Scientists: The world is in the middle of the sixth mass collapse
In what year will the human population become so large that the earth cannot sustain itself? The answer is about 1970, according to research by the World Wildlife Fund. In 1970, the world’s 3.5 billion people were sustainable. But on this new year’s day, the population reached 8 billion. Today, plants and animals are running out of habitat. The scientists you will meet say that the Earth is suffering from the problem of social collapse on a scale that has not been seen since the time of the Dinosaurs. We will show you a possible solution, but first, look at how humanity is already suffering from the disappearing forest.
In Washington state, the Salish Sea helps feed the world.
Dana Wilson: With this situation and the way things feel as soon as I get out here, it’s time to go fishing, that’s what it feels like.
Commercial fisherman Dana Wilson supported the family on the legendary fish wealth of the Salish Sea. He remembers the tile machines that pumped water from Blaine, Washington and the cranes costing the state $200 million annually.
Dana Wilson: That used to be a shopping channel, they’re gone now, they’re not buying anymore. So, the building there used to buy fish, they don’t buy fish anymore, it’s not here.
In 1991, a species of fish was endangered. Today, 14 people of salmon are established. They have been crowded out of rivers by habitat destruction, warming, and pollution. Dana Wilson has been fishing all summer. Today, the conservation agency allows for netting, which is transient.
Scott Pelley: There are situations.
Dana Wilson: There are situations.
Scott Pelley: Is there a sun now?
Dana Wilson: There’s a day, and sometimes it’s hours. Sometimes you can get 12 hours, 16 hours. That’s what we failed.
Here, the lost forest has destroyed a way of life that began with indigenous tribes 1,000 years ago.
Armando Brionez: I don’t remember anyone doing anything other than salmon.
Fisherman Armando Brionez is a member of the Lummi tribe, which calls itself the “fish people.” He didn’t think the rich man’s harvest would end with his five fishing boats.
Armando Brionez: Suddenly, you’re trying to figure out, “Well, how can I make this money for my family?” Well, for me it’s good, I have a proper storage, for storage, for storage.
Brionez’s ‘resources’ include his new food truck, switch to fishing, and advice on cannabis farms. His efforts to adapt are replicated around the world. A study by the World Wildlife Fund said that in the last 50 years, the number of wild animals in the world has collapsed by 69%, mostly because of this reason.
Paul Ehrlich: The more people, the more use the mania grows.
At the age of 90, biologist Paul Ehrlich may have lived long enough to see some of his dire predictions come true.
Scott Pelley: Do you seem to be saying that humanity is not sustainable?
Paul Ehrlich: Oh, humanity is not eternal. To maintain our lifestyle (yours and mine, actually) for the entire world, you need five more Worlds. It is not known where they will come from.
Scott Pelley: Just in terms of the resources that will be needed?
Paul Ehrlich: The things that will be needed, the systems that support our lives, which of course are the species that we are destroying. Humanity is busy living on a shore that we are breaking.
In 1968, Ehrlich, a professor of biology at Stanford, became a famous doomsday and climate collapse forecaster.
Scott Pelley: When “The People’s Bomb” came out, you were described as a vigilante.
Paul Ehrlich: I was shocked. I was still shocked. All my colleagues were shocked.
Ehrlich’s alarm in ’68 warned that overpopulation would lead to mass starvation. He was wrong about that. The green revolution fed the world. But he also wrote in 68 that the heat from the gas would melt the solid ice and humans would invade the forest. Today, humans have taken over 70% of the earth’s land and 70% of its fresh water.
Paul Ehrlich: The number of disappearances is high now and it is always increasing.
We know the extinction rate is ‘higher’ because of the paleontological research of Tony Barnosky, Ehrlich’s Stanford colleague.
Tony Barnosky: The data is powerful. I don’t think you’ll find a scientist who would say we’re not in a conservation crisis.
Barnosky’s research shows that the rate of extinction today is 100 times faster than it has been in the history of life for about 4 billion years. These peaks represent the few times when life collapsed on Earth. And the last one was the dinosaur, 66 million years ago.
Tony Barnosky: There have been five times in Earth’s history where we have had mass extinctions. And by extinction, I mean at least 75%, three-quarters of known species are disappearing from the face of the earth. We are now witnessing what many are calling the sixth apocalypse where such a thing could happen on our watch.
Liz Hadly: It’s a terrible state of the world when the species i type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type ‘i type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type type species) are decreasing.
