Are We Already in the Sixth Mass Extinction. Reading on the Subject. 2022-07-27. Jorma Jyrkkanen

Has the Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction Already Arrived? Nature March 2011Nature 471(7336):51-7 Project: Quaternary history of vertebrate diversity Abstract and Figures Palaeontologists characterize mass extinctions as times when the Earth loses more than three-quarters of its species in a geologically short interval, as has happened only five times in the past 540 million years or so. Biologists now suggest that a sixth mass extinction may be under way, given the known species losses over the past few centuries and millennia. Here we review how differences between fossil and modern data and the addition of recently available palaeontological information influence our understanding of the current extinction crisis. Our results confirm that current extinction rates are higher than would be expected from the fossil record, highlighting the need for effective conservation measures. More rigorously formulating and testing synergy hypotheses may be especially important in assessing sixth mass extinction potential, because once again the global stage is set for unusual interactions. Existing ecosystems are the legacy of a biotic turnover initiated by the onset of glacial–interglacial cycles that began ,2.6 million years ago, and evolved primarily in the absence of Homo sapiens. Today, rapidly changing atmospheric conditions and warming above typical interglacial temperatures as CO2 levels continue to rise, habitat fragmentation, pol- lution, overfishing and overhunting, invasive species and pathogens (like chytrid fungus), and expanding human biomass 6,7,18,20 are all more extreme ecological stressors than most living species have previously experienced. Without concerted mitigation efforts, such stressors will accelerate in the future and thus intensify extinction 7,20 , especially given the feedbacks between individual stressors 56 . DOI:10.1038/nature09678 SourcePubMed MY THOUGHTS. OUR USE OF PLANETARY RESOURCES LEAVES LITTLE ROOM FOR OTHER SPECIES. ADDITIONALLY WE ARE DEGRADING LAND, AIR AND WATER AT AN ENORMOUS RATE SO THAT AS NATURAL HABITAT IT IS DECREASING IN QUALITY AND QUANTITY SO FAST THAT THERE IS LITTLE REMAINING ROOM FOR OTHER SPECIES. HABITAT LOSS AND DEGRADATION ARE KEY TO SURVIVAL AND THE TREND IS SO OBVIOUS AND WIDESPREAD THAT IT IS INCONCEIVABLE THAT WE ARE NOT IN ANOTHER MASS EXTINCTION EVENT. CLIMATE CHANGE WILL PUT INCREDIBLE PRESSURE ON MAMMALIANS AND DISEASES HAVE SHRUNK AMPHIBIANS. INSECTIVOROUS AVES, VULTURES ARE ALSO IN TROUBLE, LARGE MAMMALS AND ANADROMOUS FISH AND INSECTS ARE ALL SHOWING SIGNS OF POPULATION STRESS. IN THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT, PHYTOPLANKTON, AQUATIC VEGETATION LIKE EEL GRASSES, KELP FORESTS, CORAL REEFS, LARGE PREDATORY FISH ARE ALL IN TROUBLE. I THINK THERE IS SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE TO CONCLUDE THAT WE ARE IN A SIXTH MASS EXTINCTION CAUSED BY HUMANS.

CONCLUSION: WE ARE IN THE SIXTH MASS EXTINCTION AND WE ARE THE CAUSE. OUR FAILURE TO LIVE IN HARMONY WITH THE GREAT ECOSYSTEMS AND WITH DIVERSE BIOTA ARE THE CAUSE.