Here are the key sentences most relevant to your request, highlighting the causes of the woolly mammoth’s extinction, environmental factors, climate change, and the possible role of human hunting:

1.

“These extinctions are thought to have occurred due to a combination of a quickly changing climate, changing vegetation and increases in human hunting.”

2.

“Coming out of the last ice age, mammoths were adapted to finding and eating a tough kind of plant life that can survive in snowy climates, but when the snows melted, those plants got pushed out by the marshy plant life of a tundra, which the mammoths apparently couldn't eat, or which at least didn't provide the proper nutrients.”

3.

“However, Dr. Bataille and his colleagues note that the requirement for such a large range to roam in may have ultimately hastened the extinction of the species once the climate warmed and the shaggy grazers were hemmed in by shifting vegetation patterns.”

4.

“What they found: The study noted that animal species are going extinct at rates 35 times faster than the historical norm over the past million years.”

5.

“State of play: The new research builds on a number of studies from past years that warned Earth is experiencing a sixth mass extinction.”

These sentences collectively explain how rapid climate change, shifts in available vegetation, restriction of habitat range, and increased human hunting combined to drive the woolly mammoth to extinction.

They also provide a wider context for understanding human impact on megafauna and contemporary extinction rates.

**Key sentences relevant to the extinction of the woolly mammoth, focusing on environmental factors and human impact:**

1.

_Scientists have found that mammoths died out due to climate change._
2.

_Senior lecturer in zoology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, Seren Forby, says humans have played a crucial role in the extinction of many large mammals._
3.

_Much of it went extinct after the end of this ice age or millennia later._
4.

_In one of the most common versions of the extinction of giant mamutes, it is claimed that this was caused by the hunting of ancient people._
5.

_But recent studies say that this is not the case and people have become far from the main reason for the disappearance of mammoths._
6.

_This was the last nail in the coffin – the mammoths could not adapt quickly enough when the landscape changed dramatically and food became scarce._
7.

_It is clear that all this did not positively affect the chances of survival._
8.

_This could be both climate change and human activity._
9.

_Without humans, the climate would be different._
10.

_“But perhaps it was a case where they contributed to their own death,” explains one of the authors of the work._
11.

_The reason is the fragmentation of the habitat and the destruction of natural ecosystems._

**These sentences together emphasize:**
- The primary role of climate change, especially at the end of the last Ice Age, in driving mammoth extinction.

- The debate surrounding the impact of early human hunting, with some studies downplaying it as the main cause but not ruling out a contributing role.

- That both climate change and human activities (habitat fragmentation, ecosystem destruction) are significant factors in species extinction, historically and in the context of the mammoth.

- The inability of mammoths to adapt to rapidly changing environments and food scarcity as a significant factor in their extinction.

**Key Sentences Extracted, Relevant to Causes of Mammoth Extinction (Focusing on Environmental Factors and Human Activity):**

1.

"During the last ice age (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago), the world was rich in megafauna, but most of them died at the end of the ice age, or in the thousands of years since."

"Over the past century, scientists have debated whether natural climate changes or human activities, such as overfishing, are the main reason for the decline of these large animals."

"The cause of these extinctions remains unclear."

"The research suggests that the combination of heat, drought, loss of herbivores and human fires has pushed this system to a tipping point."

"It is only after the arrival of man that fire becomes a regular part of the ecosystem."

"The new study, published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said the study is important because it sheds more light on how humans affect Earth's trajectory, usually negatively."

"Scientists estimate that up to 99.9 percent of all plant and animal life has been wiped out."

"Many scientists fear that a similar fate may await us in the future, and even more worrisome is that humans may have a hand in the planet’s demise."

"He believes humans pump a lot of carbon into the atmosphere, faster than in past geological events and on much shorter time scales."

"In a study published in the journal Science years ago, environmentalists noted that 'climate change could push one-sixth of the world’s animal and plant species to extinction.'"

"Organisms in South America, Australia and New Zealand are most at risk because many live in limited areas and cannot easily adapt to heat waves, droughts, floods or rising sea levels."

