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Mass Extinction We are in the middle of a mass extinction of life on Earth. It is the greatest extinction since the mass extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Not only will virtually all life on Earth die, but all our knowledge about life and the universe, so arduously gained the last few thousand years, will be obliterated with it. There have been five mass extinctions in the 3.5 billion year evolution of life on Earth, when close to 100 percent of all species were wiped out. The common name for the present mass extinction is the Sixth Extinction (popularised in the 1995 book of the name by Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin). The unique characteristic of the Sixth Extinction is that it is caused by a single species: Homo sapiens - humanity. What is the morality of causing mass extinction? Biocide is the ultimate of all human moral violations because it is the destruction of all life on Earth. History We can trace back the start of the Sixth Extinction to the Holocene (from Greek holos whole and ceno new), the era in Earth's history that started 11,000 years ago at the end of the last glacial period or Ice Age. This was the period of human culture called the middle stone age or Mesolithic. It was when humans fashioned refined stone tools, gave up a nomadic life to live in settlements, and domesticated the first wild animals. Around the start of the Holocene several species of giant animals died out in Europe, North America and Australia. This relatively minor extinction is called the Holocene Extinction. These huge animals were comparable in body size to modern rhinoceros and elephants, hence their nickname the megafauna. The megafauna included woolly rhinoceros, woolly mammoth, Irish elk, giant beaver, giant ground sloth, sabre-toothed cat, dire wolf, giant short-faced kangaroo and giant monitor lizard. Humanity evolved in Africa. Then they spread around the globe during the Holocene Extinction. The timing does not perfectly coincide with the extinction of the megafauna; comparable extinctions did not occur in Africa, for example. There are also other factors to consider, such as the changing conditions when the climate warmed up and the glaciers covering the northern hemisphere shrank back towards the pole. But many scientists think the human radiation and the extinction is more than a coincidence. Humans need not have killed the megafauna directly. When the megafauna were greatly stressed from environmental pressures and balancing precariously on the edge of extinction, human activity, like hunting or disease transmission, might have finally nudged them over. There is still controversy over man's part in their extinction. The Holocene Extinction of the stone age continues up to the present. Some notable extinctions of land and air animals are the auroch (European ancestor of domestic cattle), quagga (a zebra lookalike in east Africa), thylacine (a stripped predatory marsupial in Australia), dodo (killed off by the first European sailors exploring the islands of the Indian Ocean), and great auk (wiped out from islands in the north Atlantic Ocean). Numbers & Rate The rate of species extinction today appears to be similar to the rate of extinction during the previous five great extinctions in Earth's history. Thousands of animal and plant species face extinction soon, including a quarter of mammal species, one eighth of bird species and thousands of plant species. Some scientists calculate that within a hundred years half of Earth's fauna and flora could be treading the road to extinction. Earth is home to millions of species (of which only 4,000 are mammals and 7,000 are birds) and may be losing some 30,000 species a year. And the rate is increasing as we devastate the planet. The problem is especially grim for rain forests because most terrestrial species live in them (considerably fewer species live in deserts and farm land) and humanity is clear-felling forests fast. When their forest is gone its animals have nowhere to live and die out. Extinction Awareness The magnitude of what humanity is doing to Earth life became apparent in the 1970's. But still the extinction crisis is invisible to most people, unaware or unconcerned about it. Many scientists are so worried about the lack of concern that in 1992 over 1,500 prominent specialists, among them several Nobel Prize Laureates, endorsed the World Scientists' Warning to Humanity. But it had little effect to wake up people to the coming catastrophe. Why are people unaware of what is happening to life? Some possible answers are: Politicians continue to play the age old game of national economic and military power politics. Long-term planetary health is a side issue. The news media do not sufficiently enlighten us but instead feed us trivialities. (Some onlookers say self-interested parties manage the news to manipulate our behaviour and spending power.) Most people shut themselves inside the protection of their house/car and eat processed food instead of hunting and gathering it themselves. They do not realise how dependent their lives are on nature. Widespread human-caused nature degradation slips past unnoticed. The change is insidious, often slower than the brief span of a human lifetime. What they do see they believe is natural so they do nothing. Most people are caught up in their daily lives and look no further. The Three Mega-Devastators Humans have fashioned three mega-devastators that ravage life and their combined effect is reaching a crisis point: Global warming by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Consumption of resources including habitat change. Human overpopulation by which each person increases the first two devastators. Humanity took over 100,000 years to reach a population of 300 million (about two thousand years ago). Now it adds a billion people to the population every few years (see Table 1, Human Overpopulation). Conservation Measures Conservationists discuss measures ad nauseam to protect nature. Among the courses of action are habitat protection, species reintroduction, education, implementation of treaties and conventions, even reincarnating species from their exhumed genes. The World Scientists' Warning to Humanity states that if humanity is to survive there are five inter-linked challenges we must remedy simultaneously: Stop injuring ecosystems and restore them to health. Manage resources more effectively. Reduce the human birth rate. Emancipate women. Get rid of poverty. Of these perhaps the single most effective conservation measure is surely greatly encouraging birth control. The primary reason for the imminent collapse of life is that there are too many people each grabbing a bit of the world and fouling it at the same time. Final Curtain? The largest known global extinction in Earth's history was the Permian extinction 252 million years ago. Seventy percent of land species and ninety percent of marine species went extinct in less than a million years (an instant in Earths 4.5 billion year evolution). Sceptics argue that there is not enough data to support the notion that we live in a new mass extinction or that it is of man's making. Some people argue that there is still hope that humanity can slow the rate of extinction through proper human and ecological management. Others argue that time has expired. Man-made global warming is the latest threat to Earth life. Almost all life, not just a few species, is at risk of extinction. Do we dare risk doing nothing? Our species could not have survived without animals and nature; they gave us food, clothes, shelter and tools. We have reached the point of pay-back time or destruction. We must act ethically. © 2004 Roger Panaman All rights reserved

Humanity is rushing headlong in an orgy of destruction of all life on Earth and scorning all warning signals to stop. But nature's destruction is also humanity's extinction.