UN Environment Programme: 200 Species Extinct Every Day, Unlike Anything Since Dinosaurs Disappeared 65 Million Years Ago

guardian.co.uk:

According to the UN Environment Programme, the Earth is in the midst of a mass extinction of life. Scientists estimate that 150-200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal become extinct every 24 hours. This is nearly 1,000 times the "natural" or "background" rate and, say many biologists, is greater than anything the world has experienced since the vanishing of the dinosaurs nearly 65m years ago.

Read the whole story: guardian.co.uk

Comments

[FOXYROSE]

05:44 PM on 08/27/2010

Oh, I see so many poets on HuffPo - Out, Out brief candle - Life's but a walking shadow which struts and frets upon the stage and then is heard no more. The rest is silence signifying nothing.

[FOXYROSE]

05:40 PM on 08/27/2010

I have news for you people - the world is going to end someday, all planets do. We could get hit by a hugh meteor or the sun could have a really big explosion and burn into our atmosphere, the possibilities are endless and deadly. So, I say let's all enjoy while we can. Since the economy is so down, I will continue the few pleasures in life that I can afford - a nice steak on my grill and a good glass of red. Pleas don't hate me for these indescretions!

[FOXYROSE]

05:36 PM on 08/27/2010

Should we burn our garbage - can't do that, bad for environment - how about solar panels that cost a fortune, how about everyone put a windmill on their roofs, how about we use no fertilizer or bug spray - can't feed the world then - how about we run our cars on electricity, can't do that because of the ancient grid and electricty comes from coal - how about natural gas - can't do that because we would have to drill. Here's an idea - turn our garbage into some kind of food - could be cleaned up and squeezed into small cubes - so apetizing on a small plate with your Euro beer or wine lol. Let's run this vast country and economy on wishful thinking and fairy dust!

[lbsaltzman]

02:04 PM on 08/28/2010

That is more strawman arguments in one post than I have ever seen.

[SFTor]

04:33 AM on 08/27/2010

200 species per day? Really? Any species we have ever heard of?

Are we talking locally extinct, or globally extinct?

[humaneisfact]

04:43 PM on 08/27/2010

i'd venture a guess that many are indigenous to specific areas only and they are going extinct due to loss of habitat.I would love if there were a website that listed with pictures included the "species" that go extinct every day.The article fails to give us a sample of species going extinct.If there are a thousand species of say.."sparrow" or "rodent"exclusive to an area...i can see how many of them may go extinct quickly due to development,etc.I'd like more information too.

[popfolly]

10:38 PM on 08/20/2010

There cam be no doubt that America is a highly pragmatic nation, having ushered inthe previous industrial age and now opened up amazing new advances in electronics. These [roducts of American pragmatism have led up to dramatically changed living conditions for the privileged in the developed nations. resulting from a revolution in scientific method which has created the
instruments for studying all large scale and small scale processes with unprecedented resullts.
In his theory of relativity,

Almost a century ago, Einstein took the first step in positing a world ruled not by absolutes but by probabilities and thus gave Democracy the foundation on which it rests. Ufortunately the new vision of how the world really works has not yet been adopted by those still held in thrall by the carcinogenic conditions imposed by an outmoded, carcinogenic form of present day capitalism and thus have put the world in direst peril.

[humaneisfact]

04:53 PM on 08/27/2010

the key word is "capitalism".nice post.

[RFlo]

01:07 PM on 08/20/2010

So I guess the mosque debate is more important? FRONT PAGE NEWS, people!

[QuietLightTraveler]

12:12 PM on 08/20/2010

This is the thing. When Republicans mouth off with their anti-science and anti-environmental policies they should be recognized for what they truly are (enemies of the people and anti-american) and given no level of tolerance. They are the crude, self centered, frightened, unenlightened part of our society and will bring us down.

[humaneisfact]

04:57 PM on 08/27/2010

i recently read a book called "The Accidental Time Machine" by Joe Haldeman that still gives me the chills.Basically a simple book but if you read it you'll understand why it gives me the chills.Think the religious right.

[QuietLightTraveler]

12:06 PM on 08/20/2010

"in wildness is the preservation of the world." It was true when Thoreau said it in the mid 1800s and it's still true today.

