The scientific journal Science Advances published the article "The accelerated loss of species of life due to modern humanity: the beginning of the sixth mass extinction."
The authors of this article claim that the Earth has entered the sixth "mass extinction of species", explaining this by the fact that current rates of extinction of species already exceed those that preceded past similar periods. In their study, scientists, even minimizing extinction estimates, come to the conclusion that the average level of extinction of various animal species over the past century is about 8-100 times higher than the acceptable “background value”. If over the past 114 years (since 1900) an indicator of 9 species would have been an acceptable rate for the extinction of vertebrates, then in practice a value of 468 was obtained (69 mammals, 80 birds, 24 reptiles, 146 amphibians, 158 fish). Among amphibians, there are 7,300 species, and about 100 of them have disappeared since 1980.
Conducted studies and calculations show an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity over the past centuries, indicating that the sixth mass extinction has already begun. Averting dramatic biodiversity loss and consequent destruction of ecosystems is still possible with intensive life conservation efforts, but that window of opportunity is rapidly running out.
Biologists warn that the ongoing extinction "will be irreversible on a human scale, as it took hundreds of thousands or even millions of years for the living world to overcome the consequences of past similar mass extinctions for the restoration of biological diversity." An important and, unfortunately, rather obvious conclusion that scientists come to is the fact that the cause of the active extinction of species that has occurred in recent years is human activity. In particular, we are talking about population growth, resource consumption (especially by rich people) and economic inequality.
See also anekdotig:
- Newsletter: " The amazing world of nature in the best environmental photos of 2015 according to BMC Ecology " (August 6, 2015)
- Article: " 9 limits of the Planet and how we already stepped over 4 of them ."