The Other Shoe Drops

It was barely a year ago that a report came out from the World Wildlife Foundation in conjunction with the London Zoological Society that warned terrestrial life forms had declined by a staggering 50% since the 1970s. Well the WWF and LZS have just completed their inventory of Earth's marine life - mammals, birds, fish and reptiles, the lot - and the results are almost identical. We've lost, as in wiped out, about half of the planet's marine life since the 1970s.

Here's a quiz. What hasn't declined by 50% since 1970? What has doubled since 1970? Full points if you guessed mankind. That's right. We've doubled in numbers while every other variety of life has been halved or, in too many cases, fallen extinct entirely.

We've been pretty voracious in our consumption especially when it comes to fish. Our industrial fleets have been collapsing one global fishery after another, "fishing down the food chain."

But, just like the earlier report on the cataclysmic loss of terrestrial life this report on marine life is almost certain to be flushed straight down the memory hole in a matter of days. There'll be no outpouring of concern, no demands for immediate action, nothing. And the price of our utter indifference will be extinction. This is a one-way road and we don't care.