"If this rate of extinction continues, it will take a million years for life to recover, and it is likely that our species itself will also disappear and at a fairly early stage," said the lead author of the study published in the journal Science Advances
There is no longer any doubt: we are now entering a mass extinction that threatens the existence of humanity. This is the bad news from a group of researchers at Stanford, which also includes Paul Ehrlich, a researcher in the field of population behavior in biology and a senior fellow at the Woods Stanford Environmental Institute, who has been warning about the danger for years.
Ehrlich and his colleagues call for swift action to conserve threatened species, populations and habitats, but warn that the window of opportunity is closing fast.
"The study proves without a doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event," Ehrlich said.
Ehrlich mostly studies the human population but he has also published studies on repeated extinctions. In 1981, he published the book "Extinctions: The Causes and Consequences of Species Disappearance." In his research, he linked different fields in biology, including joint evolution (the evolutionary arms race, AB), on race, gender and economic justice, as well as on the danger of nuclear winter in terms of wildlife populations and species loss.
There is general agreement among scientists that extinction rates have reached levels not seen since the dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago. However, some challenged the theory, underestimating the intensity of the crisis.
The new study, published in the journal Science Advances, shows that even at the most conservative estimates, species are disappearing at a rate XNUMX times greater than the normal extinction rate (the background rate).
"If this rate continues, it will take a million years for life to recover, and it is likely that our species itself will also disappear and at a fairly early stage," said lead author Gerardo Cablos from the Autonomous University of Mexico.
A conservative approach
By examining the fossil record and measuring the current rate of extinction from a variety of records, the researchers compared taking a very conservative estimate of the current rate of extinction with an estimate of a background rate twice as high as those widely used in previous analyses. In this way, they provided two estimates - one for the current rate of extinction against the background rate of extinctions, as well as a hypothetical situation according to which the rate of extinctions is constant, and tried to get them as close as possible.
The researchers focused on vertebrates because they have modern data as well as reliable fossils. The researchers asked whether even the lowest estimates of the difference between the background rate and current extinction rates still warrant the conclusion that we are experiencing a "global convulsion of biodiversity loss." The answer: absolute yes.
"We emphasize that our calculations underestimate the severity of the extinction crisis, because our goal was to set a realistic lower limit for humanity's impact on biodiversity," the researchers wrote.
The human population grew rapidly, the per capita consumption and the economic inequality caused the change or even the destruction of natural habitats. The list of long-term effects includes:
• Clearing forests for the purpose of using land for agriculture
• Ease the migration of invasive species
• Carbon emissions driving climate change and ocean acidification
• Toxins that harm ecosystems
According to the data of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which publishes an official list of threatened and extinct species, the danger of extinction now hovers over about 41 percent of all amphibian species and 26 percent of all mammal species.
"There are examples of species all over the world that are actually walking dead," Ehrlich said.
When species disappear, essential services of the ecosystem are also lost, such as the pollination of crops by bees, the purification of swamp water, and more. At the current rate of species loss, humanity will lose most of the benefits of biodiversity within three generations. "We are sawing the branch we are sitting on" said Ehrlich.
hope for the future
Despite the gloomy forecast, according to Ehrlich and his friends, there is a significant way to stop the process. "Avoiding a sixth mass extinction will require rapid efforts, and in particular in the preservation of the species that are already threatened by easing the pressures on their populations - mainly loss of habitats, overexploitation of these species for economic gain and fighting climate change," write the authors of the study.
In the meantime, the researchers hope that their work will help increase species conservation efforts and the maintenance of ecosystem services, and will influence public policy.
