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June 20th, 2015 
David Schulberg 
The world is on the brink of its sixth mass extinction, as animals are disappearing 100 times faster than previously, scientists warned in a new report. They also say humanity could be among the first victims of this extinction.
According to the Princeton, Stanford and UC Berkeley scientists,
rates like these have not been seen since the last age of the
dinosaurs some 66 million years ago. Paul Ehlrich of Stanford
says the data “shows without any significant doubt that we
are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event.”
The data demonstrates “without any significant
doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction
event,” Ehlrich, whose work on the disappearance of species
dates back to 1980, said.
The report has been drawn to counter critics who believe the data
is exaggerated. Ehlrich and co-authors seek to demonstrate, using
conservative assumptions, that the new phase is already well
under way, seeing as they are “far above the ‘background’
rates prevailing in the five preceding mass extinctions.”
The background rate is the normal rate of disappearance between
mass extinctions.
“If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions
of years to recover, and our species itself would likely
disappear early on,” lead author Gerardo Ceballos of the
Universidad Autonoma de Mexico said in support.
READ MORE: Earth closer to ‘irreversible changes’
as humanity crosses 4 of 9 planetary boundaries
But the background rate is difficult to estimate, so the
scientists had to improvise with techniques. Humanity has gaps in
its knowledge of what happened over Earth’s 4.5 billion-year
lifespan.
The team used a past extinction rate that was twice as high as
the estimates widely used in previous studies, and compared that
rate to the most conservative estimates. In this way, they
brought the two approximate rates as close to each other as
possible – the current and all-time background rates.
The researchers argue that if the past rate was two mammal
extinctions out of 10,000 species over 100 years, then the
“average rate of vertebrate species loss over the last
century is up to 114 times higher than it would be without human
activity, even when relying on the most conservative estimates of
species extinction.”
They add that their “calculations very likely underestimate
the severity of the extinction crisis because our aim was to
place a realistic lower band on humanity’s impact on
biodiversity.”
The International Union for Conservation of Nature backs up the
alarming news, providing a threat level of 26 percent for mammals
and 41 percent for amphibians – Elrich calls those who made it
into the statistic “the walking dead.”
“Averting a dramatic decay of biodiversity and the subsequent
loss of ecosystem services is still possible through intensified
conservation efforts, but that window of opportunity is rapidly
closing,” the scientists say.
READ MORE: The Great Dying-2? Manmade CO2 levels could
cause repeat of largest mass extinction event
There is a man-made causal chain that leads to biodiversity
reduction, habitat loss, deforestation, overexploitation of
resources and other evils. As species disappear, so do the key
ecosystem services provided by bee pollination, as well as
wetlands water purification. The researchers say we stand to lose
many of those biodiversity benefits within three generations. As
Ehlrich puts it, “We are sawing the limb that we are sitting
on.”
The authors hope their study, published in Science Advances, will
serve to influence policy and propel conservation efforts forward
before the changes become completely irreversible.
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6th mass extinction already here as species disappear 100 times faster – study
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