One of the main culprits in the sixth extinction, Kolbert says, is climate change, but modern agriculture and a rapidly growing human population have contributed as well. By warming the planet, introducing invasive species to different areas, and encouraging the spread of previously contained fungi and viruses, people are killing the life around us.
Here's Kolbert:
"No creature has ever altered life on the planet in this way before, and yet other, comparable events have occurred. Very, very occasionally in the distant past, the planet has undergone change so wrenching that the diversity of life has plummeted. Five of these ancient events were catastrophic enough that they're put in their own category: the so-called Big Five. In what seems like a fantastic coincidence, but is probably no coincidence at all, the history of these events is recovered just as people come to realize that they are causing another one."
We know what mass extinctions look like. And a growing number of scientists have agreed that we are likely causing a new one.
Yet we are doing surprisingly little to curb the tide.
"It is estimated," Kolbert writes, "that one-third of all reef-building corals, a third of all fresh-water mollusks, a third of sharks and rays, a quarter of all mammals, a fifth of all reptiles, and a sixth of all birds are headed towards oblivion."
That adds up to between 30% and 50% of all life on Earth that could be gone by the end of the century — unless we start taking action now.
Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=79872.0
Topic: Mass Extinctions (Read 884 times)