Mass extinction – a growth industry
Now some good news. This time it isn’t an asteroid. It’s us:
The evidence is incontrovertible that recent extinction rates are unprecedented in human history and highly unusual in Earth’s history. Our analysis emphasizes that our global society has started to destroy species of other organisms at an accelerating rate, initiating a mass extinction episode unparalleled for 65 million years.
That is the conclusion of a study published Friday by scientists from Stanford, Princeton, and the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico. Climate change, pollution and deforestation are key factors. The Independent reports:
Scientists at Stanford University in the US claim it is the biggest loss of species since the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction which wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
“Without any significant doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event,” said Professor Paul Ehrlich, at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
“Species are disappearing up to about 100 times faster than the normal rate between mass extinctions, known as the background rate.”
Unless the study authors, who describe their estimates as “conservative,” were being too conservative: