After the UN Extinction Report — Now What?

In the meantime, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) believes the key is to appeal to the public by emphasizing the close relationship between people and animals.  IFAW issued a report last month entitled “Thriving Together” in which they make the case that throughout history, humans have relied on animals for our very existence (undeniably true), and in order to achieve sustainable development, we must incorporate wildlife conservation and animal welfare into all our decision-making.

Why This Matters:  The goal of the report was to gain greater public awareness of how close we are to a wave of extinctions that would make life on Earth much more difficult.  But the MSM did not think this story was worth their time, and largely ignored it, according to Media Matters via Ecowatch.  Of the network evening news shows, ABC and NBC made no mention of the UN Report — only CBS did a story on it.  The only cable news shows to discuss it in prime time were CNN and Fox’s Brett Baier. Baier began his show saying “Many environmentalists are in a panic tonight over a new report,” but “as in all such cases, some humans say the report and the response are exaggerations.”  And Baier ended the segment with a climate denier who said “This is politics, not science. The U.N. is trying to expand its base to include climate and species. They are looking for more treaties, more regulation. They have identified a problem, they’ve juiced it up, and put themselves in charge of solving the problem. That is called a self-interested lobbying organization.”  We cannot turn this crisis around unless we can counter the unfounded arguments that Fox News is willing to broadcast in prime time.