Extinction by Humanity - Dayton S

The current census of living reproducing organisms on our planet is believed to be around 2 billion. The key word is “believed”, we have yet to find a way to actually capture and observe every living creature on Earth and we just aren’t sure how many species there actually are on our planet. But we do know species such as the black rhinoceros, Woolley mammoth, and Tasmanian tiger, no longer exist. This is extinction. There have been 5 time periods previously with elevated extinction percentages, known as “the mass extinctions”.

     Everyone on earth currently gets a gold star for competing in what is debatably the sixth mass extinction era, and many theorize this one could be the worst yet with 1,000-10,000 times the baseline rates from before. We are losing 1-5 species annually. While extinction does happen naturally through changing climates and plate movements in the crust, and birth rate of a species being lower than the death rate for a period of time, it is widely accepted that humanity is accountable for extinctions occurring a thousand times more quickly. According to the IUCN Red Lists, one quarter of the mammal species is at risk on extinction. Scientists believe that pollution, land clearing, and overfishing might drive half of the planet’s existing land and marine species to extinction by 2100.







Source: 

National Geographic 

Comments

  1. Colby NewmanSeptember 22, 2021 at 9:47 AM

    I knew that for the most part, humans were responsible for a lot of extinctions. I had no idea that it was that bad. I wouldn't mind if mosquitos or wasps became extinct. I would have no problem what so ever. Mosquitos are just parasites, and wasps are not as efficient as bees at pollinating. Wasps and hornets are also the worst. Kohala's are also at risk of becoming extinct. Which is downright awful. I can't control what we do, or how we interact with nature. If I could, I would make it to where we would stop deforestation. Among other things that are harmful to the environment. I think that we should stop throwing trash into the ocean. My one question is, can we truly find a way to stop ourselves from killing these animals and let nature run its course?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Destiny PerezSeptember 22, 2021 at 10:07 PM

    I really like your blog and how you brought this to my attention. Humans have always been the main cause of extinction with our selfish acts. When hearing about the last to rhinos on earth was just so heartbreaking. Animals are one of the most beautiful creatures living on this planet that bring joy and happiness. If we keep being selfish, every living species will be extinct. It is sad to hear but it’s also reality. We should start making better choices.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog post #2 Deforestation

Image
 Mason Mitchell             To begin talking about deforestation first it helps to understand exactly what deforestation is. Deforestation is the purposeful clearing of forested land. The next thing to look at is why is this problem occurring? Deforestation occurs for multiple reasons. Through history forests have been razed to make room for agriculture and animal gazing as well as to obtain wood for fuel, manufacturing, and construction. The main problem with deforestation is it’s causing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere this speeds up the process of global warming causing climate change to become worse.  So what can we do to solve this issue.  Well there is hope in fact deforestation is starting to decrease in North America because of conservation efforts form multiple non profit organizations. There are multiple move to across our country and our world that deal with planting trees and protecting forests. We can do our part and...
Read more

blog 9 conservation and extinction Natasha Provinse

Image
     This will be the last blog post I  do on this topic, I have been researching and learning about the issues of conservation and extinction for several weeks now and I feel a lot more personally connected to this issue. this exercise has helped me gain a new understanding of the threat we face in our world today. Nobody knows how many species are being lost each year nor the  total number of species that inhabit the earth today.   According to wwf panda organization , "Biologists estimate there are between 5 and 15 million species of plants, animals, and micro-organisms existing on Earth today, of which only about 1.5 million have been described and named. The estimated total includes around 300,000 plant species, between 4 and 8 million insects, and about 50,000 vertebrate species (of which about 10,000 are birds and 4,000 are mammals)." these species are considered   threatened  and about 23 percent of these species are at risk or on the...
Read more

Blog 9.) The Importance of Biodiversity - Dayton S.

Image
Biodiversity is very essential in large ecosystems. The most noticeable, is the resource availability. With plenty of water, comes plenty of insects. The insects pollenate plants, which bring in amphibians and rodents, and fish. This draws in small predators like birds, reptiles, fox, and many more and this keeps going on and on. As long as the biodiversity is large within an ecosystem, it will continue to grow. Reintroducing biodiversity could rejuvenate a declining ecosystem as well, but this needs to be done very intricately so you do not cause a situation like the invasive species which causes a new issue. Why are our ecosystems dying if they can rejuvenate themselves through biodiversity? Well once again we as humans harvest anything we can from ecosystems. This not only hurts an ecosystems biodiversity, but we also stain the ecosystems with particular means of harvesting. For example, loggers use heavy machinery and power tools to do their job. This leaves oil everywhere, damages...
Read more