Tiki's Guide to Life in Danger

Happy birthday!

Life on Earth is 3,500 million years old today... well, more or less. Living things have certainly been around on our planet for a very long time.

In case you hadn't noticed, 3,500 million is a very long time indeed. (In fact, life may be as much as 4 billion years old!) Imagine that each of those years was one foot in length. How far would that line of feet run for? From Mexico to Canada? From Europe to Japan? Twice round the world? Twenty six times round the world? From your home to your nearest supermarket? Click the answer of your choice.

But now life is in trouble, and the reason I'm afraid is you people. I'll come to that in a moment but first,
a

quick

history

of

Life

on

Earth…

Early life on Earth was very simple -- just tiny blobby things called bacteria.
After a while, slightly different green blobby things called algae began to appear.
These had 'learned' one very special thing: how to use the sun to make food. This was to be the most important development ever for future life on the planet. These tiny green blobs were the first simple plants. And without plants, no animals could exist. If you were to hop into a time machine and go back 3500 million years, you'd quickly die for two reasons: the air you breathed would be poisonous and there would be no food.

So why isn't the air we breathe today poisonous?

Changing the air - Part of the 'food' of all plants is a gas that is poisonous to us animals called carbon dioxide. They slurp this up, along with water and sunlight, to make sugars by a very clever process called photosynthesis. And in doing this, they make what to them is a waste gas called oxygen. I'll bet you know that no animal can live without it. So you see how important these little plants were then and still are today.

The wonderful web of life
Animals began to appear on the planet in a big way about 530 million years ago,
all
crawling,
burrowing
or
swimming
creatures

that lived in the sea. A little after this, plants began to grow on the land instead of just in the sea...
... and were quickly
followed by
animals
which wanted to
eat them.
Then came the dinosaurs...
...and I'm sure
you
know
all
about
those!
Later came penguins, polar bears and,

at the very last-minute

(just 100,000 years ago),

people.


And right from the start, humans began damaging other life and the planet by
using fire carelessly.
and
over-hunting

Modern people are just beginning to understand a little about the web of life and the vital importance of biodiversity. They are beginning to realise that they have damaged it badly and, most importantly, that they depend upon it too. People are animals too, like penguins and porcupines.

Big bangs and mega-deaths
Have you heard about mass extinctions? Probably not...
...but because of people doing so much damage to the planet and to the web of life, lots of animals and plants are dying out completely. That's what extinction is. And once a creature is extinct, that's it. There are no second chances. It's gone for ever.

But there's nothing new about mass extinctions. Ninety nine percent of all the different types of life - called species - which have ever lived are now extinct. What is completely new is that this is the first extinction caused by people and their wasteful and polluting ways. All the other extinctions in Earth's long history seem to have been caused by violent natural events.
The best known of these was the final extinction of the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago.

Less well-known but much worse was a mysterious mega-extinction that happened about 250 million years ago. This was so bad that it destroyed around 96% (96 out of every hundred) of all species of life on the planet.

Understanding mass extinction shows that the global life system is delicate. If it's messed up, it could mean the complete collapse of the life-support systems we all depend upon.

The important lesson to learn from mass extinctions is that they hit complex life hardest. It's things like bacteria and rats and cockroaches that survive -- not people or (sob!) penguins. You have been warned!

Apocalypse soon: the beginning of the end?
Are people really threatening life on the planet? What's the evidence?

One good way to find out what's going on is to look at 'indicators' -- you know, rather like traffic lights.

Green means clear, go-ahead; amber means caution, watch out; and red means stop! I'd say these traffic light indicators are on red. Let's look at some examples of indicators.



Forests - The most famous forests in the world are those of the Amazon in South America, but there many others. Some are in the tropics (tropical rainforest) but most are in Russia and Canada (boreal forest). It is the tropical rainforests which are particularly rich in different types of plants and creatures.
And
people
are
cutting
and
burning
these forests more and more both for their timber and to make new ranch land for raising yet more animals for rich people to eat (poor people can't afford meat). The boreal forests are going fast too, mostly for making paper for newspapers, magazines and offices.


People have already cut down half the world's forests. The Europeans have cut down almost three-quarters of theirs. But what's really scary is that each year an area of forest gets cut or burned down which is larger than Greece, Florida or Bangladesh.

Remember, it's not just the trees that are lost but all the animals whose home it was like monkeys, tigers or parrots.


Lakes, rivers and wetlands - These are home to many species like birds, frogs and fish. Yet in the last 30 years, these creatures have declined by almost half. Particularly worrisome are the frogs and other amphibians. Nobody knows for sure why these creatures are dying so fast but it seems likely that chemical pollution (particularly certain types of pesticide) and global warming are at least partly responsible.


The seas and oceans - As you know, the sea is home to many animals including fish (yum! Sorry but I have a thing about fish) and mammals like seals and whales and dolphins. And, most importantly so far as I'm concerned, it's home to many types of seabirds including penguins like me! And -- you guessed it! -- many of my seabird friends are in the trouble. Our numbers have dwindled by over a third in under 30 years.

Part of the reason wildlife in the seas is having problems is that people are taking much more than their fair share of fish. And it's not as though people even eat all the fish they catch. Lots of the fish are just ground up to make fertilisers or food (fish meal) for other animals which people then eat.

The world's fishing grounds, once home to a wonderful mix of different creatures, are dying as powerful ships with big trawling nets and sonar systems to spot fish shoals suck up millions of tons of fish, including young ones which aren't even old enough to breed and make more fish. Peru once had the world's biggest fishing industry. That collapsed because of over-fishing. The Grand Banks, a vast area of shallow water east of Newfoundland in Canada, used to be bursting with fish like cod. That fishery collapsed in the early 1990s, destroyed by people's greed like the Peruvian industry.

