Decades of experts declaiming on forthcoming doom and woe, for a succession of different reasons – cannot but bring to mind, in the end, boys-crying-wolf thoughts. Concerning various elements in his _Gulliver’s Travels_, Jonathan Swift has at times been suspected of having prophetic powers. The third volume of _Gulliver_, telling of the land of Balnibarbi and its associated territories, is particularly rich in seeming prescience about various human follies and abuses, some of them particularly in evidence a couple of centuries down the line. From what I remember – can’t give a cite, I’m afraid – one of the specialities of the mad scientists or “projectors” who ran Balnibarbi (their most famous programme, being that for extracting sunbeams from cucumbers), was endless successive doom-and-gloom tirades about the perceivedly probable civilisation-ending threat _du jour_ – there was always, without fail, a new one when its predecessor didn’t happen. I’ll admit that there are in real life, plenty of large-scale issues which are worrying – but the sometimes hysterical way in which those who trumpet the threats, do so; tends to have an “overkill” effect on many hearers. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2019, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2026-year-zero-for-wildlife/836633/9 "2019-07-07T17:04:08Z")
Arguably, there is no “wildlife” _now_ - there are virtually no places on Earth (at least, on its surface) that humans can’t reach and indiscriminately kill whatever plant and animal life they find there. There are just places that nobody bothers to, as yet, or have been declared protected, for what that’s worth.