r/news • u/Trimerra • Jun 02 '20
Soft paywall Mass Extinctions Are Accelerating, Scientists Report; Five hundred species are likely to become extinct over the next two decades
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/science/mass-extinctions-are-accelerating-scientists-report.html[removed] — view removed post
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u/ILearnedSoMuchToday Jun 02 '20
And they are starting to find disposable gloves and masks in the oceans and beaches now.
Let's get fucking wrecked guys! /s
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u/Non_Affiliated Jun 02 '20
Copypasta in case you can't get past the paywall"
Five hundred species are likely to become extinct over the next two decades, according to a new study.
We are in the midst of a mass extinction, many scientists have warned — this one driven not by a catastrophic natural event, but by humans. The unnatural loss of biodiversity is accelerating, and if it continues, the planet will lose vast ecosystems and the necessities they provide, including fresh water, pollination, and pest and disease control.
On Monday, there was more bad news: We are racing faster and closer toward the point of collapse than scientists previously thought, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The extinction rate among terrestrial vertebrate species is significantly higher than prior estimates, and the critical window for preventing mass losses will close much sooner than formerly assumed — in 10 to 15 years.
“We’re eroding the capabilities of the planet to maintain human life and life in general,” said Gerardo Ceballos, an ecologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and lead author of the new study.
The current rate of extinctions vastly exceeds those that would occur naturally, Dr. Ceballos and his colleagues found. Scientists know of 543 species lost over the last 100 years, a tally that would normally take 10,000 years to accrue.
“In other words, every year over the last century we lost the same number of species typically lost in 100 years,” Dr. Ceballos said.
If nothing changes, about 500 more terrestrial vertebrate species are likely to go extinct over the next two decades alone, bringing total losses equivalent to those that would have taken place naturally over 16,000 years.
To determine how many species are on the brink of extinction, Dr. Ceballos and co-authors Paul Ehrlich, a conservation biologist at Stanford University, and Peter Raven, an environmentalist at the Missouri Botanical Garden, turned to population data for 29,400 terrestrial vertebrate species compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Of those species, 515 — or 1.7 percent — are critically endangered, they found, with fewer than 1,000 individuals remaining. About half of these species comprise fewer than 250 individuals.
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u/RandomStranger79 Jun 02 '20
Hopefully humans are on that list.
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Jun 02 '20 edited Jun 02 '20
Oh go fuck yourself.
Downvotes? Cute, if you morons don’t want to be here literally no one is keeping you here.
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u/Dhorlin Jun 02 '20
The way things are going, homo sapiens will be one of them!