Scientists warn of the Sixth Great Extinction

What was amazing that this actually made it onto the midday news on Radio New Zealand. Will wonders never cease!

Stanford researcher warns sixth mass extinction is here

There is no longer any doubt: We are entering a mass extinction that threatens humanity's existence. That is the bad news at the center of a new study by a group of scientists including Paul Ehrlich, the Bing Professor of Population Studies in biology and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Ehrlich and his co-authors call for fast action to conserve threatened species, populations and habitat, but warn that the window of opportunity is rapidly closing. 

Read more: http://stanford.io/1RgQBMj

The Earth stands on the brink of its sixth mass extinction and the fault is ours

The rate at which vertebrate species are now dying far exceeds the norm

the Guardian,

21 June, 2015

Life on Earth is in trouble. That much we know. But how bad have things become – and how fast are events moving? How soon, indeed, before the Earth’s biological treasures are trashed, in what will be the sixth great mass extinction event? This is what Gerardo Caballos of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and his colleagues have assessed, in a paper that came out on Friday.

These are extraordinarily difficult questions. There are many millions of species, many elusive and rare, and inhabiting remote and dangerous places. There are too few skilled biologists in the field to keep track of them all. Demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that any single species is extinct is arduous and painstaking (think how long it took to show – to most people, at least – that Loch Ness probably does not harbour a large monster).

And it’s not just a case of making a head-count of modern extinctions. This needs to be compared with a long-term “baseline” rate of extinctions in our planet’s long geological history. This can only be extracted via the equally painstaking and difficult work of excavating and identifying millions of fossils from the almost endless rock strata. Not surprisingly, different studies made so far on different fossils have yielded different baseline rates.

Caballos and colleagues have thought through these difficulties, and come up with probably the most robust estimate yet of how severe the modern crisis is.

They have been deliberately conservative – they’re well aware of the dangers of crying wolf on a topic of such importance, and where passions run so high. For a start, they limit themselves to the best-studied group of organisms, the vertebrates. Then, they take a high estimate of background extinctions to compare with, to make the modern figures as undramatic as possible. And then, they either consider only those animals known to be extinct (the “highly conservative” scenario), or they add in those extinctions in the wild that are likely to have happened, but are not yet verified.

Even with this caution, the figures are still shocking. Rather than the nine extinctions among vertebrates that would be expected to have occurred in normal geological circumstances since 1900, their conservative estimate adds in another 468 extinctions, spread among mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish. 

Examples of lost species would include the Yangtze dolphin and the Costa Rica golden toad. Depending on the group, extinction rates are 10 times to more than 100 times higher than normal. A sixth mass extinction, therefore, is beginning. They estimate that it would grow to rival the last great catastrophe of the past, when the dinosaurs and much else died out 65m years ago, in as little as three human lifetimes.

Once more, this is a conservative estimate. It simply considers the kill mechanisms operating today, of habitat loss, predation, pollution and so on. The Caballos projection does not try to factor in, for instance, the effects of global warming, or of ocean acidification. Once these kick in in earnest, they will sweep many species out of their habitability zones, and ratchet up the extinction rate still further.

In terms of scale, we are now living through one of those brief, rare episodes in Earth history when the biological framework of life is dismantled. It is in every sense a tragedy – but, in itself, it might be viewed as just one more episode of biological destruction in our planet’s history. The Earth has been here before – and will be here again, before its life is completely extinguished a billion or so years into the future.

This particular perturbation to the biosphere, though, has some very special features. Indeed, there has been nothing remotely like it in our planet’s history. By coincidence, one of the authors of the Caballos study, Anthony Barnosky of the University of California at Berkeley, was involved in another study published the same week, a study that sought to put its finger on exactly what is so different – and so weird, in planetary terms, not to put too fine a point on it – about what is happening to the biosphere right now.

This second study, led by Mark Williams, a palaeontologist at the University of Leicester, identified some quite extraordinary novelties at the heart of current events. First, past extinctions have been driven by what are now becoming very familiar horsemen of a planetary apocalypse: massive volcanic outbursts to choke the atmosphere and poison the seas; the mayhem caused by major asteroid impact; and the wrenching effects of rapid climate change. None of these has really figured in the current biological crisis – not even climate change, which is still only in its early stages.

