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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday July 11 2017, @10:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the putting-your-affairs-in-order dept.

Environmental scientists are warning of a sixth mass extinction, pointing to a decline in vertebrate population sizes, even among species of least concern:

Many scientists say it's abundantly clear that Earth is entering its sixth mass-extinction event, meaning three-quarters of all species could disappear in the coming centuries. That's terrifying, especially since humans are contributing to this shift.

But that's not even the full picture of the "biological annihilation" people are inflicting on the natural world, according to a study published Monday [open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1704949114] [DX] in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Gerardo Ceballos, an ecology professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and his co-authors, including well-known Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich, cite striking new evidence that populations of species we thought were common are suffering in unseen ways. "What is at stake is really the state of humanity," Ceballos told CNN.

The authors: Gerardo Ceballos, Paul R. Ehrlich, and Rodolfo Dirzo.

Also at The Guardian and DW.

Related: For the Second Time, We Are Witnessing a New Geological Epoch: The Anthropocene
Crystals Win in the Anthropocene: 208 Manmade Minerals Identified


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 12 2017, @12:58AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 12 2017, @12:58AM (#537877)

    The peer reviewers spew the same prattle. Publishing this makes a mockery of science. It's outright fraud.

    Hundreds of thousands of species will perish, and this reduction of 10 to 20 percent of the earth's biota will occur in about half a human life span....This reduction of the biological diversity of the planet is the most basic issue of our time.

    - Thomas Lovejoy

    Human efforts have been notable for their lack of attention to the living world that supports us all. In the face of the worldwide extinction crisis, we should redouble our efforts to learn about life on Earth while it is still relatively well represented.

    - Peter Raven

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 12 2017, @02:38AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 12 2017, @02:38AM (#537919)

    You obviously haven't been paying enough attention. This story may be a bit sensationalized and predictions too dire, but we have already lost a rather large number of species. If the ocean keeps warming and acidifying then you can bet on a large portion of aquatic life to die off, and that will trigger a chain reaction across the food chains. Possibly we could lose a lot of oxygen producing algae and such, that would put a crimp in the entire world!

    We have been saved by technological revolutions, but we're stripping the topsoil and destroying ecosystems still at a quite rapid pace. It amazes me that there are people such as yourself who are supposedly intelligent yet completely throw away such worries. In this case it is better to play it safe than gamble with the future of the planet.