Antoine Clarke at Libertarian Samizdata writes
I get paid to write the occasional article about environment issues. One story which intrigues me is the often repeated claim that “Half of all living bird and mammal species will be gone within 200 or 300 years”. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the source of much of this garbage.
Because half of all the world’s mammal species are supposedly in Australia, this equates to five species of mammal becoming extinct every year, or one mammal extinction every 2.4 months.
I don’t suppose I need to tell Australian readers that this claim is nonsense. The Bio-diversity Audit Project (word file) estimates 331 species: 305 indigenous and 26 exotic species. The FAO estimates the total number of mammal species in the world at over 4000. That is, Australia has about 7 per cent of the world’s mammal species. It took me all of ten minutes to get these numbers using Google, but Clarke apparently couldn’t be bothered.
Having fact-checked Clarke, I thought it might be worth looking at extinction rates.
The ABS reports
17 of the 270 or so species of mammal that lived in Australia in 1788 are now presumed extinct, under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Ten of these species were lost in the past 100 years.
Many more species have become extinct in large parts of their former ranges.
To lose half our mammal species in 300 years, the rate of extinction would have to rise from 10 per hundred years to 50 per hundred years. This is a pessimistic projection, but with rapid climate change it could come to pass. Certainly it’s more likely than that the articles Antoine Clarke gets paid to write will contain anything of value.
John Quiggin 
You are right the extinction statistics are often exaggerated. But species numbers can be reasonably stable even though biodiversity can be declining so there can remain important conservation issues.
(1) My figures based on Environment Australia (1996) are. For Australia of the estimated 20,000 plant species 76 have gone extinct since 1788. Corresponding figures for freshwater fish are 195 (nil); marine fish 4000(90), amphibians 203(3), reptiles 770 (nil); birds 777(20), mammals 268(19).
(2) Of the Australian birds there has been a single very probable extinction since 1788 on the mainland namely the Paradise parrot which has not been reliably reported since November 1927. (A few crazy Queenslanders believe it exists and that Queensland bureaucrats are concealing the fact).
(3) It is important to understand that there are two major ways species have been viewed. The typological viewpoint (used above) sees species as clearly differentiated categories so individual variations are unimportant the average is what matters. Subspecies and races are discrete invariant units. An alternative populational view focuses on within-species variations and geographically dispersed populations.
(4) Conservation biologists focus increasingly on the populational view because it is within-species variations that give rise to natural selection and therefore species evolution. Julian Simon, Bjorn Lomborg and others therefore oversimply the issue by saying biodiversity problems don’t arise because species loss is relatively low. They are using the typological viewpoint.
(5) In populational terms because Australia is facing significant contractions of habitat for many species and the consequent loss of local populations this does represent a biodiversity loss. Species ranges have contracted rapidly in Australia, particularly for mammals but also for dryland birds. The general issue is global too. Many species exist in contracting and fragmented habitats and this is a major global conservation concern.
(6) Finally, in my view, the obsession with extinction is flawed morally. Animal populations do need to be given consideration in our social welfare function and not just in terms of an on/off variable that summarises whether they are extinct or not. This supplements the instrumental biophilia values that make our life pleasurable by being able to interact with nature.
(7) Global climate change has caused the extinction of most species in the past and it can certainly occur again.
Thanks for the plug. However, please spell my name correctly.
As to your comment: I agree that climate change (global or localized)threatens to wipe out large numbers of species of mammals (though probably it’s worse for some other life forms). It is also obviously true that human development puts intense pressure on the natural habitats of many plants and animals. That’s one reason why I support free migration of people from shantytowns to the developed world and why I oppose zoning regulations that prevent redevelopment within towns.
What my posting refers to is the junk science where politics and sensational journalism mix with speculative theories. The reason I focus on actually extinct species is because there are people claiming that a species becomes extinct every 20 seconds.
Like murder, extinction is an observable fact, unlike “endangerment” which is more like “I feel threatened”, which are subjective points of view. If the predictions of socialists is that capitalism will destroy half of the world’s species in 200 years, unless we stop capitalism now, then the fact that the rate of extinctions is not matching the propaganda is relevant.
Show me the body!
Spelling corrected now: JQ
Apart from the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to ‘sensational journalism’ about ‘[unnamed]people claiming that a species becomes extinct every 20 seconds’, the claim that these predictions are being made by socialists about capitalism is nothing short of a deliberate smear and lie, not that that’s anything new to ‘journalists’ of this calibre.
You say that global warming is not a threat to animal species-well that’s all right then!
