AFP – Human activities are responsible for the extinction of complete branches of the ‘Tree of Life,’ as indicated by a recent study. The study issues a warning about the looming threat of a potential sixth mass extinction. “The extinction crisis is as bad as the climate change crisis. It is not recognised,” said Professor […]
Species are disappearing at more than100 times the natural rate, according to Stanford University s Paul Erhlich, who said it was yet more evidence the world is facing a sixth mass extinction.
25 May 2021 As those individuals aware of it will have observed, presumably with deep regret, the latest ‘International Day for Biological Diversity’ passed on 22 May with the bulk of the human population continuing to act in ways that destroy Earth’s biosphere at an ever-accelerating rate.
Robert J. Burrowes
Unaware that many authors continue to report the ongoing destruction of Earth’s biodiversity, which is under siege on a range of fronts by unchecked human destruction of Earth’s biosphere as well as particular assaults on Earth’s living creatures, responses to this ‘hidden’ path to human extinction continue to waver between non-existent and token.
By Robert J. Burrowes
In August 2010, the secretary-general of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Ahmed Djoghlaf, warned that ‘We are losing biodiversity at an unprecedented rate.’ According to the UN Environment Program, ‘the Earth is in the midst of a mass extinction of life’ with scientists estimating that ‘150-200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal become extinct every 24 hours’ which is nearly 1,000 times the ‘natural’ or ‘background’ rate.
Robert J. Burrowes
Moreover, it ‘is greater than anything the world has experienced since the vanishing of the dinosaurs nearly 65m years ago.’ See ‘Protect nature for world economic security, warns UN biodiversity chief’.