Earth is in the early stages of a sixth mass extinction

EARTH’S sixth great extinction event has already begun. Now science is calling for urgent action to prevent life as we know it going the way of the dinosaurs.

The first five “events” destroyed more than 75 per cent of this planet’s life.

Animals. Plants. Entire ecosystems. The fossil record reveals all were smashed by natural disasters such as asteroids.

It’s happening again: But this time the experts say we are the cause.

Life on Earth is dying at an unprecedented rate.

The journal Science reports more than 320 animal and bird species alone have vanished since the 1500s. Most other animal populations from among the more than five million species on our planet have declined by an average 28 per cent.

One third of all life on Earth is now threatened or endangered.

Remember how we always predicted bugs would inherit the world?

That now looks to be wrong: Studies show these humble creepy-crawlies are among the worst affected with losses representing as much as 45 per cent of their populations in the past 35 years.

Only humanity has thrived: Our population has doubled in the same time frame.

Doomsday looms — without the comet.

What’s causing it?

Wars. Pollution. Hunting. Fishing. Farming.

And climate-change induced natural disasters.

The new all-of-science review by international biologists and palaeoecologists warns all are seriously undermining the ecological health of the planet.

And our struggling ecosystems will increasingly start to hurt humans.

Already the effects are increasingly obvious: The current Ebola outbreak is just one example.

Wars. Pollution. Hunting. Fishing. Farming.

And climate-change induced natural disasters.

The new all-of-science review by international biologists and palaeoecologists warns all are seriously undermining the ecological health of the planet.

And our struggling ecosystems will increasingly start to hurt humans.

Already the effects are increasingly obvious: The current Ebola outbreak is just one example.

WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW?

Bats. Birds. Monkeys. Even mice.

All are among species being forced out of their habitats and into ever-expanding human territory.

Some even thrive amid the rubbish or under the eaves of our sprawling suburbs.

With them come previously unencountered — or at least rare — forms of disease.

Beetles. Butterflies. Worms.

All are vital for the health — and reproduction — of plants.

Insects are responsible for the pollination of 75 per cent of the world’s food crops — yet they are the target of intense insecticide spraying and habitat-changing activities.

The loss of such small creatures is having a trickle-up effect.

Then there are the wars.

As fish stocks vanish in one area, fleets need to move to another. This is already the source of increasing tensions in the South and West China Seas.

Unhealthy habitats also can unsettle streams from their paths — if they’re not already dammed.

Justin Brashares warns in Science that declines in wildlife have been linked to economic and social stresses which lead to exploitative child labour practices and the proliferation of terrorism.

“Leadership must move beyond superficial reactions to elephant and rhino poaching and consider the complicated fate of the billions of people who rely on our planet’s rapidly disappearing wildlife for food and income,”. 

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