According to Mexican scientists, over the past century, hundreds of thousands of animal species have disappeared due to human activity, while millions of others are on the brink of extinction due to environmental issues.
A study conducted by Mexican scientists demonstrates that the Earth has officially entered the early stages of the sixth mass extinction, warning that if humanity does not urgently address the biodiversity crisis caused by environmental pollution and climate change, the existence of humankind may come to an end within the next 200 years.
A dead elephant due to drought in Samburu, Kenya, on October 12, 2022. (Photo: AFP/TTXVN).
According to reporters in Mexico, the research titled “The Disappearance of Life” conducted by ecologists Gerardo Ceballos and Rodolfo Dirzo indicates that the number of vertebrate species that have gone extinct in the past 100 years is 1,000 times higher than that of the past million years.
This study also recently received the prestigious “Frontline Knowledge” award from Spain, recognizing scientists for their significant contributions to the development of humanity.
Speaking at the award ceremony held in Bilbao, Spain, co-author Gerardo Ceballos emphasized that over the past century, hundreds of thousands of animal species have vanished due to human activity, while millions of other species are nearing danger from environmental issues such as population growth, climate change, habitat destruction, and overfishing.
Furthermore, according to Ceballos, who is also a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the disappearance of many animal species will also lead to corresponding extinctions in plants due to the organic relationships and mutual dependencies between animals and plants in nature.
Meanwhile, Rodolfo Dirzo, co-author of the study, emphasized that the future of humanity will largely depend on how humans harmoniously address the conservation of biodiversity while pursuing socio-economic development, thereby maintaining sustainable and long-term development.
According to the award organizers, “The Disappearance of Life” is the first research project to assess the extinction risk of individual species while also considering this risk for entire genera. It is also the first scientific study to evaluate extinction rates at a level higher than the species level.
The Earth has experienced five mass extinction events throughout its 4.5 billion-year history.
The first was the Ordovician-Silurian extinction event about 444 million years ago, while the most recent and well-known event occurred 66 million years ago when the Chicxulub asteroid, approximately 12 km wide, struck the Earth off the coast of what is now the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico at an estimated speed of 70,000 km/h.
This event not only wiped out the dinosaurs but also left a crater over 190 km wide and caused a massive tsunami, igniting every forest within a 1,500 km radius of the impact site.
Additionally, the dust and debris ejected into the atmosphere led to global cooling and caused ecosystems to collapse almost immediately. This tragedy resulted in the extinction of about 76% of the world’s species.
