Lesson Four: Species Loss
And why it’s being called the sixth extinction
Out of all the Sunday School lessons I've done so far, this one was the hardest to write.
The stats related to this topic are staggering.
If you love any kind of animal - dogs, cats, elephants, or even sparklemuffin spiders (oh yes, that’s a real animal) - this lesson might be a a bit tough.
We’ll start off easy though!
Inspired by Japan’s WWF population by pixel campaign, imgur user jjsmooth44 visually represented each endangered species in as many pixels as there are animals alive. “the more pixelated the image,” the artist explains, “the closer it is to extinction.”
Let’s wrap our head around some numbers shall we? The planet has 8 million species. Of those…
If you guessed 1,000,000 species, you are correct. That’s a LOT of species.
The global rate of species extinction "is already 10x to 100x higher than it has been, on average, over the last 10 million years,” according to the UN Committee, Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
The same IPBES report stated that more than 1/3 of all marine mammals are at risk.
The species most taking a hit are:
Let’s switch gears for a second and talk about this “sixth extinction”. In the history of our planet, there have been five ✋major extinctions that have significantly altered the course of species evolution. In case you’re yearning for a history lesson in Earth’s five previous mass extinctions:
End-Ordovician, 443M years ago || A big ice age led to sea level falling, wiping out 60-70% of all species - prominently ocean dwellers.
Late Devonian, 360M years ago || A messy prolonged climate change event, killing 70% of species including almost all corals.
Permian-Triassic, 250M years ago || Strongly linked to massive volcanic eruptions in Siberia that caused a savage episode of global warming, more than 95% of species perished.
Triassic-Jurassic, 200M years ago || 75% of species were lost, most likely due to another outburst of volcanism.
Cretaceous-Tertiary, 65M years ago || A giant asteroid impact on Mexico + large volcanic eruptions, saw the end of the dinosaurs and ammonites.
It is because of the high rates of extinction (with little indication of reparative action) that scientists are calling our era the sixth extinction.
In fact, scientists feel so strongly about this that they insist on calling the massive loss of wildlife a “biological annihilation.” Prof Gerardo Ceballos from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México succinctly said “the situation has become so bad it would not be ethical not to use strong language.”
It sounds extreme because it is 😬🤷
Just as with climate change, humans are the main culprits of biodiversity damage. Since pre-industrial times human’s have altered:
Additionally, other causes are:
Wildlife loss has been a mainstream topic for a while. But it’s still not that well known because it’s hard to grasp the extent and severity of it.
There also aren’t any silver bullet answers on how to solve it because it’s so engrained in other ecological and social issues.
The best thing you can do is to stay educated. World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) have great species watch lists not to mention ways to learn more and get involved protecting a specific kind of animal.
BONUS: Because you made it this far, here’s what a sparklemuffin spider looks like:
Photo Credit: LiveScience.com