Instead, the extinctions are being driven by the effects of just one single species,Homo sapiens. Such a mass extinction has not occurred before (with the possible exception, 2.5bn years ago, when a type of microbe evolved photosynthesis to spew out oxygen, a gas that would have been highly toxic to the other microbes living then, and these would have been pushed to the fringes of life on Earth – where they still remain). Even more extraordinarily, this single species is land-living, but has managed to become the top predator in the oceans too, causing populations of whales and fish to collapse.

In all, our single species now commandeers somewhere between 25% and 40% of primary productivity on Earth. It is a productivity, that over large areas of land, is “hyper-fertilised” by the extraction of millions of tons of nitrogen from the air, in the Haber-Bosch process, and by digging comparable amounts of phosphate from the ground.

These super-fed crops are fed, highly efficiently, to farm animals, that we eat in turn. The scale of this operation is a large reason for the scale of the ongoing mass extinction of other organisms.

The scientist Vaclav Smil, of the University of Manitoba, has calculated that simply measured by mass, humans now make up a third of land vertebrates, and the animals that we keep to eat – cows, pigs, sheep and so on – make up most of the other two thirds. All the wild animals – elephants, giraffes, tigers and so on – are now less than 5% by mass. It’s a measure of how they have been pushed to the fringes by humans.

Humans change things in other ways – they now direct the evolution of the animals that are useful to them, by breeding and by genetic engineering: again, it’s a planetary novelty. The energy our species obtains from photosynthesis is not enough, and so we mine stored photosynthetic energy from the ground, as hydrocarbons, in enormous amounts, and use that to power our machines.

These machines – cars, planes, computers and much else – have, together with their human software, been termed the technosphere by the geologist Peter Haff of Duke University. He views it as an emergent system with its own internal dynamics (and which humans currently drive but don’t really control) – in effect an offshoot of the biosphere. Whatever it is, it is evolving at lightning speed by comparison with biological evolution.

The changes to the Earth’s biology do, therefore, include a rapidly developing mass extinction event, as charted by Gerardo Caballos and his colleagues.

But this may be seen as part of a much more thoroughgoing transformation. Fundamental new patterns are emerging that may be compared, say, with the change, half a billion years ago, when a biosphere consisting only of microbes gave way to one dominated by multicellular animals.

Could this new planetary pattern develop – perhaps well enough to help prevent a mass extinction? Currently, the technosphere is more a parasite than a partner of the biosphere – it is terrible at recycling, for instance.

But some aspects might help alleviate the worst effects of global warming. For instance, humans have caused the greatest trans-migration of species in history. Some of these invasive species may be well adapted to new higher temperatures. 

And better use of energy and materials can reduce pressure on remaining natural ecosystems.

Averting a mass extinction is still possible – but we don’t have much time.

The author is professor of palaeobiology at Leicester University

NOT THE FIRST TIME

Previous mass extinctions

Geological history includes many periods when species have died in large numbers. In each of the following, more than half the Earth’s species disappeared:

1 End-Ordovician, 443 million years ago.

This coincides with very rapid glaciation; sea level fell by more than 100 metres, devastating shallow marine ecosystems; less than a million years later, there was a second wave of extinctions as ice melted, sea level rose rapidly, and oceans became oxygen-depleted.

2 Late Devonian, c 360 million years ago.

A messy prolonged event, again hitting life in shallow seas very hard, and an extinction that was probably due to climate change.

3 Permian-Triassic mass extinction, c 250 million years ago.

The greatest of all, ‘The Great Dying’ of more than 95% of species, is strongly linked with massive volcanic eruptions in Siberia that caused, among other effects, a brief savage episode of global warming.

4 Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction, c 200 million years ago.

This has been linked with another huge outburst of volcanism.

5 Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction 65 million years ago.

This killed off the dinosaurs and much else; an asteroid impact on Mexico probably did the damage, but the world’s ecosystem may have been weakened by volcanic outbursts in what is now India.

