Climate change vs fishing: what is the world's greatest environmental threat?
Al Gore has told the Guardian's Leo Hickman that America's changing political landscape , namely (in his view) climate change. But while climate change may be very bad for the environment, is it actually the biggest thorn in Mother Nature's side?
Based on species extinction - a common scientific measure of environmental threat - the answer has to be, categorically, no.
According to eminent geologist Professor Anthony Hallam's book (page 192, if you have it handy) overfishing is responsible for far more extinctions than climate change:
'On the basis of an extensive review of palaeocological, archaeological, and historical data Jeremy Jackson and his American colleagues have put forward the hypothesis that humans have been disturbing marine ecosystems since they learned to fish. Extinction by overfishing outstrips all other pervasive human disturbances, including pollution, degradation of water quality, and anthropogenic climate change ... turtles, whales, dugongs, manatees, cod, swordfish, sharks, and rays were formerly very abundant in most coastal ecosystems ... oysters were so abundant in British coastal regions in the nineteenth century as to constitute food for the poor; now that count as a luxury, despite their being widely farmed ... Severe overfishing drives species to ecological extinction because overfished populations no longer interact significantly with other species in the community.'
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