The Beagle
May 11, 2019
The Beagle Editor,
To protect nature is to protect ourselves
Just as a United Nations scientific review has found that humans are destroying nature at a rate unprecedented in history, Scott Morrison complains about so-called ‘green tape’ and uses fear tactics to warn voters of Labour’s environmental protection stance.
The UN report compiled by 145 authors from 50 countries over three years says that about 1 million animal and plant species are at risk of extinction, saying “ecosystems, species, wild populations, local varieties and breeds of domesticated plants and animals are shrinking, deteriorating or vanishing.”
In light of this substantial report the Federal Environment Minister had no immediate response and the Prime Minister goes on the attack. The Coalition government seem fundamentally incapable of understanding basic biology. The earth is a web of life and we depend on functioning ecosystems for our very survival. We cannot eat coal and drink oil. For instance, without insects as pollinators that ensure our food supply we have a very short time to live. These are simple, understandable facts of life. There is no economy without a viable ecology.
By protecting nature we are protecting ourselves. It’s really quite