{"id":7346,"date":"2018-11-08T06:52:41","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T06:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=7346"},"modified":"2019-02-14T08:04:50","modified_gmt":"2019-02-14T08:04:50","slug":"loose-language-from-wwf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2018\/11\/08\/loose-language-from-wwf\/","title":{"rendered":"Loose language from WWF"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I've been reading the 2018 <em>Living Planet Index<\/em>, something best read in daylight. \u00a0I was alerted to it by a headline and link in\u00a0<em>Climate Action<\/em>. \u00a0The headline was:\u00a0<a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/login.climateactionprogramme.org\/lt.php?s=744b073903e2d0fc56d5e3a12fa0bf25&amp;i=794A2352A39A9286\">60% of wildlife has been wiped out by humans since 1970, WWF finds<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I thought to myself: \"That can't be true\", and of course it isn't.<\/p>\n<p>My first thought was cavalier sub-editing at Climate Action, but WWF seems just as culpable. \u00a0Compare these quotes from the report:<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Page 6<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>\"The astonishing decline in wildlife populations\u00a0shown by the latest Living Planet Index \u2013 a 60% fall in just over\u00a040 years \u2013 is a grim reminder and perhaps the ultimate indicator\u00a0of the pressure we exert on the planet.\"<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Page 9<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>\"The latest index shows an overall\u00a0decline of 60% in population sizes between 1970 and 2014.\"<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Page 13<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>\"The Living Planet Index has recorded an\u00a0overall decline of 60% in species population\u00a0sizes between 1970 and 2014.\"<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Page 90<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>\"The latest index shows an overall decline of 60% in population sizes between 1970 and 2014.\"<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So far, so consistent, although I did wonder about the phrase\u00a0<em>population sizes<\/em> as this is quite different from the\u00a0<em>wildlife\u00a0<\/em>that Climate Action used. \u00a0It was only on <em><strong>page 92<\/strong><\/em> that all was revealed:<\/p>\n<p>\"Average abundance\u00a0of 16,704 populations\u00a0representing 4,005 species\u00a0monitored across the globe\u00a0declined by 60%.\"<\/p>\n<p>\"The global index, calculated using available data for all species and\u00a0regions, shows an overall decline of 60% in the population sizes\u00a0of vertebrates between 1970 and 2014.\"<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So, here we have it. \u00a0The 60% doesn't apply to all\u00a0<em>wildlife, <\/em>or all species on the planet. \u00a0It applies only to the specific populations of a relatively small number of species that WWF has been monitoring over the years \u2013 and these were (understandably from WWF's point of view) all vertebrates. \u00a0I could not find an explanation of this methodology in the report, but maybe I missed it.<\/p>\n<p>This is bad enough, of course, though not yet as catastrophic as was reported. \u00a0The Guardian, meanwhile: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2018\/oct\/30\/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds\">wrote<\/a>:\u00a0\"Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, leading the world\u2019s foremost experts to warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens civilisation\" which isn't true either ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I've been reading the 2018 Living Planet Index, something best read in daylight. \u00a0I was alerted to it by a headline and link in\u00a0Climate Action. \u00a0The headline was:\u00a060% of wildlife has been wiped out by humans since 1970, WWF finds...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}