Sixth Mass Extinction as dangerous as Climate Crisis
Humanity’s behavior is causing the Sixth Mass Extinction. The continued burning of coal, oil, and natural gas, deforestation, rampant use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, overfishing, plastics, pollution, are causing insects, animals and plants, that humans rely on for our survival, to go extinct at an alarming rate. Scientists say the Sixth Mass Extinction is as dangerous to human safety and survival as the climate crisis and global heating.
A lot of people understand that we need to end the age of fossil fuels. But slowing ecological destruction, ending the sixth mass extinction (the first mass extinction caused by human behavior), and protecting biodiversity is often viewed as less important than solving climate change.
Everytime industry deforests, extracts resources, pollutes, and degrades the land and water as part of production, and everytime we buy their products, we are harming the ecosystems we rely on for survival. We do this without the consent of life that resides within these ecosystems.
We rely on biodiversty for our survival - Plankton, trees, and other plants produce oxygen, food, medicines, maintain healthy soil, filter water, and create shelter and products. Plants also act as carbon sinks and help keep the climate stable. Animals, both domesticated and wild, provide labor, food, tools, improve soil health, reduce wildfires, disperse seeds, provide medications, and act as companions. Insects pollinate our crops and provide honey, beeswax, silk, and other products. Fungi is a source of food, essential for baking, and provides medications like antibiotics and anticoagulants. Bacteria and fungi in soil acts as a carbon sink, helps produce healthy crops, and keeps our microbiome and immune systems strong. The microbes in soil can be harmed or killed by overuse and chemicals, which threatens biodiversity.
Ultimately, the health and survival of other species and their habitat is connected with the health and survival of humanity. Protecting and caring for biodiversity, in all of its forms, is the same as protecting and caring for ourselves and the people around us.
Read below for more information:
“Biodiversity refers to the variety of living species on Earth, including plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi. While Earth’s biodiversity is so rich that many species have yet to be discovered, many species are being threatened with extinction due to human activities, putting the Earth’s magnificent biodiversity at risk.
All of the Earth’s species work together to survive and maintain their ecosystems. For example, the grass in pastures feeds cattle. Cattle then produce manure that returns nutrients to the soil, which helps to grow more grass. This manure can also be used to fertilize cropland. Many species provide important benefits to humans, including food, clothing, and medicine.
Much of the Earth’s biodiversity, however, is in jeopardy due to human consumption and other activities that disturb and even destroy ecosystems. Pollution, climate change, and population growth are all threats to biodiversity. These threats have caused an unprecedented rise in the rate of species extinction.”
National Geographic, Biodiversity
“When humans destroy forests, grasslands, swamps, coral reefs and other living systems, we are not only harming other species but also destroying our own food supplies, subjecting our homes to extreme weather and polluting our air and water. Though we treat conservation as an altruistic pursuit — a special interest championed by a passionate few — it’s also a selfish cause. We should approach conservation not as an opportunity for heroics, but as an obligation to the relationships we depend on for survival.”
New York Times, Opinion | Those Adorable Endangered Creatures Are Not the Point
“Leaders from around the world are gathering in Montreal this week at the UN COP15 Biodiversity Conference to address an urgent crisis: the loss of our natural world.
Global biodiversity levels have fallen to 75% compared to preindustrial levels–well below the 90% limit needed to maintain important ecological processes that are crucial to human survival, such as pollination…Yet, COP15 has been delayed four times–and attracted comparatively little public or media attention.
The biodiversity crisis and climate change go hand in hand.
Protecting animal welfare and our natural environment is important in itself–but the fact that the destruction of ecosystems exacerbates climate change makes the biodiversity cause all the more urgent..The WWF estimates that an alarming 15% of greenhouse gas emissions are caused by the destruction of forest ecosystems.
Fortune, The COP no one wants you to know about
“Extreme land use combined with warming temperatures are pushing insect ecosystems toward collapse in some parts of the world, scientists reported Wednesday.
The study, published in the journal Nature, identified for the first time a clear and alarming link between the climate crisis and high-intensity agriculture and showed that, in places where those impacts are particularly high, insect abundance has already dropped by nearly 50%, while the number of species has been slashed by 27%.
The insect apocalypse is coming. Here's what you can do about it
These findings raise huge concerns, according to Charlotte Outhwaite, the lead author on the study and researcher at the University College London, given the important role of insects in local ecosystems, pollination and food production, and noted that losing insects could threaten human health and food security.
"Three quarters of our crops depend on insect pollinators," Dave Goulson, a professor of biology at the University of Sussex in the UK, previously told CNN. "Crops will begin to fail. We won't have things like strawberries.
"We can't feed 7.5 billion people without insects.’”
CNN, Parts of the world are heading toward an insect apocalypse, study suggests
“Even conservative calculations show the world is in the midst of a sixth mass extinction that's being caused by our species — and is likely to lead to humanity's demise if unchecked, scientists reported Friday.
The scientists' analysis, published in the open-access journal Science Advances, follows up on more than a decade's worth of warnings about a rapid loss of global biodiversity. Many experts say the loss has risen to the scale seen during five previous global extinction events — the most recent of which occurred 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs died off.
… the extinction rate since 1900 has been eight to 100 times higher than the expected background rate, the researchers said. "The particularly high losses in the last several decades accentuate the increasing severity of the modern extinction crisis," they reported.”
NBC, Scientists Build Case for 'Sixth Extinction' ... and Say It Could Kill Us
“Species loss also erodes the services biodiversity provides us. These include reduced carbon sequestration that exacerbates climate change, reduced pollination and increased soil degradation that compromise our food production, poorer water and air quality, more frequent and intense flooding and fires, and poorer human health. Even human diseases like HIV/Aids, Ebola, and Covid-19 are the result of our collective indifference to the integrity of natural ecosystems…
Short-term interests, an economic system that concentrates wealth among a few individuals, the rise of right-wing populism with anti-environment agendas, and financed disinformation campaigns designed to protect short-term profits, mean it’s unlikely we’ll be able to make changes at sufficient scale to avoid environmental catastrophe. A ghastly future seems almost assured.
However, the grim outlook does not justify inaction. On the contrary, we could potentially limit the damage if societies around the globe embraced certain fundamental, yet achievable, changes.”
Daily Maverick, The sixth mass extinction is happening now, and it doesn’t look good for us
More Reading:
The Conversation, Capitalism is killing the world’s wildlife populations, not ‘humanity
NY Times, Has the climate change blinded us to the biodiversity crisis?
Scientific American, Extinction Risk May Be Much Worse Than Current Estimates
Forbes, Here’s Why Climate Change Gets The Spotlight But Biodiversity Doesn’t
We need animals to survive - but first, we need to include them (ifaw.org)
The Crucial Years, A Fast-Emptying Ark: The World Grows Quieter by the Day
Huffington Post, World Wildlife Day: Why We Need Wild Animals