Originally a comment by iknklast on They’re gone.

I remember even as recently as 15 years ago my husband and I would sit on the porch watching fireflies. They were abundant. Bullfrogs croaking in the distance, and crickets chirping somewhere unseen…and we live in the city. A small city, to be sure, but a city. Now what I see is squirrels, domesticated pets, and the roar of automobiles.

I’ve been talking about this a long time. People want to focus solely on global warming, and I’ve had this argument – what good is a world where we’ve solved global warming and there are no animals left? We need to focus on the big picture, but we are not good at that. All of them are part of the same interlocked problem. The biggest losses of species are caused by loss of habitat. That loss of habitat comes with increased emissions, plus the urban heat island effect.

The species that are still abundant seem to be those that like living with humans…and other than a few domesticated animals, most of those we don’t like. Dandelions, rats, racoons, and other species that can feed off our detritus.