The Holocene—or Anthropocene—Extinction is the sixth mass extinction in Earth's 4.5 billion year history. It is entirely the result of the human degradation of forests and rainforests, grasslands and wetlands, coral reefs and mangroves, and human encroachment on nature. Almost one million species of flora and fauna worldwide face extinction in the coming decades. According to a study published this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, "515 species {are} on the brink (1.7% of the evaluated vertebrates). Around 94% of the populations of 77 mammal and bird species on the brink have been lost in the last century. Assuming all species on the brink have similar trends, more than 237,000 populations of those species have vanished since 1900.

This is irreversible.

The road to ruin is paved with good intentions: of the 20 targets set out by the 2010 Convention on Biological Diversity in Aichi, Japan, none have been fulfilled. Humans are a superpredator: our fangs are greed, our greed is our demise. We are imprisoned in a psychic game of inurement; death by the smoothing of edges. But Gaia finds a way.

All proceeds of this single will go to the World Wildlife Fund, to support their fight against climate change by protecting the Earth's biodiversity.


Links:
www.pnas.org/content/117/24/13596
rebellion.global
support.worldwildlife.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=main_onetime&s_src=AWE1700OQ18618A01526RX





The road to ruin is paved with good intentions

Hell is full of good meanings

Heaven is full of good works


The earth owes you precisely nothing

And you assume she will adapt to your needs!

She’d rather test how little you need

She decides how much she gives

Of what you need


I have a vision

Of panelled rooms in taupe

Carpeted richly

Reminding a nodding audience

That it doesn’t matter

(It doesn’t matter)

We were fucked last night and still slick tomorrow

It was a gross fuck arrhythmic, lacking eye contact

Comes with a squinty rictus, licked one index finger

A foreknowledge of deeds that say

I wanna dig and squeeze and scratch that itch, baby


It’s not wrong if grave consequences

Precede careful reasoning

It’s not our fault, it's your profligacy

It’s everyone’s responsibility

Maybe it’s shielded in a film of good

But the results are perfunctory


He doesn’t know what to do

He makes excuses down the highway

On the scenic route

He tilts his head to the side

He furrows his brow with careful words

How do you think he pays for all this?

But he laments the light

Because he recognizes beauty

He should recognize the imperilment of beauty

He believes in law and government

(like I strain to)

He sits in the cold

Watching killer whales feast on herring spawn

(My negative number will not, instead knows)

Only exploded stomachs in technicolour stretches

Yeah it's called plastic and it lives in you too


I have been led to another place

But the room I picture remains the same for 200 years at least

Nodding at hidden truths

We suspect but fear to acknowledge

Yeah the earth is dying, what’s your point?

How rich can we get and how normal can we make it?

“Remember that I have the right to do anything to anybody.”

So let’s get fucking rich.


We are extremely small

And have made up our minds too early

How long will we pray to the god of adaptability?

Like I add repetition to this song

Like I add chance to this unpredictability.


We accept the solidity of expiration dates

Death to ourselves and everyone else, to

The Pinta Island Tortoise

The Caribbean Monk Seal

The Canarian Oystercatcher

The Mariana Mallard

The Dusky Seaside Sparrow

The Mexican Grizzly Bear

The Javanese Tiger

The Saudi Gazelle

The Scimitar Oryx

The Forest Ox

Garrido’s Hutia

The Dinagat Bushy-Tail Cloud Rat

The Wondiwoi Tree Kangaroo

The Japanese Sea Lion

The Golden Toad

The Conondale Gastric Brooding Frog

The Black-Faced Honeycreeper

The Saint-Helena Earwig

The Morona-Santiago stubfoot toad

The Christmas Island shrew

The San Quintin kangaroo rat

The Kauaʻi ʻōʻō

The Socorro sowbug

The Scarlet harlequin toad

The Angel Island mouse

The Aru flying fox

The Cryptic Treehunter

Spix's Macaw

The Monito skink

The Alagoas Foliage-gleaner

The Danube delta dwarf goby

The Sardohoratia sulcata

The Atelopus petersi

The Manombo

The Po'ouli

Chapman's pygmy chameleon

The La Hoya minute salamander

The Eastern Puma

The Pyrenean ibex

The Central rock rat

The Yangtze River dolphin

The Kihansi spray toad

The Selmunett wall lizard

The Western black rhinoceros

The Northern White Rhinoceros

The Vietnamese Javan rhinoceros

The Plectostoma charasense

The Burdur spring minnow

The Christmas Island pipistrelle


Every single one of them is a miracle of evolution

A million year old teething splay of small change that is gone

Gone