Mass Extinction Has Already Started

Sierra: Magazine of the Sierra Club


Unprecedented biological collapse has begun worldwide according to a Worldwatch Institute report, "Life Support: Conserving Biological Diversity," by John C. Ryan.

Furthermore, climate change from carbon dioxide emissions is likely to accelerate the massive wave of extinctions.


Among the report's Findings:


Without immediate reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, however, the impacts of global warming will probably make the world's current biological collapse pale in comparison. Rapidly rising temperatures will overwhelm many species' and ecosystems' ability to adapt. Widespread die-offs of forests, tundra, and coral reefs, disruption of animal migrations, and the loss of mangroves and other wetlands to rising seas are likely in coming decades if actions are not taken soon to slow global warming.

Biological diversity is no luxury: like every species, ours is intimately dependent on others for its well-being. Only if biodiversity becomes a central concern in our mainstream economic activities as well as our protected areas will we avoid squandering our biological inheritance.

Limiting the amount of the planet we dominate, and tolerating diversity more in the places we do dominate, will entail tackling two of the most intractable forces in the modern world: galloping per-capita consumption and rapid population growth. No conservation strategy, however ingenious, can get around the fact that the more resources one species consumes, the fewer are available for all the rest.


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