The Sixth Extinction
The Sixth Extinction
Dear student, you might have heard about the dinosaurs! But have you ever seen them?
NO! Not even in the zoo but why? Where are they now?
What is Extinction
The dinosaurs vanished away from the Earth in a process called ‘extinction’. Extinction is wiping away of a plant or animal species under natural circumstances. These natural circumstances can be; climate change, ice age, volcanic eruptions, invader species and even loss of habitat.
Why sixth extinction?
Now you might be wondering why are we talking about the sixth extinction? This is because the Earth already has faced five extinctions millions of years ago.
Famous biologist ‘Charles Darwin’ in his theories have stated that in nature the survival is only favoured to the fittest, which means if we can modify ourselves with the changing ecosystem and become fit to survive in the unfavourable conditions then we will survive.
The first extinction is called Ordovician-Silurian and is dated 450 million years ago, the second extinction is called Late dellonian and is dated 365 million years ago, the third extinction is called End Permian and is dated 250 million years ago. This was a mass extinction as it wiped off around 96% of the species. The fourth extinction is called Triassic-Jurassic and is dated 200 million years ago and the fifth one is called Cretaceous and is 66 million years old.
We are lucky enough that we are alive but what will happen in the sixth extinction?
Assumptions for the sixth extinction
Scientists say that the sixth extinction is going to include us; the humans and this will all happen because of us, our development process which is regularly altering the ecosystem, raising the global temperature and destroying the habitat. This indicates that we are in the bottom line but the irony is we are the only responsible creature for this mass extinction.
What can you do?
Doing our bit can slowly and gradually bring change in the conservation of biodiversity. Sustainable use of resources is very important and all you can do is turn off the electric switches when not in use.
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