60% OF EARTH'S WILDLIFE HAS VANISHED SINCE 1970

I saw a 2018 article indicating that 60% of earth's wildlife has vanished since 1970.  This from the World Wildlife Foundation, mostly caused by human activity

Indeed, a recent assessment found that only a quarter of land on Earth is substantively free of the impacts of human activities. This is projected to decline to just one tenth by 2050. Land degradation includes forest loss; while globally this loss has slowed due to reforestation and plantations it has accelerated in tropical forests that contain some of the highest levels of biodiversity on Earth.

The oceans are in just as much trouble. In total, nearly six billion tons of fish and invertebrates have vanished from the Earth's seas since 1950.

Much of the blame is specifically placed on the burning fossil fuels, causing climate warming.  Agriculture contributes a third of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

So I wondered, where are we in 2024?  Watch this video from the WWF Living Planet Report, which states that wildlife populations plunged almost 75% since 1970.  

Or what about this from PBS?

Of all species that have existed on Earth, 99.9 percent are now extinct. Many of them perished in five cataclysmic events. 

According to a recent poll, seven out of ten biologists think we are currently in the throes of a sixth mass extinction. Some say it could wipe out as many as 90 percent of all species living today. Yet other scientists dispute such dire projections

These biologists blame one specie for this mass extinction.  Homo sapiens.

Among the points discussed were the following:

• It's actually difficult to compare extinction rates with the past because of the 6-10 million currently existing species, we have still only identified 1 million.

• 
  But take birds, for example, where there are around 10,000 species.
• At least 128 (actually only 1.28%) have disappeared in the last 500 years, but about 1200 (12%) more are currently seriously threatened..
• Add the 60% in the above title, and more recent 75% decline,  and we might well be in the beginning of a 6th mass extinction, for all the serious previous mass extinctions occurred over many millions of years.  
• However, there is a parametric difference in that the above cites a decline in overall population, while the pass extinctions used specie disappearance.

How do we compare with past mass extinctions?

• There have been five major mass extinction in Earth's history.
• In all of them, 75% of species went extinct within two million years.
• Science only goes back 500 million years for this comparison.
• All of these mass extinctions were caused by some combination of rapid and dramatic changes in climate.
• 
  End Ordovician.
• 444 million years ago.
• 86% of species lost
• Intense glacial periods causing large sea-level swings, plus tectonic uplift, where carbon dioxide was sequestered.
• 
  Late Devonian.
• 360 mya.
• 75% of species lost.
• Rapid growth of land plants, generating severe global cooling.
• That is a fearsome Placododerm dundleosteus from this period.
• 
  End Permian.
• 250 mya.
• 96% of species lost.
• Intense volcanic activity in Siberia, causing elevated CO2, causing global warming and ocean acidification.
• Those species to the right survived.

• 
  End Triassic.
• 200 mya.
• 80% of species lost.
• Underwater volanic activity in the Atlantic Ocean, causing global warming and change in the chemical composition of the oceans.
• 
  End Cretaceous.
• 65.5 mya.
• 76% of species lost.
• Asteroid impact in Yucatan, Mexico, causing global cooling.  It's possible, too, that there was also intense volcanic activity.  This is the one that killed off the dinosaurs.

So returning to the World Wildlife Foundation:  What is the sixth mass extinction and what can we do about it?

• All previous mass extinctions were caused by natural phenomena.
• This sixth extinction, called the Holocene Extinction, is driven by human activity.
• We have converted 40% of all land for food production.

• 
  Agriculture is responsible for 90% of deforestation and 70% of freshwater use, and farming increases greenhouse gases.
• The reliance on fossil fuels could well be even more serious if allowed to proceed, as incoming president Donald Trump has suggested.
• Currently, it is estimated that human activity is raising the species extinction rate 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than natural extinction.
• 
  What can we do to stop mass extinction?

• Paris Agreement. We can ramp up our commitments to cutting carbon emissions under the Paris Agreement and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
• 30X30. Our leaders can support the America the Beautiful initiative to conserve 30% of US lands and waters by 2030.
• Kunming-Montreal Agreement. US leadership can play a critical role alongside 195 other countries in conserving at least 30% of lands, inland waters, and oceans worldwide.
• Grassroots action. While the federal government can set high-level policies to conserve nature, businesses, communities, and individuals have a powerful role to play in shifting corporate behavior with their consumer choices and demanding accountability from political leaders.

To close, view six animals that never,  actually, went extinct.  Another report of six animals that did not go extinct.  The most famous is the coelacanth.

• The oldest known coelacanth fossils date back more than 410 million years.  Note that the Tyrannosaurus Rex only first appeared 90 million years ago.
• Coelacanths were thought to have become extinct around 66 million years when that asteroid crashed into the Yucantan Peninsula, killing all dinosaurs.

• 
  However, one was found living off the coast of South Africa in 1938.  
• It was a pre-Christmas miracle on December 25.
• Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer (with her fish in photo above), a museum curator, was inspecting catches by local fishermen.

• 
  In the pile she spotted a fin.
• It was a pale mauvy blue 127-pound fish with faint specks of whitish spots and a silver-blue-green iridescence.
• Four limp-like fins and a puppy-dog tail.

• 
  There are today two known types of living coelacanths, members of the genus Latimeria, after the founder.
• Since 1938, 84 West Indian Ocean coelacanths have been found in the Comoros, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar, and South Africa.

• 
  There is a second extant species, the Indonesian coelacanth, found in a Sulawesi, Indonesia market in 1998 by Mark Erdmann.  He and his wife Arnaz Mehta actually saw another one in 1997, but only took photos.

• 
  Coelacanths can grow to 200 pounds and live 100 years.  Has a gestation time of 5 years.  However, the Jurassic-Cretaceous freshwater coelacanth Mawsonia was larger.
• Laurent Ballesta and four friends in 2010, carrying 71 pounds of camera equipment, off the east coast of South Africa, took a photograph of a living coelacanth at a depth of 656 feet.

-