What should I be doing to help reverse this?

[Roch]

How do we seem to be heading in this direction even though we are constantly educated about the state of affairs?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54091048

[David1819]

Not a lot one individual can do.

One day, our sun will become depleted of hydrogen and explode taking the whole solar system with it. There will be no trace of any earthly existence. 

[lookout]

Unforgiveable man-made destruction.

[Roch]

Not a lot one individual can do.

One day, our sun will become depleted of hydrogen and explode taking the whole solar system with it. There will be no trace of any earthly existence. 

That is a long way in the future. The decline in wildlife is happening at an incredibly more rapid rate than the metamorphosis of our Sun.

[Steve_uk]

It's very serious. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54118769

[Roch]

It's very serious. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54118769

Yes I saw this. And the story about the glacier the size of Britain that has multiple water-filled fissures running through it, and which is on course to break-up and melt.

I'm not a massive fan of Thunberg or Extinction Rebellion but I am now resigned to the view that there does seem to be the need for some global, green, peace-fostering takeover of power.

How on Earth this could be achieved (see what I did there?) I really don't know.

[David1819]

That is a long way in the future. The decline in wildlife is happening at an incredibly more rapid rate than the metamorphosis of our Sun.

Well you could stop buying anymore books written by Nick Kollerstrom. Using paper to print that is a waste of tree. 

[Roch]

Well you could stop buying anymore books written by Nick Kollerstrom. Using paper to print that is a waste of tree. 

I've only ever bought one. It's meticulously researched. I'm only part-way through but it's looking likely that the Asian lads believed were taking part in a drill that day.  There were shootings at Canary Wharf that morning and it is suspected that the shootings were of three of the four lads in question.

[QCChevalier]

How do we seem to be heading in this direction even though we are constantly educated about the state of affairs?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54091048

I don't think you need to worry too much.

I don't trust anything that comes out of the BBC, and I mistrust David Attenborough, who has also been linked here.  I think both articles are alarmist and most likely untrue, or if true, then a misrepresentation of what is actually happening with the aim of stoking alarm.

What the BBC and David Attenborough are referring to is something called the Anthropocene extinction.  It's a theory.  Apparently, the Earth has been through several mass extinctions.  This latest one is allegedly caused by human activity, which may well be true, but I find it more likely that if there is a mass extinction occurring, it has multiple causes, not just human.

If you want, I can go into greater detail to show you why I think there is no mass extinction happening, but for now, I'll stick to general principles.  I am not denying that Man has an ecological problem; the point I am making is that 'extinction' is possibly the wrong conceptual frame of reference for the discussion.  A thing to bear in mind is that the extinction of species is normal in Nature, and actually desirable.  Nature is Darwinian.  Think of the animal world metaphorically as a tree that must be pruned of its weak branches in order to be strong, sturdy, fecund and fruitful.  It is an ugly and nasty reality in some ways, but it is necessary.  I'd like pandas to stick around, but if pandas can't adapt to changes in their environment, whether anthropogenic or otherwise, then pandas must die out.  Nature demands it.

It's likely that, eventually, humans will go extinct.  Or, if not that, then it is likely we will evolve into something else, or somethings else.  Nothing stays the same - which you know - but you also need to know that nothing lasts forever.  One day you and I must die.  Ultimately, one way or the other, humans as a species will no longer be here in recognisable form, or at all.