**Summary for Context:**
From the provided text, the principal causes discussed for the extinction of woolly mammoths and other megafauna include the end of the last ice age (a period of significant climate change), compounded by the arrival and activities of early humans—especially the use of fire and possible overhunting.

While the exact proportions of each factor remain debated among scientists, evidence points to a combination of climatic warming, habitat changes, increased fire regimes due to human intervention, and direct hunting as crucial drivers of these ancient extinctions.

The discussion signals the important lesson that both rapid environmental change and human impacts can push ecosystems and species beyond tipping points, leading to extinction.

Here are the key sentences extracted from the text, based on their relevance to your request for understanding the causes of species extinction, with a particular focus on environmental factors, human impact, and the lessons for prehistoric extinctions such as the woolly mammoth:

1.

"The study provides new insights into the profound impacts of climate and sea level changes on marine ecosystems."

"They found a strong correlation between the decline in marine species diversity and sea level fluctuations and climate change."

"The results show that the combined effects of sea level and temperature change are the main factors that triggered this extinction event."

"As with coral reefs, the loss of a species can lead to the collapse of an entire ecosystem."

"For example, climate warming, which may be caused by humans, has become a means of political criticism."

"So the Anthropocene ‘golden nail’ is not to determine the time point of human activity on Earth, but to recognize the enormous human impact on the planet."

"The explosion in human numbers also led to a huge divergence of opinion."

"Call on Hong Kong people to reduce carbon dioxide emissions."

"According to some studies, deforestation and global warming will accelerate the rate of forest death until the tipping point, from where the Amazon will become dry savannah."

"If we continue to live the way we are, I am worried for the people who will see the next 90 years."

"As the geologist Colin Waters said: ‘If you were in 1920, your sense of nature would be, ‘ Nature is too big for small humans to change it ’."

"We need a whole new time unit to describe these changes."

**Note:** While the provided text unfortunately did not directly mention the woolly mammoth or Pleistocene terrestrial megafaunal extinctions, these extracted sentences highlight the critical environmental factors (such as sea level, climate change, and ecosystem collapse) and the growing awareness of human influence on extinctions, both past and present.

These are central themes in understanding the extinction of the mammoth, particularly as it relates to the role of climate change and human activity in species loss.

Here are the key sentences most relevant to your request, highlighting the causes of the woolly mammoth’s extinction, environmental factors, climate change, and the possible role of human hunting:

1.

Title:

Content: What we know as the Ice Age, the last long period during which global temperatures dropped dramatically and the polar ice expanded to cover much of the earth, is more properly called the Last Glacial Period (as there have been multiple ice ages).

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It started around 115,000 years ago and lasted for over 100,000 years. In that time many animal lineages rose and fell. In particular, it is known that many large mammal species went extinct during the transition from the Ice Age to the present interglacial period (from around 50,000 to 5,000 years ago).

These extinctions are thought to have occurred due to a combination of a quickly changing climate, changing vegetation and increases in human hunting. These megafauna included some truly huge and charismatic animals, from the iconic woolly mammoth to huge cave bears, to giant sloths standing nearly 12 feet tall! In this list you will find out about some extraordinary (now extinct) animals that lived during the age of ice and snow.

10 now-extinct animals from the Ice Age

1. Neanderthals

Our own species, Homo sapiens, emerged about 300,000 years ago, so persisted through the last ice age. We were not the only ancient humans around, however. Surviving the frigid temperatures along with us were our evolutionary cousins, the Neanderthals. This species of hominid emerged at a similar time to us but went extinct around 40,000 years ago – during the Ice Age.

Theories as to why they went extinct vary, from outcompetion from or diseases introduced by Homo sapiens to assimilation into the human gene pool. However, recent theories suggest that the primary driver might have been climate change. It is thought that despite behavioural and biological adaptations to the cold they simply struggled to survive the frigid conditions and lack of available food. How we survived and they didn’t is an interesting question.

2. Woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius)

Probably the most well-known of all Ice Age animals is the woolly mammoth (in part thanks to the film character Manny!). Woolly mammoths lived from about 300,000 years ago up until about 10,000 years ago. The appearance of these elephant-sized animals is perhaps the best known of any prehistoric creature, due to the many frozen specimens that have been found, with soft tissue preserved.

With their thick coat of hair, large fat reserves, and specially adapted 'antifreeze' blood they were very well adapted to the cold. They were also very important to the survival of ancient humans throughout the Ice Age; their coats, meat and bones provided valuable sources of warmth, food and building materials for homo sapiens and Neanderthals alike.

3. Giant ground sloth (Megatherium americanum)

These beasts were very different to the sloths we know and love today! Standing at a whopping 3.7m when up on hind legs and weighing up to four tonnes (as opposed to the 5kg of a modern sloth), they were truly colossal.

With its ability to walk on its hind legs, it was in fact the largest bipedal mammal of all time. They lived in the woodlands and grasslands of South America, and fossils have been found dating back from around 400,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago. Despite its huge fearsome claws, it was actually a vegetarian, feeding on leaves and grasses.

4. Cave bears (Ursus spelaeus)

Slightly more modest in size, though still pretty massive, was the cave bear. Weighing in at between 400 and 1,000kg, the largest cave bears were comparable in size to modern-day polar bears. They could be found across Europe and Asia, including in the UK.

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We have a very good idea of what they looked like, as in 2020 a perfectly preserved specimen was found in the Russian Arctic, its remains revealed by melting permafrost. Even its teeth and nose were intact.

The specimen was dated to between 22,000 and 39,500 years old, living towards the end of the time of the cave bears, who are thought to have gone extinct 24,000 years ago. It is thought that hunting by humans, as well as competition with them over caves, may have contributed to their disappearance.

5. Dire wolf (Canis dirus)

That’s right, dire wolves are not just fictional pets from Game of Thrones, they were real animals. However, despite the name, and a lot of physical similarities, recent genetic analysis has revealed that they were not actually very closely related to grey wolves at all and were relatively closer to African jackals.

These canids were seemingly a common feature of the American Late Pleistocene landscape (approx. 250,000 to 13,000 years ago), roaming the grasslands, plains, and woods and preying on megafauna including giant ground sloths. There is almost an overabundance of fossil data on this species, with over 4,000 individuals excavated from California’s La Brea tar pits alone.

6. Sabre Tooth Cat (Smilodon genus)

The La Brea tar pits have also been responsible for giving us insights about another iconic Ice Age predator – the sabre tooth cat. More than 3,000 fossilised individuals have been pulled from the ooze, and their teeth in particular have been a valuable source of information about their diets and lifestyle.

Scientists have been able to examine the wear patterns on their iconic gnashers to determine that rather than bringing down very large prey like bison on the open plains, as was previously thought, they most likely fed primarily on smaller forest-dwelling animals like tapirs and deer. They were ambush predators similar to many modern-day big cats.

7. Irish elk (Megaloceros giganteus)

As you can probably guess from the scientific name, this species of deer was BIG. They stood at over 1.8m tall at shoulder height and had the largest antlers of any known deer, extinct or living. These colossal antlers must have been something to behold, spanning up to a whopping 3.5 metres.

Despite the name, this elk was not restricted to Ireland, but some of the most well-preserved fossil specimens have been found there. The most recent remains come from western Russia and have been dated to approximately 7,700 years ago – seemingly another victim of the megafaunal extinction event that occurred around the end of the Ice Age.

8. Giant Beaver (Castoroides genus)

Continuing the theme of larger versions of modern-day animals is the giant beaver, with an average length of about 1.8m. Its teeth were large to match, with some reaching up to 15cm, about the size of a hot dog.

There is no definitive evidence that they built dams as modern beavers do, but it is plausible that these immense incisors could have been used for woodcutting. What we do know is that they had smaller, smoother brains than modern-day beavers, which could indicate that they had less behavioural and social complexity.

