On Monday, there was more bad news: We are racing faster and closer toward the point of collapse than scientists previously thought, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The extinction rate among terrestrial vertebrate species is significantly higher than prior estimates, and the critical window for preventing mass losses will close much sooner than formerly assumed — in 10 to 15 years.
“We’re eroding the capabilities of the planet to maintain human life and life in general,” said Gerardo Ceballos, an ecologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and lead author of the new study.
The current rate of extinctions vastly exceeds those that would occur naturally, Dr. Ceballos and his colleagues found.
Scientists know of 543 species lost over the last 100 years, a tally that would normally take 10,000 years to accrue.
