Faster Than the Dying Dinosaurs

Life as we know it on earth is dying off at a rate and to an extent that challenges and goes beyond the mass extinctions that ended the dinosaurs. Without the benefit of asteroid impact or years of a blacked out sun. Thanks to the cancer on the planet that the industrialized human race has become.

The World Conservation Union's survey shows that more than 16,000 species of animals and plants are (in the words of the Guardian story) "at the highest levels of extinction threat, equivalent to nearly 40% of all species in its survey." The endangered include a quarter of all mammal species, a third of amphibians, and a quarter of coniferous trees.

Many species of fish, including freshwater species and ocean species of sharks and rays are near extinction. And among the flowers and other plants, the species that most of us don't know exist, there are some familiar ones: hippos, gazelles and of course, the polar bear, going extinct 1,000 times faster than normal, thanks to the ongoing melting away of the Arctic. It could happen within the lifetimes of today's young adult humans. Many other animals and plants, from bears to butterflies, will struggle to relocate and survive in areas most affected by the Climate Crisis.

Five hundred species have been added to the critically endangered list just since 2004. And these are among only the comparatively few species that human scientists have even catalogued. They estimate there are some 15 million species, and only 12% have even been named. But the underlying causes of species they know about that are going extinct argue that many others are similiarly affected, by factors such as decreasing biodiversity, development replacing habitat with concrete and fields, pollution and global heating. Says the Guardian:

At present, animals are believed to be going extinct at 100 to 1,000 times the usual rate, leading many researchers to claim that we are in the midst of a mass extinction event faster than that which wiped out the dinosaurs.

This new study extends ongoing concerns over the imminent extinctions of many if not all species of primates (Great Apes, chimps, bonobos, etc.), big cats (cheetah, species of lion and tiger) and many species of sharks, whales and other fish and ocean creatures.

Human life is currently supported by the rest of the planet's life in ways that few of us notice, and even scientists do not fully understand. Our survival as a species on a depleted planet is unlikely at best. Part of getting smarter fast is understanding this, and doing something about it. Otherwise, the dinosaurs R us.