Now another sea is almost fished to extinction: the North Sea (north west Europe). Here, big cuts in the number of fish people can catch have been ordered by governments to try and stop the collapse.

Now, people – never learning lessons and always wanting to make more money - have started fishing in the Antarctic Ocean and are even sweeping up the krill which all the birds like me, whales and seals depend on as well as the fish themselves. And some countries are still killing whales.


Coral reefs - Have you ever seen a coral reef? These are home to myriads of plants and animals rather like the tropical rainforests on land. They are very beautiful too. But they too are in big trouble and many are dying because of what is called bleaching.

What's going on?
Now do you see what I mean when I say life is in trouble?
All the indicators are on red; stop! Help! And the trouble (sorry! I always seem to be having to say this) is you people. You're

• cutting down forests
• covering good land in concrete, buildings and new roads
• polluting the land, air and water (seas, rivers and lakes) because of cars, airplanes, ships, farming chemicals and fertilisers, garbage (especially plastic), sewerage, fish farming
• vacuuming the oceans of fish so that in many parts there are hardly any left
• trying to kid yourselves that there's no problem

All these things cause other animals and plants to die off and become extinct... and they are doing in a big way. They either starve to death or are poisoned. But the biggest cause of this man-made extinction is loss of habitat - the destruction of places in which creatures used to live.

1. climate change and ozone-destruction caused by pollution from humans' machines could completely upset global weather patterns and cause catastrophe. No-one yet knows what will happen but we do know it is already starting
   
   
2. over-hunting for food, for fur or, nowadays, fun. Thousands of creatures have been wiped out by people. Some of the most famous are the dodo, the passenger pigeon and the great auk
   
   
3. introducing alien species. Sometimes people do this by accident but often it's deliberate. Cats and rats in Australia have driven many once common creatures almost to extinction by hunting them
   
4. destroying the natural world by cutting and burning rainforests, covering the ground with more houses, office blocks, factories and roads or using life-destroying farming methods
   
   
5. genes are in trouble too. If you've read my guide called messing about with life, you'll know that they are the building blocks of life. And yes, they're in trouble because of what people are doing to them. This is partly because of genetic engineering and partly because of something called the gene pool.

The common sense solution is to learn from nature and be sure to preserve that wonderful mix of genes which gives us all that even more wonderful variety of life.

Life really is in peril
If a comet hits the planet and causes big trouble for life like it did 66 million years ago in the fifth mass extinction, nobody is to blame. Comets aren't alive and they don't think. But people do think and that, perhaps, has turned out to be more dangerous for other life than any comet. It is 'thinking people' ('wise man' Homo sapiens – huh!) that are bringing about this frightening mass extinction. Not mindless comets or volcanoes.


Anyone with a little vision can see the indicator traffic lights are on red. But hardly anybody seems to be looking – particularly not politicians and the people who run corporations.
If lots of people drive cars and don't stop at the traffic lights, you know what happens: there's a huge crash and people get hurt or killed. Well that's what is starting to happen to our planet and its life. So why don't people care? Why are they trashing the planet with their big feet? Why are they already gobbling nearly half of the world's available food energy supply?


And
what
do
you
think?

What you Kids can do about it
Today, you kids hold the future of the whole planet in your hands. It is you who inherit the Earth. Adults - including your parents and family - are doing the damage today because many of them simply don't realise what they are doing to the planet. But you do! So what you choose to do as you get older can make a big difference.

Here's what you can do to start the ball rolling:

At home and at school

• Recycle
  everything
  you
  can.
  
  
• start composting
  waste
  food,
  vegetable peelings
  and stuff.
  
  
• wear your clothes
  more
  than
  once
  before
  you
  wash
  them.
  
  
• use energy-efficient light bulbs, shower heads etc. Don't take baths.
  
  They
  waste
  water
  and
  energy.
  
  
• have vacation fun near home so you don't have to do loads of travelling - particularly on airplanes. They are
  mega-polluters
  
  
• grow some of
  your
  own
  organic
  food.
  
  
• get your parents to live closer to their work (or the other way around) and near your school. Then none of you has to
  travel
  so
  much.
  
  
• use bicycles and buses rather than cars. Walk even.
  
  
• buy items made or grown locally rather than from far away. This cuts out 'food miles'. Also, try my shoppers' quiz to see how
  ecofriendly
  you
  are.
  
  
• if you have a back yard or garden at home, see if you can make a pond. And how about making a wildlife refuge too? You know, somewhere for birds to nest (make bird boxes) with bushes and small trees - even heaps of sticks and leaves where small animals can hibernate in the winter. A tidy neat garden is not a good place for wildlife - especially if you spray pesticides and use artificial fertilisers.
  
  
• find out more about our beautiful planet and remember that you have to share it with around 15 million other life forms (species), all of which have a right to be here.
  
  
• form a local club with your friends, parents and school teachers. Get people who know about ecology to come and talk. Raise funds to help Earth-friendly charities like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Rainforest Action Network, Survival, Sierra Club - there are lots.
  

Good luck! The future of all of us depends on what you kids of today do to make sure tomorrow comes for people, penguins and polar bears…

What do you think about about life in danger? Have you any good ideas about what we can do to make things better? If you do, please write to me. As long as your message is sensible and friendly, I promise to reply. I will also put your message on my Friends page. Click to email me now! Please don't delete the subject line of your email which should read: "Life in danger message for Tiki".

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