AOL.com Article - Study finds Earth is on verge of 'the 6th extinction'

[polaris93]

http://www.aol.com/article/2014/05/29/study-finds-earth-is-on-verge-of-the-6th-extinction/20895209/?icid=maing-grid7%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl16%7Csec1_lnk3% ( Read more... )

Comments

[whitetail]

On the brink? The anthropogenic mass extinction of the Holocene began at the end of the last ice age, when we killed off most of the planet's megafauna. The current rate of extinction is higher simply due to our becoming much more efficient killers: wiping out entire ecosystems, not just individual species.

[polaris93]

That was my reaction to this article: Hey, we're in the middle of it, or even farther along. The mainstream media tend to reduce their concerns to the here-and-now, as if all history and the world were compressed into this time, and the world as it is now. But it's been going on since around a hundred thousand years ago, though the worst of it started hitting at the end of the last Ice Age, as you point out.