Mass extinction is where many species die out at a much faster rate, than they typically do. There have been several mass extinctions, in the history of our earth. The first one that is known to have happened was 444 million years ago. Another took place 365 million years ago, a third one 250 million years ago, and another 210 million years ago. And one panned out 65 million years ago.
All sorts of things can cause mass extinction. For example, hunting has caused mass extinctions, as well as rapid increase or decrease of temperature. And by rapid, I mean, over prolonged periods of time, but quicker than what many organisms can evolve to cope with. Other causes include change in weather patterns and increased natural disasters. These can range from volcanic eruptions, to severe storms, hurricanes, and even flooding caused by the end of ice ages, when the ice, caused by a severe global drop in temperature, melts as the planet gradually warms up again. These catastrophic events can be deadly to all sorts of species as they destroy their habitats and always contribute heavily to mass extinction. Other events that lead to habitat loss and cause mass extinction are fires and tsunamis.
Probably the most famous mass extinction, the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, took place 65 million years ago. However, it did leave species like reptiles, small mammals, bacterial species, microorganisms, and some birds, as these were the creatures able to escape the natural disasters, and rough conditions using hibernation or flight. They are the ones that would have evolved to the species we know today.
This particular mass extinction was due to an asteroid hitting in the Gulf of Mexico. Because of its landing location it caused a wide range of natural disasters, some connected in chain reactions. The meteorite caused tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and dust storms, to name a few. The dust storms in particular, were some of the most catastrophic methods in which life was lost, due to them being so thick that they blocked out sunlight causing the planet’s food chain to crumble from the base up. They would have affected the entire planet. It would have been the sheer heat that initially wiped out the dinosaurs where the meteor hit in what is now Mexico, and fires would have wiped out most everything that survived that. Further away, it would have been tsunamis, flooding, eruptions, and earthquakes that wiped them out, as it would have moved the tectonic plates substantially, due to the asteroid hitting near the edge of one. On the other side of the world, it would have been dust storms that hit at a slightly later stage. It would have been these factors that killed off most of the dinosaurs. This would have probably happened, initially quite quickly, likely over the course of a month. It would have then, probably, happened quite gradually, as the collapse of major components of the food chain, would mean that any survivors would die out from starvation.
It is possible that an asteroid would hit again, but on the other hand we are in the middle of another mass extinction now. It started around the time of the cave people when hunting first came into play, because when these early people hunted, they would hunt out a species at a time without meaning to, for example, horses, deer, wild cattle, dodos, mastodon, and even young sabre-toothed tigers. Unfortunately, hunting is still done and it’s almost never done for food these days. Another factor of today’s mass extinction is farming and increased over farming, especially of beef. Another component is the industrial revolution that started around 200 years ago and brought about the quicker and cheaper option of industrially manufacturing in factories by burning fossil fuels and cutting down trees. This was both for manufacturing purposes and to make room for these factories, as well as space for more farming as the population of the earth grew. However, with the population booming and the use of factories and machinery constantly rising it caused the planet to heat and that has affected plant species, and animal species around the world.
A recent example of how this is impacting earth are the forest fires in Australia caused by the heating of the planet, as it resulted in the trees catching on fire, thus impacting species like koalas who will have lost their tree top homes. Sadly, with the ongoing deforestation in unreasonable amounts, a lot of species like orangutans and other monkeys have lost their homes as well. These are just a few examples as there are around 8 million animal and plant species on earth today, with around 1million of them being endangered of going extinct.
Extinction is natural to an extent, but it becomes dangerous when a good deal more than five species go extinct in a year. Even if it is a small-impact species that goes extinct, that will then impact a slightly more important species, and then a slightly more important species, and so on and so forth. It all works its way up the food chain. Because of this, we have already started to see signs of it impacting humans and we will continue to do so. It is human activity, and the warming of the planet that caused fires in Australia which have meant people losing their homes. The heating of the planet has caused more catastrophic weather events, which has caused people to lose their homes. As well as this, many modern-day viruses and some diseases have been traced directly back to human activity. And as the planet increases temperature it becomes increasingly difficult for certain species to survive. Earthworms and pollinators are good examples. We need earthworms to give us soil to grow good crops and pollinators to pollinate those crops, otherwise, it could be catastrophic for us as humans because we will not be able to grow foods that are safe to eat.
Some scientists say that we are past the tipping point, while others say we still have a few years to reverse some of the damage we have done and prevent it from happening again. One of the main things that can help this is consuming less. We can use less fuel by car sharing and using public transport more for travelling. Other examples of things we could do is produce less food because a massive amount of food is wasted from grocery stores rejecting perfectly edible items because of their appearance, not to mention the food that goes to waste from our plates when we do not eat it. Another thing you can do is source food locally from places that you can easily trace where your food has come from to reduce your food miles. You can also eat less meat. This does not mean that you must go vegetarian or vegan, but eating less meat and knowing where your meat has come from is a vital step towards change as it helps ‘collapse the floor,’ and draw attention away, from supporting over farming of things like beef. It would also reduce food waste overall. And it was years and years ago that we had plenty of agricultural space to farm, both animals and plants, and yet we continue to cut down forests to make room for things we do not need.
Other things we can do are shopping consciously from local businesses with good environmentally friendly ethos’s and that work their hardest to provide packaging that is recyclable, and compostable and good for the planet, when it comes to household products like toothbrushes, paper towels, and toilet paper as well as when it comes to clothes. You can also sponsor endangered animals through companies like WWF and use not-for-profit search engines that help plant trees or remove plastic from the oceans.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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for the David Attenborough documentary click here
for the 12 minute clip on Mary Anning click here
for an audio-book version of a book on ecology that i used click here
for an article on mass extinction from the museum of natural history New York click here
other things you might try
for Ecosia, a free not for profit search engine that plants trees click here
for WWF, adopting an endangered speices for 3£ a month click here
for who gives a crap, an ethical company that sells toilet paper and paper towels click here
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