The debate about extinctions is confused so can I again try to make a few points.
1.Extinction is a natural process. 99% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct. What matters is the background rate at which extinctions are occurring.
2. Climate change can be devastating for species. During the Permian period 300 million years ago 95% of all species went extinct.
3. Ms. Clarke (no relation) is correct in saying that there are ‘horror stories’ — some by apparently reputable commentators — regarding current extinction rates. Wilson (1992), perhaps the most famous of modern commentators, estimates extinction rates across all species of 30-50 species per day. That gets close to about 1 every 30 minutes.
4. These ‘pessimistic’ forecasts are based on island biogeography theory that relates species loss to habitat loss and, in particular, to the loss of tropic rainforest.
5. These estimates are inconsistent with what has happened in terms of actual extinction rate experience which is much lower than this. This has been siezed on by Julian Simon, Bjorn Lomborg and commentators by Ms. Clarke to suggest the whole thing is a huge scientific fraud.
6. It might be an erroneous view but there do remain three concerns. (i) Specific types of fauna (e.g. Australian mammals) have had a bad extinction experience and a dramatic reduction in habitat. My own guess is that barring global warming effects these extinction rates won’t grow rapidly in the future due to public and private initiatives to protect species. (ii) Even for species which have not shown high extinction rates (e.g. mainland Australian birds) there has been a dramatic contraction in habitat and from the viewpoint of the populational species concept, a dramatic reduction in biodiversity. This is a real problem for dryland bird species. (iii) The prospect of climate change for species conservation is very stark — particularly if the change is rapid.
7. To repeat myself, in my view the obsession with A Noah’s Ark view of conservation issues is wrong. We should do better than this. Saving remnant populations is inconsistent with the populational species viewpoint and limits the potential for natural selection. It also limits the instrinsic value that we all derive from being able to interact with nature and to live in environments that are not entirely plastic and concrete. Finally there are moral reasons that most of us implicitly accept for protecting biodiversity and non-human life generally.
I found debating libertarians and the anti-environment types interesting in that they often show a strong case of strong confirmation bias regarding environmental matters: no human induced global warming, no biodiversity loss or problems, no problems with pollution, ozone hole a myth, DDT is safe to use on humans, -Andrew Bolt says there’s no problems with Murray river, etc, etc relying on fringe science or biased lobby groups. It’s like talking to Young Earther’s.
I’m no expert on the matter so I look to mainstream science, not greenies for my info, and they are the ones who are showing and pushing for greater understanding and concern about the environment.
Yes greenies sometimes lie and exaggerate -I don’t condone it- but they are more often than not taking the line science is taking than the opposing side.
BTW yes natural extinction and death is natural, so it’s Ok to kill people! There’s a name for this fallacy but I can’t remember it off the top of my head. And regardless the likely extinction due to current climate change is in a context of human induced stress on the environment and the island effect limiting the chance of species migration so it would be worse this time round. (Limits natural selection r-i-g-h-t! just like medicine on humans:)
I find Libertarians and conservatives with their obsession with free markets and the importance of the economy at the detriment of the environment amazing given the free work the environment does for economies: insect pollination, water/air filtration, drug resources etc Have a go at calculating the cost to world agriculture if we lose insect pollinators .
‘To repeat myself, in my view the obsession with A Noah’s Ark view of conservation issues is wrong. We should do better than this’
OK How?
Simon, Some of the questions you pose suggest you have a defective sense of vision. The Noah’s Ark view of conservation implies you preserve the minimum necessary to ensure a species survival. By suggesting we do better than this I am suggesting we conserve widespread populations of given species across a broad range of habitats for moral, intrinsic and evolutionary reasons.
To say that extinctions have occurred throughout history is not to condone killing anything. In terms of conserving species it is to say that the background species extinction rate is important.
Evolution and natural selection is the process by which new species are created. This relies on intra-species variation which suggests trying to conserve populations rather than just making sure each standardly-defined species survives.
“If the predictions of socialists is that capitalism will destroy half of the world’s species in 200 years, unless we stop capitalism now, then the fact that the rate of extinctions is not matching the propaganda is relevant.”
Gentlemen, we have a wingnut!
It’s not completely pukkah to promote my own site in these august comments, but this is such a good photo under these circumstances.
You hurry back here after..
Dishonest lobbyists and journalists pushing a pro industry line will be judged by their children and their children’s children.
And if there is a god-well good luck, you arseholes.
Harry no that sounds good, some of your other comments made me think that you advocated a hands off, it happens anyway approach.