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http://web.archive.org/web/20070607101209/http://www.amnh.org/museum/press/feature/biofact.html
NATIONAL SURVEY REVEALS BIODIVERSITY CRISIS - SCIENTIFIC EXPERTS BELIEVE WE ARE IN MIDST OF FASTEST MASS EXTINCTION IN EARTH'S HISTORY
Crisis Poses Major Threat to Human Survival; Public Unaware of Danger
WHAT:
The American Museum of Natural History and Louis Harris and Associates, Inc., in conjunction with the opening of the Museum's new Hall of Biodiversity, developed a nationwide survey titled Biodiversity in the Next Millennium. The survey reveals a startling gap in understanding between the scientific community and the general public concerning a current crisis in sustaining "biodiversity" - the variety and interdependence of the Earth's plants and animals.
HIGHLIGHTS:
Seven out of ten biologists believe that we are in the midst of a mass extinction of living things, and that this dramatic loss of species poses a major threat to human existence in the next century.
In strong contrast to the fears expressed by scientists, the general public is relatively unaware of the loss of species and the threats that it poses.
This mass extinction is the fastest in Earth's 4.5-billion-year history and, unlike prior extinctions, is mainly the result of human activity and not of natural phenomena
Any species that can't adapt to a 150PPM increase in CO2 over 150 years is just not worth saving.