gnarlylove
Senior Member
A book recently came called the [ame="http://www.amazon.com/The-Sixth-Extinction-Unnatural-History/dp/0805092994"]"The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History[/ame]" detailing that current rates of extinction are keeping pace with previous extinctions according to fossil records. 5 extinction events have happened thus far (450 million, 375 million, 252 million, 200 million, and 66 million years ago). The sixth one is happening right now and can you guess the cause?
That's right, WE ARE!
Humans are impacting the Earth at alarming rates and Elizabeth Kolbert has written a beautiful scientific account of this fact. At first man directly killed or exterminated other species. Today we still do this but to the point of being called "overkillers" by ecologists.
Now we have managed to find more ways to exterminate species in indirect ways, that is by incidentally creating conditions that reduce available habitat. Logging, the building of strip malls, ever increasing swaths of farm land are created to sustain humans. This in turn reduces habitat available for other species. We not only destroy habitat but we pollute waterways through road run off, littering, and our favorite toxic chemicals like bleach, ammonia, and detergents. Not to mention our open air sewage, and not just human waste, but all the waste of cows, pigs, chickens etc. across the globe.
Combine this habitat reduction and direct extermination with the least direct way to effect change (called climate change) and you are looking at a sturdy force towards mass extinction. Indeed, by Kolbert’s accounting, we stand to loose one in three species of coral, one in four mammals, one in five reptiles, one in six birds, and countless insects and plants.
“It doesn’t matter much whether people care or don’t care,” Kolbert writes. “What matters is that people change the world.”
Who knew that humanity could effect change and that this change would be bad for us?
That's right, WE ARE!
Humans are impacting the Earth at alarming rates and Elizabeth Kolbert has written a beautiful scientific account of this fact. At first man directly killed or exterminated other species. Today we still do this but to the point of being called "overkillers" by ecologists.
Now we have managed to find more ways to exterminate species in indirect ways, that is by incidentally creating conditions that reduce available habitat. Logging, the building of strip malls, ever increasing swaths of farm land are created to sustain humans. This in turn reduces habitat available for other species. We not only destroy habitat but we pollute waterways through road run off, littering, and our favorite toxic chemicals like bleach, ammonia, and detergents. Not to mention our open air sewage, and not just human waste, but all the waste of cows, pigs, chickens etc. across the globe.
Combine this habitat reduction and direct extermination with the least direct way to effect change (called climate change) and you are looking at a sturdy force towards mass extinction. Indeed, by Kolbert’s accounting, we stand to loose one in three species of coral, one in four mammals, one in five reptiles, one in six birds, and countless insects and plants.
“It doesn’t matter much whether people care or don’t care,” Kolbert writes. “What matters is that people change the world.”
Who knew that humanity could effect change and that this change would be bad for us?
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