Extinction: Are we next? - Florida Times-Union
A vast chunk of space rock crashes into the Yucatan Peninsula, darkening the sky with debris and condemning three quarters of Earth’s species to extinction. Five times in the past, the Earth has been struck by these kinds of cataclysmic events, ones so severe and swift (in geological terms) they obliterated most kinds of living things before they ever had a chance to adapt. Now, scientists say, the Earth is on the brink of a sixth such “mass extinction event. “We are now moving into another one of these events that could easily, easily ruin the lives of everybody on the planet,” Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich said in a video created by the school. In a study published recently in the journal Science Advances, biologists found that the Earth is losing mammal species 20 to 100 times the rate of the past. Given the timing, the unprecedented speed of the losses and decades of research on the effects of pollution, hunting and habitat loss, they assert that human activity is responsible. THREAT TO US. Since 1900 alone, 69 mammal species are believed to have gone extinct, along with about 400 other types of vertebrates. Source: jacksonville.com
