We are currently in the 11th hour of a mass extinction crisis. The majority of Earth’s human population is either willfully oblivious or too consumed with their own short-term interests to bother addressing it. Media coverage of the crisis is so sparse as to be practically nonexistent.
Over the past 540 million years there have been five mass extinctions, during which it is believed 95 percent of species, primarily marine animals and vegetation, met an untimely end. Yet it can be argued that extinction is a natural process which accelerates evolution and promotes speciation. More than 99 percent of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. What, then, makes the current crisis so very different?
The difference is that the current crisis is a direct result of human activity. Every ecosystem on the planet is in notable decline as a consequence of human impacts. Humans presently consume 50 percent of Earth’s available freshwater and 40 percent of all organic matter produced by photosynthesis (i.e., food), leaving the rest of the planet’s species to compete for the insufficient remainder. As a result, 50,000 species go extinct every year. Scientists such as Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson now agree that one half of all contemporary species of flora and fauna will be extinct by the year 2100. One quarter of all mammals face extinction in the next 30 years, according to a recent study by United Nations scientists. Ninety percent of all known large fish have disappeared from the oceans in the past 50 years.
Even by the most conservative measures, the rate of extinction has increased 100 percent based on previous figures. Biologists like Wilson believe the true rate to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times previous rates. To date, around 1.5 million species have been discovered but estimates of existing species range at about 10 million and as high as 100 million. Ranging, therefore, between “best” and worst case scenarios, 2.7 to 270 species are snuffed out of existence each day. Species forecast to go extinct within our lifetimes include the Black and Javan Rhinos, the Siberian Tiger, and the Red Wolf. By 2010 the last wild Sumatran and Bornean Orangutans could disappear.
To consider ourselves immune to the consequences of this crisis is not only shortsighted, but quite simply incorrect. The scientific community has highlighted the rapidly declining amphibian population as one of the harbingers of imminent mass extinction. The resiliency of amphibians has allowed them to survive the past four mass extinctions. In recent years, the unprecedented extinction of 200 amphibious species as a result of a single infectious disease, called chytridiomycosis, has heightened concern in the scientific community. Pandemic disease is a very real threat and the spread of virulent pathogens is not limited to animals. With a narrowing species count, the chance of disease jumping from animals to humans and vice versa increases dramatically.
The evidence before us is frightening and undeniable. The specter of our own extinction is a reality, and we must adopt a dramatic shift in both thought and action or suffer the consequences. As surely as this crisis was caused by human activity, so too do we have the ability and obligation to solve it. Education and action are the keys to reversal. Reducing our waste streams, our unchecked expansion, and our culture of limitless consumption must happen now. With extinction accelerating daily, the urgency cannot be overstated.
Please visit local informational resources (such as the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle) to support the conservation of habitat and endangered species.
The Mass Extinction Crisis
We are currently in the 11th hour of a mass extinction crisis. The majority of Earth’s human population is either willfully oblivious or too consumed with their own short-term interests to bother addressing it. Media coverage of the crisis is so sparse as to be practically nonexistent.
Over the past 540 million years there have been five mass extinctions, during which it is believed 95 percent of species, primarily marine animals and vegetation, met an untimely end. Yet it can be argued that extinction is a natural process which accelerates evolution and promotes speciation. More than 99 percent of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. What, then, makes the current crisis so very different?
The difference is that the current crisis is a direct result of human activity. Every ecosystem on the planet is in notable decline as a consequence of human impacts. Humans presently consume 50 percent of Earth’s available freshwater and 40 percent of all organic matter produced by photosynthesis (i.e., food), leaving the rest of the planet’s species to compete for the insufficient remainder. As a result, 50,000 species go extinct every year. Scientists such as Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson now agree that one half of all contemporary species of flora and fauna will be extinct by the year 2100. One quarter of all mammals face extinction in the next 30 years, according to a recent study by United Nations scientists. Ninety percent of all known large fish have disappeared from the oceans in the past 50 years.
Even by the most conservative measures, the rate of extinction has increased 100 percent based on previous figures. Biologists like Wilson believe the true rate to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times previous rates. To date, around 1.5 million species have been discovered but estimates of existing species range at about 10 million and as high as 100 million. Ranging, therefore, between “best” and worst case scenarios, 2.7 to 270 species are snuffed out of existence each day. Species forecast to go extinct within our lifetimes include the Black and Javan Rhinos, the Siberian Tiger, and the Red Wolf. By 2010 the last wild Sumatran and Bornean Orangutans could disappear.
To consider ourselves immune to the consequences of this crisis is not only shortsighted, but quite simply incorrect. The scientific community has highlighted the rapidly declining amphibian population as one of the harbingers of imminent mass extinction. The resiliency of amphibians has allowed them to survive the past four mass extinctions. In recent years, the unprecedented extinction of 200 amphibious species as a result of a single infectious disease, called chytridiomycosis, has heightened concern in the scientific community. Pandemic disease is a very real threat and the spread of virulent pathogens is not limited to animals. With a narrowing species count, the chance of disease jumping from animals to humans and vice versa increases dramatically.
The evidence before us is frightening and undeniable. The specter of our own extinction is a reality, and we must adopt a dramatic shift in both thought and action or suffer the consequences. As surely as this crisis was caused by human activity, so too do we have the ability and obligation to solve it. Education and action are the keys to reversal. Reducing our waste streams, our unchecked expansion, and our culture of limitless consumption must happen now. With extinction accelerating daily, the urgency cannot be overstated.
Please visit local informational resources (such as the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle) to support the conservation of habitat and endangered species.
http://www.zoo.org/conservation/conservation.html
http://www.zoo.org/support/donations