Tony Barnosky’s partner in extinction research is his wife, biologist Liz Hadly, faculty director at Stanford’s Jasper Ridge Research Preserve in California.
Liz Hadly: You know, I saw it in my mind and it was a very sad situation. If you’ve spent any time in California, you know about water loss. Lack of water means that there are dead salmon that you see in the river before your eyes. But it also means the destruction of these birds that depend on fish, eagles. It means, you know, things like minks and otters that depend on fish. In other words, the forests that we are used to, the forests that– you know, the forests that have been around for 3,000 years will be gone. So it means silence. And it means some scary things because it happens so fast.
Tony Barnosky: It means you look out your window, and three quarters of what you thought should be there isn’t there anymore. This is what social collapse looks like.
Liz Hadly: The only thing we’re seeing in California is, you know, the loss of our state symbols. We have no more grizzly bears in California.
Scott Pelley: Are the only rats in California on the state flag?
Tony Barnosky: This is the mammal in our state and they’re gone.
Scott Pelley: Is it too much to say we are killing the world?
Tony Barnosky: I would say it’s too much to say we’re killing the world, because the world will be better. What we are doing is killing the way of life.
The worst killing is in the Latin American region where the World Wildlife Fund said that the number of wild animals has decreased by 94 percent since 1970. But it is in Latin America that we have the possibility of hope.
Mexican biologist Gerardo Ceballos is one of the world’s leading scientists on extinction. He told us that the only solution is to save the one-third of the Earth that remains wild. To prove it, he is conducting a 3,000 square mile experiment. In the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve near Guatemala, he pays family farmers to stop cutting down forests.
Gerardo Ceballos: We will pay each family a certain amount of money that is more than you will cut the forest, if you protect it.
Scott Pelley: And how much do you pay each year?
Gerardo Ceballos: For example, each family here will get about $1,000.
More than enough, here, to make up for lost farmland. In total, the fees are up to 1.5 million dollars a year. Or about $2,000 per square mile. The site is paid for by the charity of the donors.
Gerardo Ceballos: the investment to protect what is left is, I mean, really small
The money invested is collected on Ceballos’ wild cameras. 30 years ago the jaguar was almost extinct in Mexico. Now Ceballos said they are back to about 600 in the reserve.
Scott Pelley: There are some reserves in the world where they’ve been able to grow the population of some species. But I wonder, are all these small success stories enough to prevent mass destruction?
Gerardo Ceballos: All the great successes we have in protecting forests and bringing back animals, such as tigers in India, jaguars in Mexico, elephants in Botswana, etc., are amazing, amazing, successful. But they were like the sand on the beach. And to make a big impact we need to multiply this 10,000 times. Therefore, they are important because they give us hope. But they are not enough to cope with climate change.
Scott Pelley: So what will the world do?
Gerardo Ceballos: What we have to do is to truly understand that climate change and species extinction are a threat to humanity. Then put all the machines of society: political, economic, and social, to find solutions to the problems.
Finding solutions to problems was the goal, two weeks ago, at the United Nations Conference on Biodiversity, where countries agreed on conservation goals. But at that meeting in 2010, these countries agreed to limit global pollution by 2020—and none of those goals have been met. This, despite thousands of studies including the ongoing research of Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich.
Scott Pelley: You know there’s no political reason to do any of the things you’re suggesting.
Paul Ehrlich: I know there is no political agenda to do anything that I care about, which is why I and most of my colleagues think we have; that the next few years will be the end of our normal civilization.
In the 50 years since Ehrlich’s population bombing, the human resource base has tripled. We have already consumed 175% of what the Earth can regenerate. And, consider, half of humanity, about four billion, live on less than 10 dollars a day. They like cars, air conditioning and rich food. But Washington’s Salish Sea fishermen won’t feed them, including Armando Brionez.
Scott Pelley: The tribe has been fishing here for hundreds of years?
Scott Pelley: And your generation is seeing the end of that?
Armando Brionez: It’s getting harder and harder. I don’t want to say — I don’t want to say it’s the end of it.
Scott Pelley: Why are you so passionate about this?
Armando Brionez: It’s all we know. I’m lucky to know where I know a lot of different things. I have done many different things in my life. I’m good at evolving and changing. But not everyone here is built like that. For some of us this is what they know, this is what they know.
The five major collapses of ancient civilizations were caused by natural disasters. Today, if science is right, humanity can survive the sixth destruction of the world of its own making.
