Ocean Life May Be on Edge of Catastrophe
An extinction event "unprecedented in human history" is probably under way in the world's oceans, according to a report recently released by a panel of 27 scientists reviewing the latest research from all areas of marine science. (more)
An extinction event “unprecedented in human history” is probably under way in the world’s oceans, according to a report recently released by a panel of 27 scientists reviewing the latest research from all areas of marine science. The destruction is occurring at a faster rate than was previously expected and the die-offs are graver than the worse predictions.
Marine extinctions of this scale have occurred before in geological history, with each episode seeing much of the Earth’s plant and animal life on land destroyed as well. –ARK
Your support matters…The Independent:
The world’s oceans are faced with an unprecedented loss of species comparable to the great mass extinctions of prehistory, a major report suggests today. The seas are degenerating far faster than anyone has predicted, the report says, because of the cumulative impact of a number of severe individual stresses, ranging from climate warming and sea-water acidification, to widespread chemical pollution and gross overfishing.
The coming together of these factors is now threatening the marine environment with a catastrophe “unprecedented in human history”, according to the report, from a panel of leading marine scientists brought together in Oxford earlier this year by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The stark suggestion made by the panel is that the potential extinction of species, from large fish at one end of the scale to tiny corals at the other, is directly comparable to the five great mass extinctions in the geological record, during each of which much of the world’s life died out. They range from the Ordovician-Silurian “event” of 450 million years ago, to the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction of 65 million years ago, which is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs. The worst of them, the event at the end of the Permian period, 251 million years ago, is thought to have eliminated 70 per cent of species on land and 96 per cent of all species in the sea.
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