[humaneisfact]

05:01 PM on 08/27/2010

I can't bring myself to reread Civil Disobedience or Walden because it pains me to know his vision seems lost on our modern society.

[humaneisfact]

05:04 PM on 08/27/2010

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
- Henry David Thoreau

that about sums it up for Americans these days

[babyboomerorig]

12:43 AM on 08/20/2010

After watching the disappearance of insects over the past 55 years or so, this report doesn't surprise me at all.

Let's spray to get rid of spiders because they freak me out, bumble bees might sting me (only if you threaten them) and now one manufacturer is using krill oil for fish oil saying that there's no fishy taste with it. I never found any omega pills fishy, but why eliminate the bottom of the oceanic food chain when we just need to eat better food.

[farmilyman]

02:48 PM on 08/18/2010

The world would be better off and start healing if the GOP became extinct.

[rollingrock]

10:30 PM on 08/18/2010

American style suburban sprawl and stupid car culture needs to be extinct, for everyone's sake. American lifestyle is way far too dependent on fossil fuels. We consume at least three times the energy per capita than anyone else in the world, with no sign of letting up. This is simply unsustainable.

[farmilyman]

10:01 AM on 08/19/2010

Too much easy money to be made with dirty energy even through technology is available to get off.

[daultman463]

02:38 PM on 08/19/2010

We aren`t going anywhere my friend. us GOP`s will be here for a long long time. Even after al gore is proven wrong about global warming/climate change or whatever he is going to call it next.

[Billy Jack]

09:55 AM on 08/20/2010

Just keep repeating that to yourself as you watch yourself and everyone around you die of starvation

[QuietLightTraveler]

12:17 PM on 08/20/2010

You know, it appears you don't have much going on upstairs, and it's people like you who are going to take us all down. And don't kid yourself, indeed you are going somewhere, either you or your progeny will be going -- extinct in the not very distant future. Now, get off my computer !

[morgan1]

08:13 AM on 08/18/2010

The push was on in the 70's to get off oil, to go Green, to have ZPG, to be environmentally friendly and those behind it were much larger than the ones now. See how well that movement worked out. Each Administration talks about saving the planet (In some BS talk or another), climate change programs, bringing the corporations under control, getting off oil, but with each decade, all things have gotten far worse. This is as true now as it was when Reagan began the downward spiral of our country. No one in govt. listened and no one is listening now. It is about the money, greed and the rich getting richer. There is no reason for change in their minds and as one columnist recently stated, when things get bad, they relocate to another country. Can things get worse? You betcha and they are.

[outnow]

10:03 AM on 08/18/2010

Reagan's message was that from the Shining City upon a Hill, we could continue to ignore the realities that Carter could see. Reagan was an actor while Carter had a PhD. Carter knows science enough to understand that we cannot continue on with a non-sustainable energy agenda and Carter had the courage to take a position publically. But we must push far beyond in order to survive as a species.

So long as the big multinational oil and oil services corporations call the tune, then we are doomed.

[StraferX]

08:05 AM on 08/18/2010

Good story just in time for our President to give 32 billion to expand coal operations in USA and hardly any funds to any alternative energy. It looks like human life is coming to an end as we know it, one can only hope the extinction starts in congress first.

[Pema]

12:47 AM on 08/18/2010

you could make resolutions, start implementing these new regulations, but there is no way, we have to slow the train that has been running full tilt for years, we can't slow down fast enough. we need to make sure we have enough dna so that we can restore a species. its a disturbing thought, that this is what it may come down to.

[mountainweb]

11:03 PM on 08/17/2010

At 200 as day times 365 means 73,000 in one year or 730,000 every 10 years, These are non provable numbers via any method - just numbers that pulled out of their butts....The weather is changing and has ALWAYS been changing but using stupid figures is not going to stop it.

[StopGlobalWarmingBeVegan]

09:56 PM on 08/17/2010

Animal agriculture is destroying our planet, we need a veg society now.

[AJH]

11:48 PM on 08/17/2010

or fewer people.

[Pema]

12:48 AM on 08/18/2010

i was going to fan you but i see i have done so already! fav'd