Imagine a world where a third of the Earth's species simply do not exist. No elephants roaming the African plains. No colorful coral reefs where bright little fish grow up. No orangutans swinging in the trees in Indonesia.
The world is undergoing a "biological genocide", the level of progress of which is 1,000 times higher than not long ago expected by pessimistic ecologists. Perhaps this is due to human activity. Perhaps for some other reason.
According to official figures published by the Living Planet Index, wildlife numbers have dropped by an average of 67 percent since 1970. By the end of this decade, it will fall by 75%. If extinction continues at the same rate, 100% will be reached in 2026. What's happening?!
A panel of experts from many fields of science told the UNILAD community that more than 90 percent of all organisms that have ever lived on Earth have become extinct and we are currently in the sixth mass extinction, the likes of which have not been observed in 66 million years.
Extinction is occurring at an alarming rate. Up to 200 species of plants, insects, birds and mammals disappear from this planet every 24 hours.
According to research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, global populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles declined by 58 percent between 1970 and 2012. But today, in 2018, more than two-thirds of the animal world has become extinct.
See what the experts have to say and heed their warnings:
Professor of Biology at the University of Winchester, Andrew Knight:
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A mass extinction event is a situation where 50 percent or more of a species die out. The biggest tragedy of our time is that we ourselves are destroying other species with which we share the planet. Even our beloved beloved lions, for example, in the Mole National Park in Ghana, have become 90 percent extinct in 40 years due to the military and other conflicts in this country.
The dinosaurs became extinct 66 million years ago. This happened in the Triassic-Jurassic era, when the entire flora and fauna was rebuilt on Earth - probably due to some kind of global climate change. Before that, there was the so-called “Great Extinction” of the Permian period, when 96% of the species became extinct. The climate and the change in the geological situation were also the reason for this. But what is happening now?
Sailesh Rao, Executive Director, Climate Observatory:
No other major extinction event in the past has been caused by one species. It seems that we are the only species destroying this planet. We lose three percent of the species a year. At this rate, 100 percent of all species will die out by 2026. And as soon as the last elephants and bears die, we will be in line.
Keegan Coon, director and producer of Cowspiracy:
We are now in the era of the largest mass extinction not seen on this planet for 65 million years. The leading cause of the extinction of species around the world is industrial livestock raising, that is, raising animals for food production.
To this end, we clear massive areas of natural habitat of endangered species, making room for future livestock. For hundreds of years, everything went great, until the critical line of no return was passed.
Now, due to the death of various microbes, other flora and fauna, important for animal husbandry, we will soon see 1.2 billion people die of hunger. In the new realities, animal husbandry no longer has the resources to continue to feed everyone in this world.
And these deaths from hunger will be just the beginning, since then massive migrations of mankind will begin and, as a result, climate and food wars for pieces of land where you can still grow at least something.
Dr. Callum Roberts, Professor of Marine Flora and Fauna:
In an effort to feed a growing population, 2.7 trillion marine animals are scraped from the ocean every year. As a result, even massively breeding, aggressive species that were previously considered “resistant to extinction” are now facing extinction face to face.
Not so long ago, marine biologists believed that the oceans would be lifeless by about 2048, but now, as we can see, everything is happening so quickly that the main flora in the Ocean will die during the lifetime of the entire living generation.
Commentary: as usual, highly respected academic citizens, busy with their microscopes and test tubes, cannot see beyond their noses and therefore begin to misuse pronouns, in particular the pronoun WE. We are, we are, we killed the king, we dirtied the planet, we started a war and so on.
Who are we? We, in particular, are definitely out of business. Dear gentlemen from universities, too, are out of business. However, in general, everything is listed correctly: the planet is actually being methodically destroyed by someone and this is happening globally.
In science fiction, this process is called terramorphing. Usually it is produced by advanced civilizations for the destruction of some and the settlement of other species. All together people, even if 6 billion all as one tried very hard and strained to destroy 100 species of the planet, even with nuclear weapons.