Humans creating sixth great extinction of animal species, say scientists

Study reveals rate of extinction for species in the 20th century has been up to 100 times higher than would have been normal without human impact

Here's More Proof Earth Is in Its 6th Mass Extinction

Mei Xiang, a giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C. There are fewer than 2,500 mature giant pandas left in the wild, according to the IUCN. Credit: Abby Wood, Smithsonian's National Zoo

Live Science,

19 June, 2015

Diverse animals across the globe are slipping away and dying as Earth enters its sixth mass extinction, a new study finds.

Over the last century, species of vertebrates are dying out up to 114 times faster than they would have without human activity, said the researchers, who used the most conservative estimates to assess extinction rates. That means the number of species that went extinct in the past 100 years would have taken 11,400 years to go extinct under natural extinction rates, the researchers said.

Much of the extinction is due to human activities that lead to pollution, habitat loss, the introduction of invasive species and increased carbon emissions that drive climate change and ocean acidification, the researchers said. [7 Iconic Animals Humans Are Driving to Extinction]

"Our activities are causing a massive loss of species that has no precedent in the history of humanity and few precedents in the history of life on Earth," said lead researcher Gerardo Ceballos, a professor of conservation ecology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a visiting professor at Stanford University.

Ceballos said that, ever since he was a child, he struggled to understand why certain animals went extinct. In the new study, he and his colleagues focused on the extinction rates of vertebrates, which include mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fishes.

Scientists found that species are dying off more than 100 times faster than they would without human activity.
Credit: By Karl Tate, Infographics Artist

View full size image

First, they needed to establish how many species go extinct naturally over time. They used data from a 2011 study in the journal 
Nature showing that typically, the world has two extinctions per 10,000 vertebrate species every 100 years. That study based its estimate on fossil and historical records.

Moreover, that background extinction rate, the researchers found, was higher than that found in other studies, which tend to report half that rate, the researchers said.

Then, Ceballos and his colleagues calculated the modern extinction rate. They used data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an international organization that tracks threatened and endangered species. The 2014 IUCN Red List gave them the number of extinct and possibly extinct vertebrate species since 1500.

These lists allowed them to calculate two extinction rates: a highly conservative rate based solely on extinct vertebrates, and a conservative rate based on both extinct and possibly extinct vertebrates, the researchers said.

According to the natural background rate, just nine vertebrate species should have gone extinct since 1900, the researchers found. But, using the conservative, modern rate, 468 more vertebrates have gone extinct during that period, including 69 mammal species, 80 bird species, 24 reptile species, 146 amphibian species and 158 fish species, they said.

Each of these lost species played a role in its ecosystem, whether it was at the top or bottom of the food chain.

"Every time we lose a species, we're eroding the possibilities of Earth to provide us with environmental services," Ceballos told Live Science.

Researchers typically label an event a mass extinction when more than 5 percent of Earth's species goes extinct in a short period of time, geologically speaking. Based on the fossil record, researchers know about five mass extinctions, the last of which happened 65 million years ago, when an asteroid wiped out the nonavian dinosaurs. [Wipe Out: History's Most Mysterious Extinctions]

"[The study] shows without any significant doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event," study researcher Paul Ehrlich, a professor of population studies in biology at Stanford University, said in a statement.

Bye-bye, birdie

At this rate, a huge amount of biodiversity will be lost in as little as two to three human lifetimes, Ceballos said. And it can take millions of years for life to recover and repopulate the Earth, he said.

Species make up distinct populations that can spread over a continent. But some vertebrate populations have so few individuals left that they cannot efficiently play their role in the ecosystem, Ceballos said.

The snow leopard (Panthera uncial) is endangered; its numbers have declined by at least 20 percent over the past 16 years, mainly due to poaching and loss of habitat and prey, according to the IUCN.
Credit: Dennis W. Donohue | Shutterstock.com

View full size image

For instance, elephant populations are now far and few between. "The same [goes for] lions, cheetah, rhinos, jaguars — you name it," Ceballos said.

"Basically, focusing on a species is good because those are the units of evolution and ecosystem function, but populations are in even worse shape than species," he dded.

However, there is still time to save wildlife by working with conservationists and creating animal-friendly public policy, he said.

