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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <a
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<h1 class="reader-title">Are we headed towards the sixth mass
extinction?</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Quamrul Haider Sun Apr 16,
2023 03:00 PM Last update on: Sun Apr 16, 2023 05:57 PM</div>
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<p> Surreal as it may seem, we have clearly embarked on the
path to self-annihilation. </p>
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<p>Over the past 540 million years, a short period of time
on the geological scale, there were five events of mass
extinction, caused by such things as severe ice age, an
asteroid impact, invasive species taking over the planet,
reconstruction of the Earth's crust some 250 million years
ago, and other forces of nature. The most recent was 66
million years ago, which led to the extinction of
dinosaurs. During each extinction, more than 75 percent of
all species on the planet died.</p>
<p>Extinction is also a natural process. A species may
become extinct and be replaced by another species, or it
may gradually evolve into one or more new species. An
important aspect of natural extinction is that niches
remain occupied, but the species filling them change
radically. The demise of the dinosaurs, though not
natural, gave new species an opportunity to grow, from
which human beings eventually evolved.</p>
<p>With the introduction of humans as an ecological factor,
there has been a shift from the gradual, natural
replacement-type extinction to an abrupt niche-emptying
extinction. The way humans have attacked the species of
the world varied from outright assault to insidious
nibbling, both of which have the same destructive result.
Many animals disappeared simply because they were edible.
Others became extinct because they were fashionable in
human eyes. The rate of extinction is now about 1,000
times faster than before humans arrived.</p>
<p>It leads one to wonder whether we are on track for the
sixth mass extinction. Many scientists believe that the
question is not "whether," nor "if," but "when." And this
time, the cause will not be global cooling or asteroid
impact. It will be the work of a single species ‒ <em>Homo
sapiens</em> – driving themselves to extinction.</p>
<p>The UK-based Global Challenges Foundation lists nuclear
war, pollution and climate change, overpopulation,
biotechnology, and pandemics as the most viable threats to
the existence of humans.</p>
<p>Of the many possible scenarios, nuclear conflict is the
most likely one by which human civilisation will become
extinct. Our vulnerability to this threat is growing
because of the escalating political tensions between
nuclear-armed superpowers.</p>
<p>In an open threat of a nuclear war, Russia's Security
Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev did not mince
words when he publicly said that a defeat for Russia in
the war against Ukraine could provoke a nuclear war.
Meanwhile, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church,
Patriarch Kirill, warned that "an attempt to destroy
Russia [by Nato using Ukraine as a proxy] will mean the
end of the world."</p>
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<p>With the entrance of man as an ecological factor,
there has been a shift from the gradual, natural
replacement-type extinction to abrupt niche-emptying
extinction.</p>
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<p>Yes, the patriarch is spot on. Today, the US, Russia,
and China possess enough nuclear weapons to kill every
man, woman, and child on this planet. If any of these
countries initiates the use of such weapons, especially
against another one that possesses them in abundance,
the inevitable result will be the annihilation of the
human race.</p>
<p>If we are spared the nuclear holocaust, then pollution
and anthropogenic climate change will be responsible for
our extinction. Today, we live on a planet poisoned by
toxins dumped by us. The toxins are in the food we eat,
the water we drink, and the air we breathe. As the
renowned explorer and environmentalist Jacques Cousteau
said, "Water and air, the two essential fluids on which
all life depends, have become global garbage cans."</p>
<p>Such a society cannot live forever.</p>
<p>Climate change per se is unlikely to cause our
extinction. However, the synergistic feedback of the
continued emission of planet-warming greenhouse gases
(GHGs) can trigger the onset of "runaway greenhouse
effect," which will eventually turn the Earth into an
inferno with virtually no life. Several billion years
ago, Venus was an Earth-like planet with an abundance of
water in oceans overlain by an oxygen-rich atmosphere.
The current hellish condition on Venus where the surface
temperature is a blistering 460 degrees Celsius was
caused by runaway greenhouse effect.</p>
<p>A rapidly growing human population is putting us in the
throes of extinction. With a population that increased
three-fold since 1950, food, water, and a whole lot more
required for sustenance of life in the future will be in
short supply. In fact, we are surviving today by
stealing <em>from</em> the future. Hence, it is not
unlikely that once the population reaches a "critical
mass," natural resources vital to our survival will not
be adequate enough to support us, unless we can replace
them with sustainable alternatives. As a result,
starvation will bring us face-to-face with extinction.</p>
<p>The misuse of biotechnology is another existential
risk. With the advancement in DNA manipulation
technology, it is quite likely that scientists working
for a roguish state actor or a terrorist group can
engineer a "superbug" for biological warfare, and in the
process obliterate our entire civilisation. Besides, the
abuse of biotechnology to develop deadly,
quick-spreading pathogens that can hasten our extinction
cannot be ruled out. For example, the pathogen often
called the Spanish Flu, which killed an estimated 50
million people worldwide in 1918 and 1919, was
resurrected by a group of US scientists in 2005. And a
professor in the Netherlands came under fire in 2011
when he engineered a deadly, airborne version of the flu
virus and attempted to publish the details of his work.</p>
<p>We cannot rule out the possibility of fast-spreading
devastating diseases, such as Covid-19, which, according
to the World Health Organization (WHO), claimed at least
three million lives since 2020. In the past two
millennia, besides the Spanish Flu, the other pandemics
that can be labelled as global catastrophes of a bigger
magnitude were the Black Death of the 1340s that felled
more than 10 percent of the world population, and the
great Plague of Justinian in 541 and 542 that wiped out
an estimated 13-17 percent of the global population at
that time.</p>
<p>Surreal as it may seem, we have clearly embarked on the
path to self-annihilation. Indeed, several recently
published scientific studies warn that the sixth mass
extinction is already underway. Lest we forget, our
ancestors – Neanderthals, Denisovans, <em>Homo erectus</em> –
became extinct, leaving just their descendants, the <em>Homo
sapiens</em>, to follow them. The question is: How
soon?</p>
<p><em><strong>Dr Quamrul Haider</strong> is a professor
of physics at Fordham University in New York, US.</em>
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