The 6th Mass Extinction Is Further Along Than We Thought

The Earth is no stranger to mass extinctions. Stretched across its 4.6-billion-year history, the planet’s undergone five of them. Everyone knows the cataclysmic, asteroid-sized drama that consigned the dinosaurs to oblivion, and 200 million years before that fiery inferno, all life on Earth was nearly ended thanks to unending volcanic eruptions. Most scientists agree that we are now living through a sixth mass extinction, but this one isn’t caused by world-ending space rocks or lava-belching volcanoes—it’s caused by us.
While extinctions on Earth might be old hat, this is the first threat to biodiversity caused by a single species living on the planet itself. And the actions of that species—both past and present—have big, long-lasting consequences. A study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences last week concludes that not only is the sixth extinction real, it may be further along that we expected.
The 6th Mass Extinction Is Further Along Than We Thought