"Avoiding a true sixth mass extinction will require rapid, greatly intensified efforts to conserve already threatened species, and to alleviate pressures on their populations — notably, habitat loss, over-exploitation for economic gain and climate change," the researchers wrote in the study, published online today (June 19) in the journal Science Advances.

The study supports other findings on Earth's high extinction rate, said Clinton Jenkins, a visiting professor at the Institute of Ecological Research in Brazil, who was not involved with the study.

In 2014, Jenkins and his colleagues published a study in the journal Science that came to the same broad conclusions detailed in the new study, but in last year's study, they also included flowering and cone plants. That study found that current extinction rates are about 1,000 times higher than they would be without human activities.

"This latest study is further evidence of a human-induced mass extinction now underway," Jenkins told Live Science. "Much like the situation with human-caused climate change, years of research have built an enormous scientific case that humanity is driving a mass extinction. What the world’s many species now need are actions to reverse the problem."

Digest of strories on climate chaos - 04/09/2015

"This scenario alone almost guarantees the extinction of most life on this planet, shall we add in the melting permafrost releasing methane and 50 odd positive feedback loops? Join the dots family."

--Kevin Hester

This is all this coverage this landmark study warrants for Radio NZ.  It turns out that a New Zealander participated in a study coming out of the University of Ediburgh, although you wouldn't know it from the following report.

Ocean acidity caused extinction – scientist

International research led by a New Zealand scientist shows soaring ocean acidity was a key factor in the greatest mass extinction of life on Earth.

Radio NZ,

10 April, 2015

Otago University researcher Matthew Clarkson co-ordinated a just-published international study which has found direct evidence in Middle Eastern rocks that ocean acidification triggered by massive volcanic eruptions helped cause the mass extinction 252 million years ago.

It wiped out more than 90 percent of marine species and more than two-thirds of land species.

Dr Clarkson said this was a worrying finding, considering that we were now seeing an increase in ocean acidity as a result of carbon emissions caused by human activity.

Researchers say the oceans suddenly became more acidic, making it impossible for the vast majority of sea creatures to survive

Ocean acidification killed off more than 90 per cent of marine life 252 million years ago, scientists believe

Dead fish on the beach at Cape San Blas, Florida, after a 'red tide' event in the Gulf of Mexico. Photo: Judy Baxter via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA).

Ocean 'dead zones' are spreading - and that spells disaster for fish (the Ecologist)

Oxygen levels in our oceans are falling, writes Lee Bryant, producing growing 'dead zones' where only the hardiest organisms can survive. The causes are simple: pollution with nutrient-rich wastes, and global warming. But the only solution is to stop it happening - or wait for 1,000 years

Oceans Facing Carbon Rates Which Spurred Mass Die-Off 250 Million Years Ago

University of Edinburgh researchers warn that the carbon emissions that drove a mass extinction event some 252 million years ago were released at a rate similar to today

NZ: Mussel shortage predicted as sea warms

A South Island mussel farmer is warning of a national shortage of mussels in two years time, because higher sea temperatures have affected the spat harvest.

Radio NZ,

11 April, 2015

Yesterday, the Sanford mussel plant in Christchurch announced its likely closure with the loss of up to 230 jobs, blaming warmer waters for a significant drop in mussel production.

Listen to more on Checkpoint ( 2 min 52 sec )

Paul Morgan of Kono New Zealand said water temperatures had risen two or three degrees because of climate change, and less rain has meant fewer nutrients going into the sea.

He said most of the industry's spat was collected at Kaitaia so many farms would not have mature mussels in 18 months time. Demand was growing at the same time as a reduction in volume being produced.

Sanford has started up a mussel hatchery at the Cawthron Aquaculture park in Nelson, but is not expecting it to have an effect on supply for a few years.

Marine scientist at Auckland University Andrew Jeffs said water around New Zealand varied, but had risen by at least one degree Celsius.

But he said drier weather was just as significant

"When we get more rainfall it washes nutrients off the land and then to the sea and that triggers growth that the food that shellfish like mussels consume in the water column. This las summer has been particularly dry especially in the north."