Produced by Maria Gavrilovic. Co-producer, Alex Ortiz. Media partner, Michelle Karim. Editor April Wilson.
Create your free account or log in for more features.
Please enter an email address to continue
Please enter a valid email address to continue
Can the sixth mass extinction be stopped?
The good news is that we can stop this mass extinction. While there is no way to deflect an unexpected asteroid strike or put a plug in a volcanic eruption, the current rate of eruptions is being increased by human activity—and that means that Human activities can also reverse this trend.
How long will the disappearance of the sixth last? Earth’s creatures are on the verge of the sixth extinction, similar to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. Read also : Utah Legislature Registers Local Nutrition Coalition in the Fight Against Food Insecurity. This is the conclusion of a new study, which calculates that three quarters of the current animal species may disappear within 300 years.
Are we due for a mass extinction?
The world’s insect population is decreasing by about 1 to 2 percent every year. We have calculated the rate of extinction, and the loss of species. in type ‘in type of type of type of type of type of type of type of type of type of type of type of type of type extinction, which is a hundred times higher than in its history, and we are facing the threat of losing most of the species by the end of the century of the 21st
Is the sixth mass extinction inevitable?
Second, like previous social collapses, what is happening now is not an inevitable result of an evolutionary process. On the same subject : In Politics: Rematch Now vs. Iwamoto gets Kakaako voters, and his own candidates, raised. Rather, it is the result of a rare event that changes the environment so quickly that many organisms cannot change in response.
How close are we to mass extinction?
In mass extinctions, at least three-quarters of all species have died out in about 3 million years. Some scientists believe that at the current rate, we may be on the way to losing that number. See the article : 8 great back-to-school video games. in a few centuries. In the last few years alone, at least 1 million species are at risk of extinction.
Is Earth in danger of extinction?
In fact, scientists predict that if we continue at our current rate of greenhouse gas emissions, climate change will cause more than one-third of the world’s animals and plants to face extinction. by 2050 – and up to 70 percent by the end of time. century.
Is the world about to disappear? Research has found that three-quarters of the world’s species may disappear within 300 years. The world’s species are on the verge of the sixth extinction, similar to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.
Is the world in danger of extinction?
Our world is now facing an unprecedented global catastrophe. Scientists predict that more than 1 million species are on the verge of extinction in the coming years. But there is still time to stop this crisis – and we need your help.
How long will the earth last?
The Earth could continue to support life for at least another 1.75 billion years, as long as nuclear holocaust, a stray asteroid or another catastrophe doesn’t intervene, a new study suggests. But even without such doomsday conditions, astronomical forces will make the world uninhabitable.
What will happen to Earth in 2050?
The world’s population is expected to increase from 7 billion today to more than 9 billion by 2050. Population growth can increase pressure on natural resources that provide energy and food. Global GDP is projected to nearly quadruple by 2050, despite recent setbacks.
Will humans go extinct because of climate change?
If current emissions trends continue, the range is 2.1-3.9C. “We know very little about the issues that matter most,” Kemp said. “I think it’s very unlikely that you’ll see something that’s going to go extinct in the next century just because people are so resilient.
What will happen to the Earth in 2050? The world’s population is expected to increase from 7 billion today to more than 9 billion by 2050. Population growth can increase pressure on natural resources that provide energy and food. Global GDP is projected to nearly quadruple by 2050, despite recent setbacks.
How much longer will humans survive on Earth?
They calculated that the Earth’s surface is 7.79 billion years old. (It is estimated that the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old.) Meanwhile, other planets have lived in regions that can live from 1 billion years to 54.72 billion years.
What is Earth in danger of?
Every day, human activity is destroying the Earth more and more? s environment. Issues such as deforestation, water pollution and water scarcity, oil drilling and fracking threaten the balance of resources needed to sustain life.
What is the greatest danger to the Earth?
What is the biggest threat in space?
A major threat to the stable development of the aerospace industry
- Space threats. Today, there are more than 20,000 man-made objects orbiting the earth. …
- Solar activity. …
- Anti-satellite weapons. …
- The space crisis. …
- Laws that passed.
Will Earth be hit by an asteroid?
“There are no known [large] asteroids on a collision course with Earth for the foreseeable future. NASA regularly provides information about NEOs at cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/sentry,â said Nancy Chabot, an astrophysicist at the Johns Hopkins Laboratory of Physics.
Will an asteroid hit Earth in 2022?
It has since been confirmed that 2022 AE1 will not impact Earth and has been removed from the ESA hazard list.
