Sunday, January 23, 2022

After the loss of three giants of conservation, Biden must pick up the mantle


In the final week of 2021, we lost three great luminaries in the fight to protect our lands, waters, and wildlife: former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid; creator of the term “biodiversity,” Thomas Lovejoy; and biologist and .conservationist E.O. Wilson. Their work spanned the globe, many decades, and different fields, but they all left us a shared legacy through their deep connections to nature and the bold conservation actions that will outlive them. 

Now, it is President Joe Biden’s turn to build on that legacy. 

Their commitment to conservation came from a place of love and loss. The unique Nevada desert that Reid treasured as a child was defaced and destroyed. The rainforest Lovejoy explored was burned. Wilson watched species, including those he studied, wink out one by one. As they grieved, each became determined to protect nature, so that nature might in turn sustain us.  

...Scraps of the natural world are growing fewer and smaller. The United States loses a football-field-sized area of natural space every 30 seconds — and with it, our most powerful tool in the fight against climate change. Due to the destruction of natural areas, the United States is squandering the equivalent of 15 percent of nature’s sequestration potential every year...

This is why Biden’s historic commitment to protect 30 percent of America’s lands, fresh water and ocean by 2030 is so important. To save ourselves — to ensure that the plants and animals that clean our air, pollinate our crops and shore up our natural areas against our climate emergency continue to survive — we must stop this careless loss of nature... 


READ ENTIRE COLUMN


An example of how the enviro-left is putting pressure on the Biden administration. Here they use the death of three individuals to promote 30x30. 



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