We are in the midst of the sixth, and swiftest, mass extinction of the planet
“Humanity has so far played the role of planetary killer, concerned only with its own short-term survival. We have cut much of the heart out of biodiversity. The conservation ethic, whether expressed as taboo, totemism, or science, has generally come too late and too little to save the most vulnerable of life forms.”--Edward O. Wilson
The extinction rate today is catastrophically high, estimated between one thousand and ten thousand times the rate before human beings began to exert intense pressure on the environment.
The time period prior to this massive destructive phenomenon is termed the ‘Edenic period’ by scientists.
In Edenic times extinction rates averaged one species per million per year. The Edenic rate of new species formation was slightly greater than one species per million each year.
“Actually, the species birthrate was slightly higher than the species death rate, allowing the standing global number to grow slowly through geological time. Biodiversity...is today about twice as great as that averaged over the past 450 million years.”--Edward O. Wilson
The Edenic period, the period of natural biodiversity as measured by paleontologists, began with the Phanerozoic Era (450 million years ago) and ended with about 10 million years ago with the ascent of Neolithic people.
“Three independent measures have been used to arrive at the present species extinction rate; the methods are persuasively consistent...
...Although it is possible to predict species extinction for the near future--say, over the next decade or two--such a projection is impossible for the more distant future. The obvious reason is that the trajectory depends on human choice. If the decision were taken today to freeze all conservation efforts at their current level while allowing the same rates of deforestation and other forms of environmental destruction to continue, it is safe to say that at least a fifth of the species of plants and animals would be gone or committed to early extinction by 2030, and half by the end of the century...
...If, on the other hand, an all-out effort is made to save the biologically richest parts of the natural world, the amount of loss can be cut by at least half.”--Edward O. Wilson
The extinction rate steeply accelerates between 2030 and 2100, with planetary annihilation jumping from 20% to 50% in 70 years; or extermination devouring a fifth to half of all earth’s species. Part of the reason for this drastic leap is due to the dwindling of areas that support life; as territory disappears, species densities become compacted into smaller areas. Each land unit concentrates more biodiversity; more is gouged with each unit cut; and increasing competition for space leads to eventual ecosystemic collapse. un-figured prediction factors, involve the effect of species disappearance from crucial niches, such as the loss of a bat that is the sole pollinator of a specific flowering plant or tree, or of termites which form the principal staple of a South American anteater. As ecosystems begin to collapse, the process may increase in unforeseen ways due to breaks in cycles of biotic energy distribution. If left unchecked, the extinction potential predicted within a 100 year span of time, surpass the rate of dinosaur extinction tenfold.