The government has been forced by the Green Party to correct an earlier false report. From Russel Norman,

via Facebook

Following my press release pointing out that more trees were being cut down than replanted, Tim Groser, the Minister for Climate Change, has had to correct his press release where he claimed the opposite. You nearly got away with it Tim!

New release:

While afforestation is currently happening slower than deforestation, as the carbon price rises I expect this trend will turn around,” Mr Groser said. [Corrected 5pm 10/4]

Original: The report also shows New Zealand is planting more trees, Mr Groser noted. “Forestry is an important part of our response to climate change, as forests remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. For the past six years our level of afforestation has exceeded our rate of deforestation,” Mr Groser said.

Here is Radio NZ - 

NZ: Mixed news on greenhouse gases

The Ministry for the Environment (MFE) has published a lengthy report summarising New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 until 2013

The report found the total volume of those gas emissions rose from 66.7 million tonnes in 1990 to 81.0 million tonnes in 2013.

Brazil water crisis: 56 Northeastern cities are in state of collapse, says government

By Catherine Alencastro 

Desdemona Despair,

9 April, 2015

[Translation by Microsoft Translator]

BRASILIA (O Globo) – In yet another government meeting to evaluate the water crisis in part of the country, the diagnosis is that, in the Northeast, there are currently 56 cities in a state of collapse, i.e., without water for more than four days. According to the government, there is an ongoing operation being managed by state and local governments. In the Southeast, despite the March rains, the water regime was lower than expected and the reservoirs of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo are still operating below the average.

In relation to the Northeast, the Union asked for a diagnosis and said it will take further action with the army. It is estimated that up to 105 Northeastern cities can get into situation of collapse. The Minister of national integration, Gilberto Occhi, stated that at the next meeting of the working group which monitors the water crisis within the government, the situation of 500 wells and water supply systems in the Northeast will be assessed.

According to the government, there are studies indicating that this drought can last for up to three to four years. The Environment Minister, Izabella Teixeira, claimed that her team is devising a plan to adapt to climate change.

The Cantareira system, from São Paulo, is still below the dead volume, and follows operating with this water reserve. And the system of the Paraíba do Sul, Rio, is operating at its useful volume (so above the dead volume), but below average.

“We're in the month of transition and, between now and June, the rains diminish too. The rains in the Southeast from October to March were 70% to 75% of the average historical values,” said Carlos Nobre, of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The President of the national water agency (ANA), Vicente Andreu, explained that the body has adjusted the withdrawal of water from the reservoirs of the Southeast to avoid depleting even more their levels. In the case of the Cantareira, the current water withdrawal is one third of the withdrawal in normal situations.

The situation of the Paraíba do Sul, according to the ANA, is better. The reservoir had "significant improvement" and operates at 16% of its useful volume. In February, the usable volume of the Paraíba do Sul was zero. Over the past year, however, the situation has deteriorated. The tank, at this same time in 2014, operated at 40% of its useful volume.

Izabella, Occhi and technicians gathered at the Presidential Palace in the Minister's Office Aloízio Mercadante.

Crise hídrica: 56 cidades nordestinas estão em situação de colapso, diz governo

From Australia's ABC

Global warming shifts spin axis of Earth

Why This New Study On Arctic Permafrost Is So Scary

Scientists might have to change their projected timelines for when Greenland’s permafrost will completely melt due to man-made climate change, now that new research from Denmark has shown it could be thawing faster than expected.

Published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, the research shows that tiny microbes trapped in Greenland’s permafrost are becoming active as the climate warms and the permafrost begins to thaw. As those microbes become active, they are feeding on previously-frozen organic matter, producing heat, and threatening to thaw the permafrost even further.

In other words, according to the research, permafrost thaw could be accelerating permafrost thaw to a “potentially critical” level.

The Pacific Ocean may have entered a new warm phase — and the consequences could be dramatic

NASA GOES PROJECT via AFP

Two new studies have just hit about the “warm blob” in the northeast Pacific ocean — a 2 degree C or more temperature anomaly that began in the winter of 2013-2014 in the Gulf of Alaska and later expanded. Scientists have been astonished at the extent and especially the long-lasting nature of the warmth, with one NOAA researcher saying, “when you see something like this that’s totally new you have opportunities to learn things you were never expecting.”

