The Sixth Extinction: Extra Credit Write-up

               On February 2nd, I got the chance to see Elizabeth Kolbert, a Heinz Award-winner who is very passionate about the topic of global warming. She has written a couple of books, but she was discussing her most recent. During the speech, she made several shocking and valid points. Firstly, she said that in the extinction taking place, humans are the asteroid.

                There are three things that are contributing to this extinction. In the atmosphere, there have been huge amounts of climate change, with the temperature rising very quickly which we call global warming. Last year, we thrust ten billion metric tons of carbon into the air. Since this is a greenhouse gas, it collects and traps heat. The places being heated up the fastest are in the arctic regions. Always, the effects of huge climate changes such as these will be most devastating in the tropics. In the ocean, there have been ginormous amounts of acidification. The CO2 forms acid, and when placed in contact with the living creatures at the bottom of the ocean, they can no longer reside there. Elizabeth stated that since the beginning of the Industrial Age, the ocean has absorbed 1/3 of the earth’s carbon emissions, and the water (and life within that water) is being greatly disturbed.  She also stated that reefs would be the first major ecosystem to become extinct. The third and last major point Elizabeth talked about was regarding invasive species. It is not a foreign concept these days, as many of us have pets that were not originally from our specific location. Numerous animals have been introduced in many areas that were not prepared to receive them. Her examples included New Zealand, where previously they had no rats. What they did have, however, were birds quite unaccustomed to flight, as there were no predators in the area. When the rats were brought over, they began to eat all the flightless birds that essentially had no defense against them. They also had intentionally brought over some rabbits, but since there were no predators to this species, they began to reproduce (like rabbits) and had lots of tiny rabbit babies that got way out of control. To try and regulate the situation that was rapidly getting out of hand, people brought stoats over, with the thought that they might go after the rabbits. Instead, they also went after the poor flightless birds. There were many other examples of species being transported across great distances, and fungus being carried across lands at lightning speed, as well as the great destruction that has been left in human’s path. Each day, 10,000 species are moved around the world.

                The statistics Elizabeth provided during the entirety of her discourse were truly appalling, and left me nearly speechless by the end. However, I thought it was very well-presented and found it to be extremely relevant to the life I am living now. I cannot agree more that humans are indeed just as much of a threat as the asteroids were long ago.