Aurora Starchild
Scientists are saying that the Earth is currently experiencing a “sixth mass extinction.” In a viral 60 Minutes segment, numerous expert biologists explained why the scientific community is sounding the alarm. A wide range of human factors, including overfishing, deforestation, rapid emission of heat-trapping gases, and the population are largely to blame.
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One example was a fishing community in Washington State, where the “fishing season” had almost entirely disappeared. It was now reduced to a single day, and sometimes a window of 14 hours.
Paul Ehrlich is an award-winning ecologist and biologist. He has been warning about overpopulation affecting vital resources for over 50 years. He told 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley that humans would need “five more earths” to sustain a first-world style of living for every person on the planet. The primary reason for this is the fact that the Earth’s biodiversity has been rapidly wiped out. This is causing a chain reaction.
The loss of biodiversity isn’t an opinion. It’s been talked about and measured by scientists for years. In 2021, the National History Museum noted that humans had already changed and destroyed most of the Earth. We’ve overtaken about 70% of the world’s land and ¾ of its freshwater sources. The museum said that pollution, deforestation, and soil degradation have been sped up by big farming.
Meanwhile, overhunting of predators like wolves, which are necessary for maintaining biodiversity, is also an issue. It has further led to an ecological imbalance known as a trophic ecological cascade. An insufficient number of predators leads to larger prey populations, which in turn overeat the plants. Like a delicate stomach, the end result is everything getting out of control. Invasive species then take over, further adding to the ecological decline.
National Geographic Agrees That Earth’s Species Experiencing a Mass Extinction Event
In 2019, National Geographic published an explainer about mass extinction events. When the Earth loses more than 75% of its living species, an extinction event is officially said to occur. In the past, this has happened 5 times. The causes are usually related to a rapid change in global temperature or a massive volcanic eruption. When large amounts of gases like carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere, it can and has led to runaway global warming. This occurs in a circulatory way when the gases in the air affect the oceans. It leads to oceanic acidification and a deadly lack of water oxygen called anoxia.
The National Geographic article also pointed out that just one year earlier, in 2018, the number of fossil fuels burned by humans was overall less than what was released by the Siberian Traps. The Siberian Traps were part of an eruption that released 14.5 trillion tons of carbon. That caused the Permian-Triassic extinction 252 million years ago. That specific extinction made the oceans hotter than a hot tub, killing of ¾ life on land and 96% of marine life. It is also referred to as the worst extinction event in history.
The number of fossil fuels burned was less than in the Siberian Traps in 2018. However, National Geographic said that humans are releasing greenhouse gases “as fast… or even faster.” That’s obviously bad.
Stanford biologist Tony Barnosky told 60 Minutes that fossil record data shows an alarming rate of extinction happening right now. He said the world’s living organisms have been disappearing 100 times faster than normal. He was comparing the last 4 billion years. That’s basically the entire history of life on Earth.
Could Humans Survive If Legislators Helped?
Whether or not humans will be able to reverse or slow down what is happening is up in the air. Some people believe we have a chance. But others, like Paul Ehrlich, think that the lack of “political will,” shown in how international agreements have continued to fail to reach their goals and promises of reducing harm being done to the planet, means we are doomed.
“I know there’s no political will to do any of the things that I’m concerned with. Which is exactly why I am, the vast majority of my colleagues, think we’ve had it. That the next few decades will be the end of the kind of civilization we’re used to.”
60 Minutes added that humans are currently consuming 175% more resources than we are able to regenerate. That’s triple the rate of the late 60s when Ehrlich first started warning of a “doomsday.”
