Steven Schnepp

The Sixth Mass Extinction

Sensationalist Alarmism Forsaking the Future for the Past
To claim that humanity is the genesis of a sixth mass extinction on par with the extinction
events at the end of the Cretaceous, Triassic, Permian, Devonian, and Ordovician periods
is alarmist and arrogant. While the impact of human industrialization on the Earth's
biosphere is obvious, our species's activities have yet to snuff out even half of the Earth's
species. The nature of the fossil record is such that we are more keenly aware of modern
animals disappearing than the rate at which prehistoric animals went extinct, which
exacerbates the fact that humanity is the likely cause of the present-day rate of extinction
being roughly 100 times the Earth's average rate. While unacceptably high, this is still not
enough to qualify humanity as a mass-extinction event. In his book, The Future of Life,
biologist E. O. Wilson claims we will accomplish this feat in one hundred years if we
continue our present rate of human-caused ecological extinction.
As the Spartan said to the Persians at Thermopylae, "If".
Ignoring for the moment the compelling argument that much of today's climate
change is due to the Earth warming from the Little Ice Age that spanned from 1550 to
1850 AD (its ending coinciding with the beginning of the modern so-called "global
warming" and the Industrial Revolution), and thus that many modern extinctions are
more natural than manmade (with certain obvious exceptions like the dodo and other
animals hunted into extinction), humanity will not long stay the rapacious course charted
in the 19th and 20th centuries. The developed nations of the world have already
dramatically reduced their pollutant production, and the developing nations of the world
have the advantage of our experience; they need not go through the wasteful and messy
stages of experimentation in their progress. The trend of the latter half of the 20th century
and the first decades of the 21st century have been towards a greater ecological
awareness and a greater stewardship of the environment. Modern cities, for all their mess
and pollution, are still cleaner and less damaging to the environment than they were a
generation ago; if the trend continues, it is reasonable to assume that humanity's impact
on the environment will reach a happy equilibrium with the plants and animals in the
environment.
There are already signs of organisms adapting to a human-created environment.
They are proof that, as dangerous and toxic as it is, the urban setting is merely another
suite of ecological niches to exploit. For example, seagulls have switched from seagoing
predators to Dumpster-diving scavengers, while cockroaches and the common clothes
moth have followed us around the world. Sparrows have evolved to shorter wings,
enabling them to take off swifter and better evade cars. Perhaps the finest example of
evolution fitting a species to coexist with humanity, however, is the dog. Even without
creatures adjusting to us, humanity is setting aside zoos and wildlife sanctuaries as
preserves to maintain those animals our civilization has put in jeopardy. Though it
generates population bottlenecks and limits genetic diversity within a species, in a world
where not everyone has fully grasped the importance of the biosphere they are the best
we can do so far.
The modern trend towards environmental stewardship and awareness not only

extends to species which we threaten through our pollutants and development, but also to
species which have gone extinct even during the end of the Holocene. Unlike other
extinction events, humanity seeks to soften its impact on global biodiversity by
preventing extinction - and by genetically resurrecting species which have already gone
extinct. While such resurrection of dinosaurs and other ancient animals is purely science
fiction, cloning and re-creating animals which have gone extinct in historical times is
within the theoretical perception of modern science, if not yet the grasp. The first
tantalizing successes have seen the Pyrenean ibex restored - if only for seven minutes.
While an ounce of conservation is worth a pound of de-extinction, conservation does not
help species that are already extinct.
Even a couple of generations ago, it was reasonable to assume that humanity
might well wipe out very nearly all life on Earth. Today, in the light of technology's
inexorable progress, holding to the belief that mankind is a mass extinction event on
parallel with the Big Five mass extinctions is ignoring the possibilities of the future in
favor of a pessimistic examination of the past.