Mass Extinction: A Worldwide Catastrophe

 What does mass extinction actually mean? This is the word for word definition of mass extinction. By viewing this, not only does it give you a good idea of the problem we are facing today, but it will hopefully bring some light to why this situation is so crucial to humans and our way of life. Check out the link below. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/mass-extinction

 This article explains how each mass extinction event occured and what lead up to that point. I like this article because it shows exactly how much damage an event of this magnitude can cause. This article lists ways that we can help prevent this from reoccurring. The article states that humans are the main cause of animals becoming extinct today. To learn how to prevent this from ever becoming a real issue, visit the website below.  https://www.livescience.com/mass-extinction-events-that-shaped-Earth.html

 This article, which was written by Stafford University, gives a great explanation on how earths biggest mass extinction occured. By reading this article, you will give yourself a good idea on what leads to a massive extinction event. Hannah Hickey, from the University of Washington, talk about global warming and how it has affected our wildlife ecosystems. The biggest extinction occured during the permian period which killed off 96% percent of our marine wildlife. To learn more about this event, check out the link below. https://earth.stanford.edu/news/what-caused-earths-biggest-mass-extinction

 This article lists all of the past mass extinctions. The article explains how we know exactly when each extinction occured due to fossil records. This website gives a summary of the earths history and how each extinction occured. The top 5 mass extinctions are listed to help give a better idea on how many different species died during those times. This article shows just how crucial taking action can be. To learn more, check out the link below. https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/dinosaurs-ancient-fossils/extinction/mass-extinction

  Look at those adorable eyes. This is the Caribbean Monk Seal. This seal is the first seal species to become extinct because of human activity. This species of seal lived in the Caribbean and went extinct in 2008 because of hunters using the seals blubber to provide fuel. Early scientists captured the seals for study which also contributed to their decline in numbers.

 The article, written by Ramz Naam, answers a very important question. Can us as humans survive the 6th mass extinction? This article is an overview of the book "Scatter, Adapt, and Remember:How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction." I chose this article over the book because the book is very long and I figured most of you would not want to read 263 pages. The earth so far has been through 5 mass extinctions and over 75% of the earths species have died out. Every time this event has occured living creatures have carried on, learning to adapt to the new enviroment. To learn how we will survive this extinction, check out the article listed below. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/can-humans-survive-mass-extinction/

 This article, written by Russell McGregor, explains the tragedy of the paradise parrot. This article is a overview of a chapter in a book called "Mateship With Birds" which was published in 1922. The overview tells the story of the Paradise parrot and exactly how it went extinct. To learn the story on this beautiful bird, check out the link below. https://www.environmentandsociety.org/arcadia/tragedy-paradise-parrot

 This is an image of a parrot that has been extinct since 1922. There were a few unconfirmed sightings in the 1930's but the last confirmed sighting was made by a scientist in 1922. It is heartbreaking to see so many beautiful creatures be destroyed by the human population.

 This article, which is written by Mark R. Bezuijen, talks about ways we can adress mass extinction and shows how much money is at risk from biodiversity loss. This article adresses that public development banks need to take a role in helping adress biodiversity loss. Biodiversity loss weakens the supply of natural assets which are crucial to the development of our society. This article will tell you what parts of our way of life contribute to the loss of our ecosystems and how we can solve this issue. To learn more, click on the link below. https://blogs.adb.org/blog/how-can-we-address-looming-biodiversity-extinction-crisis 

 This article goes in depth on how exactly the passenger pigeon went extinct. The article talks about a few huge problems with our society on the extinction of our animals. In the article, they talk about a bill that was put forth to help save the passenger pigeon in 1857. The bill was declined by a select committee of the senate and they stated that "the passenger pigeon needs no protection". Reading this article shows how little our government cared about our species. To learn more about the passenger pigeon and how they became extinct, click on the link below. ohnjames.audubon.org/conservation/billions-none-extinction-passenger-pigeon#:~:text=The%20extinction%20of%20the%20Passenger%20Pigeon%20had%20two%20major%20causes,species%20highly%20vulnerable%20to%20hunting.

