2015
Volume 15, Number 3, pp. 160-176
The sixth mass extinction and chemicals in the environment: our environmental deficit is now beyond nature’s ability to regenerate
Rosemary A. Mason
Hunter’s Hollow, Penmaen, Swansea SA3 2HQ, Wales, UK
Two papers about the future of the planet appeared within a month of each other (June/July 2015): Accelerated modern human-induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction was the first (5 pages long). The 6 authors calculated the average rate of vertebrate losses over the last century and compared it with the background rate of losses. They estimated it to be up to 114 times the background rate and asserted that this rate of losses of biodiversity indicated that a sixth mass extinction is already under way. The authors described themselves variously as ecologists, field biologists, paleobiologists or population biologists, but all held two beliefs in common: that the conservation of natural ecosystems is essential to human health; but that the accelerated losses of biodiversity are a result of human activity. Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene epoch: Report of the Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on planetary health was the second paper (56 pages, with 23 authors). At least 10 of the authors were associated with the Rockefeller Foundation, although only one curriculum vitae acknowledged the fact. Sarah Whitmee was seconded to the Foundation to serve as lead author of the Report and member of the Foundation’s secretariat. One author worked as an environmental health scientist in the Office of the Science Adviser at the United States Environmental Protection Agency and was lead author of a recent paper Biodiversity loss affects global disease ecology, which made no mention of pesticides. Most of the remainder are eminent public health doctors. The Rockefeller Foundation funded the initial research on genetically modified organisms in the early 1940s and founded the science of molecular biology, a highly reductionist programme aimed at “understanding” life. The Rockefeller Foundation supports biofortification of crops: the introduction of nutrients into crops by genetic engineering techniques for the supposed benefit of third world countries. The persistent and increasing global contamination of water and air by long-acting biocides, particularly formulated glyphosate and the neonicotinoid insecticides, are toxic not only to the poor, but to the rich as well. The Rockefeller Foundation’s early involvement in eugenics research and its subsequent support for depopulation are unlikely to be consummated before the sixth mass extinction.
Keywords: biodiversity, genetically modified organisms, human health, pesticides, water contamination