Environment & Economics: Biological Annihilation
Biological Annihilation sounds like a sensational, attention-grabbing, perhaps alarmist title of the next apocalyptic natural disaster film title out of Hollywood staring Bruce Willis or Dwayne Johnson. But the claim made by the authors of the recent National Academy of Sciences study (July'17) is that it would be irresponsible for them not to use strong language. So what are we talking about? Biological Annihilation is based on the principal that we are in the sixth mass extinction event of Earth's history. The previous five mass extinction events were cause by natural phenomenon, such as the asteroid-caused dinosaur die-off. This 6th extinction event is human-caused. Human activity has depleted habitat through; deforestation, dumping chemicals into the environment, and of course anthropogenic climate-change (human-caused global warming). The truth? Who of us can question people of a science that most of us know little about? It fits the pattern of human history. We have evo