Around 252 million years ago, the “Great Dying” took out 90%
of the world’s species. About 66 million years ago, a meteor caused the
extinction of three out of four species, including those known to us as
dinosaurs.[1]
After 1.8 million years of existence, our own species is triggering yet another
mass extinction event, according to a study in the journal Science by Stuart
Pimm and Clinton Jenkins. According to Pimm, species are now going extinct at about
ten times faster than scientists had thought. Prior to the arrival of homo
sapiens (i.e., our species), the extinction rate was about 0.1 out of a million
species per year; as of 2014, the rate had climbed to 100 to 1000 species per 1
million.[2]
Behind this evolutionarily abrupt bump is not only the complicity of our
species, but also unforeseen consequences that could easily take homo sapiens
out of the equation.
The full essay is at “Humanity Getting Ahead of Itself”
[1] Seth
Borenstein, “World
on Brink of Sixth Great Extinction, Species Disappearing Faster than Ever
Before,” The Huffington Post, May 29, 2014.
[2]
Ibid.