Scientists seek source of giant methane mass over Southwest

Scientists are working to pinpoint the source of a giant mass of methane hanging over the southwestern U.S., which a study found to be the country's largest concentration of the greenhouse gas

The report that revealed the methane hot spot over the Four Corners region—where Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona meet—was released last year.

Now, scientists from the University of Colorado, the University of Michigan, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA are conducting a monthlong study to figure out exactly where it came from.

The answer could help reduce methane emissions that contribute to global warming

California's New Era of Heat Destroys All Previous Records

Sadly, this is only the beginning

The California heat of the past 12 months is like nothing ever seen in records going back to 1895. The 12 months before that were similarly without precedent. And the 12 months before that? A freakishly hot year, too. 

What's happening in California right now is shattering modern temperature measurements—as well as tree-ring records that stretch back more than 1,000 years. It's no longer just a record-hot month or a record-hot year that California faces. It's a stack of broken records leading to the worst drought that's ever beset the Golden State

SMOG ALERT: Potentially deadly Sahara dust cloud swarms across Hampshire

A POTENTIALLY deadly combination of toxic air mixed with a dust cloud from the Sahara has sparked a warning by health chiefs.

People in Hampshire with underlying medical and respiratory conditions including asthma have been urged to take extra precautions today as the poor air quality could trigger further health problems.

Vulnerable people are being urged to reduce the amount of physical activity they do and those particularly at risk should avoid it all together.

New Virus in North America Threatens Major Crops

(Photo : Flickr: Vincent Lousi Carrell)

A new virus has been discovered in North America, and it's leaving its victims covered in splotchy discolored paths and with little energy to stand. However, it's not people we're talking about, but grasses. A new viral infection for grasses has been identified in the United States, and experts say there is reason to be worried that it will jump to some of the country's most important food crops.

In Landmark Class Action, Farmers Insurance Sues Local Governments For Ignoring Climate Change

A section of a car can be seen in a gaping sinkhole that opened up a residential street on Chicago’s South Side after a cast iron water main dating back to 1915 broke during a massive rain storm Thursday, April 18, 2013, in Chicago.

Last month, Farmers Insurance Co. filed nine class-action lawsuits arguing that local governments in the Chicago area are aware that climate change is leading to heavier rainfall but are failing to prepare accordingly. The suits allege that the localities did not do enough to prepare sewers and stormwater drains in the area during a two-day downpour last April. In what could foreshadow a legal reckoning of who is liable for the costs of climate change, the class actions against nearly 200 Chicago-area communities look to place responsibility on municipalities, perhaps spurring them to take a more forward-looking approach in designing and engineering for a future made different by climate change.

UK Law changed so nuclear waste dumps can be forced on local communities

Legislation rushed through in the final hours of parliament allows local planning laws to be bypassed, seriously alarming anti-nuclear campaigners

Shell complaint claims Greenpeace activists risk success of Arctic dill

 Greenpeace activists have boarded the Polar Pioneer rig in the Pacific Ocean to protest Shell’s ‘crazy, crazy plan’ to drill for oil in the Arctic. Photograph: Vincenzo Floramo/Greenpeace

Shell has warned it could miss a window to drill for oil in the Arctic this summer, if six Greenpeace activists occupying a rig under contract to the company are not removed, court filings by the oil company reveal.

Failure to act against the climbers who boarded the Polar Pioneer rig 750 miles north of Hawaii on Monday would result in “irreparable harm” and “monetary damages”, the document seen by the Guardian shows.

The Greenpeace activists, from the US, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden and Austria, used inflatable boats and climbing gear on Monday to board the rig where they still remain and have unfurled banners in protest at the planned drilling in the polar region.

‘Like Wizard of Oz!’ Tornadoes sweep through Illinois, leaving 1 dead, many homeless

Destructive tornadoes and thunderstorms ripped through northern Illinois Thursday night, killing one person and injuring eight others in one tiny DeKalb County community where some people became homeless following the нdisaster.

And one person's history of man -