“Life as we know it would be impossible if ecosystems collapsed” (Jerry Coyne). Granted that humans depend on every natural service that the Earth provides for us, however, we continue to live a destructive way of life without realizing the consequences. “Scientists agree that we’re now in the midst of a sixth [mass extinction]” (Jerry Coyne). Every year, 30,000 species go extinct due to the hazardous effects of human activity on wildlife. At this rate, the sixth mass extinction could happen within the next century or two, with humans being the main cause of this catastrophe. Unfortunately, modern humans have only been on Earth for around 200,000 years, yet we have caused an extreme climate change within fairly recent years, degraded our oceans
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Using knowledge from evidence dating back to previous mass extinctions, scientists can confirm the oceans are suffering and are facing the deadly factors of rising water temperatures, becoming acidified, and lacking oxygen. Of course, global warming is not the only factor contributing to the fall of our oceans, there are many other human-induced impacts such as waste floating in the oceans, overfishing, nutrient runoff from farming, and greenhouse gases further increase the issues. Not only does waste lower the quality of water, chemicals from pollutants such as flame retardants, fluorinated compounds, pharmaceuticals, and as well as synthetic musks can be absorbed by plastic, which then is ingested by marine life causing the endocrine and immune systems to become disrupted and damaged. “The marine experts agreed that [all these combined threats] means that the ocean and the ecosystems within it are unable to recover, being constantly bombarded with multiple attacks” (Environment News …show more content…
“We are relentlessly taking over the planet, laying it to waste and eliminating most of our fellow species” (Jerry Coyne). As an illustration, tropical rainforests are disappearing at a rate of 2% per year, most large fish populations are down to 10% of what they used to be in 1950, and most primates and apes are nearly gone from the wild. Fortunately, healthy ecosystems provide the world with hidden and free services such as waste disposal, nutrient cycling, soil formation, water and oxygen purification. Without these services, we become responsible to replace those services which will double our global GDP, costing us $50 trillion per
Using knowledge from evidence dating back to previous mass extinctions, scientists can confirm the oceans are suffering and are facing the deadly factors of rising water temperatures, becoming acidified, and lacking oxygen. Of course, global warming is not the only factor contributing to the fall of our oceans, there are many other human-induced impacts such as waste floating in the oceans, overfishing, nutrient runoff from farming, and greenhouse gases further increase the issues. Not only does waste lower the quality of water, chemicals from pollutants such as flame retardants, fluorinated compounds, pharmaceuticals, and as well as synthetic musks can be absorbed by plastic, which then is ingested by marine life causing the endocrine and immune systems to become disrupted and damaged. “The marine experts agreed that [all these combined threats] means that the ocean and the ecosystems within it are unable to recover, being constantly bombarded with multiple attacks” (Environment News …show more content…
“We are relentlessly taking over the planet, laying it to waste and eliminating most of our fellow species” (Jerry Coyne). As an illustration, tropical rainforests are disappearing at a rate of 2% per year, most large fish populations are down to 10% of what they used to be in 1950, and most primates and apes are nearly gone from the wild. Fortunately, healthy ecosystems provide the world with hidden and free services such as waste disposal, nutrient cycling, soil formation, water and oxygen purification. Without these services, we become responsible to replace those services which will double our global GDP, costing us $50 trillion per