Thread by @BjornLomborg

Be wary: "we're losing a million species in next decades" of 8 million

We heard the same story almost 40 years ago:

The US official "Global 2000" report from 1980 claimed we'd see up to 2 million species die from 1980-2000
cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs…

We're losing a million species in next decades"
We heard it 40 years ago:
"Civilization facing worldwide disaster"

We're losing a million species in next decades"
We heard it 40 years ago:
"Grim outlook for world's future"

We're losing a million species in next decades"
We heard it 40 years ago:
Newsweek warned us of "A Grim Year 2000" August 4, 1980

We're losing a million species in next decades"
We heard it 40 years ago:
Time Magazine 8/4/1980, Vol. 116, Issue 5

We're losing a million species in next decades"
We heard it 40 years ago:
New York Times headlined the findings under "Dead as the proverbial dodo"
(July 31, 1980)

We're losing a million species in next decades"
We heard it 40 years ago:
Associated Press: "Government Study Sees Gloomy Future for World" July 23, 1980

We're losing a million species in next decades"
We heard it 40 years ago:
Financial Times "A planet heading for trouble" February 15, 1982

Notice, this does *not* mean that there is no problem with extinction. We have likely pushed up the species extinction rate 100-1000x.
But this doesn't translate into 12.5% of species extinct in a couple of decades — rather about 0.7% in 5 decades

Tackling extinction is worthwhile, but has to compete with the many other challenges, we face
Panic on some issues means neglecting others, often more important issues
Here the UN survey of global priorities: education & health before forests
data.myworld2015.org

And reading back, it is interesting to see the same mechanisms working again:
17 environmental organizations said the Global 2000 report "painted perhaps too bright a picture."

Because it is always worse than you think

(from Time Magazine, 8/4/1980

The report was wrong about species loss. We didn't lose 2 million species. We have till 2010 lost 872 documented species
(this is certainly an underestimate, but not anywhere close to even 1% of the Global 2000 claim)
iucnredlist.org/search

The report was wrong about species loss. It was also wrong on a lot of other points, like an impending oil crisis in the 1990s

And Global 2000 expected food prices to double by 2000

They instead declined by 67%...