 This is an image of the passenger pigeon which went extinct in 1914. The passenger pigeon had 2 main causes of extinction, the commercial exploitation of pigeon meat and habitat destruction. Its sad to see such a beautiful species get destroyed because of the carelessness of humans.

 This article is written by paleontologist, Anthony D. Barnosky. By viewing this article, it will give you some ways to help prevent this catastrophe. A few of the things Barnosky lists are: Spreading the word, Enjoying nature and reducing your carbon footprint. By doing a few simple things, your effort could help change the world. To learn more on how to prevent the sixth mass extinction, check out the link below. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/10-ways-you-can-help-stop_b_5968774

 This is a podcast made by professor Kliti Grice, an Organic Geochemist. During this podcast, she goes over climate change and she talks about many different problems we have with our planet. She goes over how humans have affected our wildlife populations and ecosystems. This podcast is around 15 minutes long and is definitely worth listening to. By listening to this podcast, it will give you a better idea of exactly how humans have affected our biodiversity. To listen to this podcast, click on the link below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr_JpSRhraE

 This is an image of one of several extinct species. The Thylacinus cynocephalus or Tasmanian wolf was hunted to extinction in 1936. To learn more about this magnificent animal visit the link below. https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Thylacinus_cynocephalus/

 The authors Hannah Ritchie, Fiona Spooner and Max Roser show a series of graphs that show exactly how fast our wildlife populations have declined since 1970. This article has some interactive charts as well that you can play with to see exactly how fast our species diversity has declined from 1970 to 2018. They use a living planet index to show changes in population size to really give you an idea on how crucial this problem is. To view this information, click on the link below. https://ourworlddata.org/biodiversity

 The author John R. Platt, lists all of the species we have lost. The author mentions that most of these species no longer exist because of humanities destruction. He proposes the idea that most humans are in denial of extinction and mischaracterize it. "The damaging effect is, in reality, impossible to deny", states John. John states that these losses range from invasive species, diseases, and habitat loss. A vast majority of these losses boil down to human behavior. To learn how to help this cause and save our ecosystems, click on the link below. https://scientificamerican.com/article/what-weve-lost-the-species-declared-extinct-in-2020/

 This articles goes over 10 species that have gone extinct in the past 10 years. The article shows photos of each of the animals and explains exactly how these animals went extinct and shows just how careless humans can be. They give a brief summary of each of the animals habitats and exactly why these animals died off.  This article definitely brings some awareness to the problem we have today. To learn about these poor animals, check out the link below. https://themysteriousworld.com/animals-extinct-past-decade/

 This article explains exactly what the sixth mass extinction is and goes into detail about how humans are the main problem. The author is unknown, but they talk about how mass extinction is driven by human activity. Around 40% of all land has been converted to farming and food production. Our agriculture is responsible for 90% of all deforestation. They show that this crisis is devastating for the species that inhabit these ecosystems. They go into great detail about why we should care about mass extinction and how it could affect our way of life. To learn more, check out the link below. https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/what-is-the-sixth-mass-extinction-and-what-can-we-do-about-it

 This article summarizes the problem we have today with mass extinction. Authors Gerardo Ceballos, Paul R. Ehrlich and Peter H. Raven go over the significance of mass extinction and show a series of graphs to show how fast our animal populations are going downhill. Mass extinction of our animal populations is being accelerated by humans. The authors discuss a conservation plan called "Stop Extinction" to help publicize the extinction crisis and to "take to the streets".  The rate at which our biodiversity is declining is very scary and this article goes into great detail on how we can help solve this problem. For more information, click on the link below. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1922686117

This article proposes the problem we have with population extinction. The article explains how protecting the earths species diversity is a very crucial task. They offer a preliminary assessment of the importance of biodiversity in an ecosystem and propose many policy implications. We as humans need to help keep our ecosystem healthy and try our best to keep them alive and safe from extinction. To learn more about these problems at hand, visit the link below. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4314048