What Species are Among "the Walking Dead” in Earth's 6th Mass Extinction?

by Natalie Shoemaker

It's a contest of survival here on Earth. Scientists say we're entering into another period of the planet's sixth mass extinction event. Lucky us.

These mass extinction events are caused by catastrophic physical changes in the environment that occur faster than animals are able to adapt. So, pending an asteroid crashing into us or some other disruptive event taking place, the main cause of the sixth mass extinction event will be brought to you by humans through habitat destruction, pollution, and climate change. The last of which has been keeping Bill Nye up at night:

"There are examples of species all over the world that are essentially the walking dead,” said Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich to the BBC. It should be noted that humans are not excluded from this list of candidates.

The problem here is world's wealthiest nations, the ones that could do the most good, fail to see climate change as the major threat that it is, and why would they?

“In many developed countries we have confidence in our adaptive capacity. We think we can adapt and cope, and in many ways we can do so more than developing economies,” Dr. Debbie Hopkins, a Social Scientist at the University of Otago, explained in an interview with The Guardian.

We don't see the crisis of human displacement, unless we're looking for it in the news. The world's greatest minds have moved the Doomsday Clock to three minutes to midnight—the closest its been since the Cold War in 1984—and we're seeing California slowly sink into the Earth. Ecosystems are changing by way of seabirds  dying, bee populations being mysteriously decimated, and more than 400 species disappearing since 1900—a loss that typically happens over 10,000 years. We can only begin to wonder how drastically these changes will alter the face of our planet.

In the meantime, the world will watch the face of the planet change. But scientists say we can avoid disaster "through intensified conservation effects,” but that “window of opportunity is rapid closing.”

The solutions are there, like buying up coal to keep it in the ground. This alone would reduce habitat destruction as well as cut carbon emissions down in a dramatic way. It's just up to world leaders to make these changes happen.

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Natalie has been writing professionally for about 6 years. After graduating from Ithaca College with a degree in Feature Writing, she snagged a job at PCMag.com where she had the opportunity to review all the latest consumer gadgets. Since then she has become a writer for hire, freelancing for various websites. In her spare time, you may find her riding her motorcycle, reading YA novels, hiking, or playing video games. Follow her on Twitter: @nat_schumaker

Photo Credit: NICHOLAS KAMM / Getty Staff