Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
The world is about to experience its sixth mass extinction event, and the very future of humanity could be at stake, a group of scientists claim in a new study. The group was led by Paul Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies in biology at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment claim in a new study.
Ehrlich and his colleagues, who published their findings in the journal Science Advances, said that quick action is needed in order to save threatened species and habitats, but caution that the window to make the changes needed to prevent another mass extinction is closing.
In a statement, Ehrlich said that his team’s study shows “without any significant doubt” that the world is currently entering the sixth great mass extinction and that even by the most conservative of estimates, species are vanishing at a rate of nearly 100 times that typically observed between mass extinction events (a statistic known as the background rate).
Humans accused of precipitating a global biodiversity crisis
The researchers used fossil records and extinction counts from a vast array of different records, and compared what they refer to as a highly conservative estimate of current extinctions with a background rate estimate twice that used in most previous analyses. By doing so, they were able to bring the two different estimates as close to one another as possible.
By focusing on vertebrates, the type of creatures for which the most reliable modern and fossil data exists, they determined that even the lowest estimates of the difference between background extinction rates and their contemporary counterparts justified the conclusion that the human race is precipitating what the authors refer to as “a global spasm of biodiversity loss.”
The increasing human population has led to an increase in consumption and economic inequity, as well as the drastic changing or out-and-out destruction of natural habitats. In fact, people have had a tremendous impact on the environment, including the clearing of land for farming and settlements, the introduction of invasive species, and the carbon emissions that have driven climate change and ocean acidification in recent years.
How concerned should we be?
“Extremely concerned,” the professor told redOrbit via email, adding that in order to prevent a possible mass extinction, we should “give women full rights and opportunities” and make sure that “every sexually active person has access to modern contraception and back-up abortion to hopefully set human population size on a slow trajectory of shrinkage.”
In addition, Ehrlich said that people need to do everything in their power to “transition away from burning fossil fuels, curb unnecessary consumption – especially among the rich – which stresses resource supplies,” and “develop and implement more efficient ways of using water.”
He told redOrbit that large creatures with relatively small population size faced the greatest risk of extinction as things stand now, but added that the threat was “severe across almost all groups of animals and plants” – and yes, that includes humans. But the authors write that a true sixth mass extinction can still be avoided through “rapid, greatly intensified efforts to conserve already threatened species, and to alleviate pressures on their populations” (such as climate change).
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