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No. We are already in the 6th great mass extinction.
40 years ago, driving in rural areas at night would leave my windshield plastered with many dozens of insects. Driving in those same areas now, barely a handful of bugs to clean off. These insect populations are vital. They not only pollinate plant species, but they provide food supply at the base of the food chain.
In 1980, there was a study done on just 19 trees in Panama. Of the 1,200 species of beetles identified in the study, 80% had never been identified before. Think about how much deforestation has occurred in the rain forests since then. How many species have gone extinct in the last four and half decades that we will never even know existed. That is just the start. The loss of these insects will necessarily have a ripple effect up the food chain, and it’s already happening.
At the most conservative end of the spectrum we are losing species at a rate that is 100 times faster than the background rate of extinction; the rate at which species typically go extinct between major extinction events, while others estimate it to be 1,000 times that. “The total number of vertebrate species that went extinct in the last century would have taken about 800 to 10,000 years to disappear under the background rate of 2 E/MSY.” (Ceballos)
Compared to the normal rate of species loss between extinction events, we are currently losing species at somewhere between 100 and 1000 times that rate. Look at this chart from Our World in Data and think about the direction that that line is going.
Man, we’re screwed. Anyway… *eats 🍿 *
No, because we’re already in it.
On our way? Hahaha
Wildlife populations have collapsed 73% in the last 50 years.
Well the US is doing our share to speed us to the end game through deregulation of anything environmental, and “drill baby drill”.
It’s like a bad movie you already know how it’s going to end right from the beginning, and now you’re just stuck watching until the end hoping to be wrong.