to the notice of the researchers
8 תגובות
False prophets seem to exist in every place and time
By and large, according to the models, the population will reach a saturation point, followed by a collapse of the human fabric as we know it. After the collapse (which will follow another chain of events such as a new bacterium that will emerge and spread quickly due to warming, density or any other estimate) there will probably be a small (relative) amount of people left... but most of them will be scattered and without means (relying on technology is a joke... it won't be new technology then). The question is whether the elite layers will survive, which is certainly possible (especially if preparations are already in place). As for the governments, here too, the president of the United States will probably be fine... but he will probably be quite alone. Either way, that's the end of every balloon
Regarding the human, I have the feeling that they are trying to scare beyond what will really happen in order to save the other animals
But this is not good because it may damage scientific credibility in a few years man will stand and continue to develop all over the planet,
But with regard to the other animals, man is probably like an asteroid that hit the earth,
It is doubtful that man will disappear in the short time spans,
He is one of the strongest survivors in the history of life on earth, his ability to adapt to different foods and adaptation to different ecological diversity, even in the most difficult conditions man managed to live,
But if it can definitely reach a state of collapse in the ability to provide food in quantities that the world is used to
And then billions will die, but not all of the human race, in addition, there could be a collapse into a kind of Middle Ages where the quality of life becomes worse, but it could be,
For example, the desalination of water in Israel is simply a bypass of nature's natural cycle,
You can take a desert place close to the sea where there is almost no precipitation and simply pour all the water you need
Soon it will also rely on solar energy,
So man will probably live on earth for quite a long time
As for the big animals, the situation is the worst, the real loss is the saddest, it also happens in our tiny country
The division into small living areas that are cut off by roads and railroads and various fencing of innumerable facilities cause those cut off living areas to perish with all the animals in them,
If I am in the city many times I choose to walk even half an hour once I have reached the side of our metropolis in the center
And I mistakenly thought that I would go to some satellite settlement. I thought it was like walking in the city. I found out that it is simply an almost impossible task, life-threatening and a nightmare for a person as well, it is simply designed for traveling by car, real drainage canals, concrete walls, highways, fences, so that the urban area actually extends far beyond the city to the villages and why between them,
It takes a lot of planning to create a sequence for living areas, by and large Israel and also the absolute majority of countries in the world have failed in this in many places, we are already destroyed after all, even if you consider yourself a lover of animals and nature, you are part of the total destruction with a very small difference from someone who really doesn't care.
According to many sources, studies and surveys, the world is in the midst of a sixth extinction,
Since it is already agreed that we are in the anthropogenic geological period,
That is, the human era, after all the extinction will also be called the anthropogenic extinction,
Successful sex is measured by the length of the period in which it took place,
When comparing the life spans of many creatures
For those of human beings it turns out that man is not a successful being,
The dinosaurs lived tens of millions of years,
The human species (Spines) has existed for about 200 years,
Since species that were not "successful" became extinct
If the human species manages to exist for more than one million...
It would be an evolutionary miracle,
The possibility presented in the ideas of "science fiction" is
A population of mechanical creatures that evolved from the human race
and do not need a natural environment,
i.e. an environmentally/naturally dead world.
A "pink" future...
As long as there is no global trend of slowing population growth (there is a slowdown and even a stop in the Western countries, Eastern Europe and China. In the third world countries there is an acceleration that more than compensates for this), it will not be possible to prevent the damage to the environment and man-made extinctions.
More and more people have to survive (at a standard of living that rises even in third world countries) which causes a suffocation of resources.
Thanks to globalization, even a poor millet farmer in an African country is interested in a telephone, electricity and a meat meal. At this rate, resources will not be able to be recycled at the rate of their utilization.
The likelihood that man will become extinct in the wave of extinction sounds a bit extreme to me. It seems more likely to me that the human population will eventually be reduced (either by choice or through wars/diseases/famine) to a small percentage of the current population.
The survivors will live a life of relative reduction and poverty in a world with scant biological diversity. The irony is that those survivors will probably be descendants of today's wealthy elite who could afford to prepare for this time.
There is a fundamental flaw in the logic of the conclusions
Extinction of various species of animals does not mean that humans will become extinct!
Humans are not required to answer to the laws of evolution
They are now setting the rules through technology and science
Unfortunately today people are divided and aggressive mainly because of religion and nationalism
And it is going to change for the better as part of the evolution of mass consciousness
The nations of the world will unite into one human nation that will take responsibility for the earth and all its inhabitants
Humanity has no way to fight extinction
Because it is an integral part of the evolution process.
Those who believe in the involvement of extraterrestrials on Earth,
Will expect to be repopulated with new species instead of the extinct ones.
Encouraging, we said.