9. Megalania (Varanus priscus)

So far this list has focused on mega-mammals, but what about other Ice Age species? Understandably it was hard for cold-blooded species like reptiles to survive frozen ice age temperatures across much of the globe, but in fact, not all of the world was icy, and some places remained habitable.

One of these places was Australia, where giant reptiles ruled. These included huge land-living crocodiles, massive snakes and Megalania – a truly monstrous relative of the Komodo dragon. This monitor lizard reached an estimated length of 7 metres and was a key land predator, at the very top of the food chain.

It has been suggested that the loss of its mega-reptile predators has left the Australian ecosystem out of kilter, allowing introduced mammals to reign unchecked.

10. Diprotodon (Diprotodon genus)

Another feature of the Australian Ice Age landscape was not a reptile, but a huge marsupial mammal – in fact, the largest marsupial to have ever lived. Diprotodon measured an estimated 4m head to tail tip and weighed as much as 3,500 kg, dwarfing the current largest marsupial, the red kangaroo, which checks in at a mere 2.7m and 90kg.

Their closest modern relatives are actually much smaller: wombats and koalas. It also has the distinction of being the only known seasonally migrating marsupial, trekking very far in search of food and watering holes.

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Main image: Artist's impression of a sabre tooth cat. © Daniel Eskridge/Getty

Authors

Leoma WilliamsAnimal behavior researcher and science writer

Leoma Williams is currently studying for a PhD at the University of Manchester, and writes periodically for both the website and print magazine

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According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

“These extinctions are thought to have occurred due to a combination of a quickly changing climate, changing vegetation and increases in human hunting.”

2.

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

shrank grassland
food sources disappearing

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

“Coming out of the last ice age, mammoths were adapted to finding and eating a tough kind of plant life that can survive in snowy climates, but when the snows melted, those plants got pushed out by the marshy plant life of a tundra, which the mammoths apparently couldn't eat, or which at least didn't provide the proper nutrients.”

3.

Title:

Content: Skip to main content

From time crystals to cannibal toads, 2021 was a wild year for science

2021 was full of innovation and discovery in the world of science, covering everything from biological discovery and archeology to not one but two burgeoning space races.

We learned some fascinating things about ancient animal species, including some surprising facts about dinosaurs, and we learned a lot about humanity as well.

Quantum computers jumped from the realm of practical technology to potentially physics defying breakthroughs while some of our most cherished scientific achievements started to show their age.

We broke the record for the coldest temperatures ever achieved and might have caught sight of our first exoplanet in another galaxy.

There was a lot going on this year, but we pulled out the major stories throughout the year that helped define the year in science for 2021.

January

We're not going to lie, January was tough, as several studies and reports showed just how quickly the climate crisis was advancing. One study showed that the triple-threat of climate change, biodiversity loss, and overpopulation could spell calamity for humanity by the end of this century.

Following up on that study, another showed that Earth is now hotter than its been in at least 120,000 years, seeming to settle a major conflict over climate models in favor of "Yeah, it really is that bad."

We also got some stunning photography of Mars' Valles Marineris, the single largest canyon in the solar system. The gash cuts across one side of Mars for thousands of miles and about 10 times longer and three times deeper than the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

February

Ok, February was Mars' month to really shine.

First, the United Arab Emirates also sent its first probe to Mars on February 9, a major milestone for a country that only launched its first satellite a decade ago.

Not to be outdone, China's first interplanetary spacecraft, the Tianwen-1 orbiter, arrived in orbit around the Red Planet the next day on February 10, beaming back spectacular video in the process.

The big show came a little over a week later when the NASA Perseverance rover successfully touched down on Mars in an ancient lake bed called Jezero Crater after "seven minutes of terror" as the rover's landing sequence played out via automated programming.

It went off flawlessly and Perseverance has been doing science on Mars ever since. Even better, Perseverance was able to send back the first audio ever recorded on another planet: a recording of the Martian wind blowing past the rover.

A little closer to home, NASA also chose SpaceX's Falcon Heavy to carry the first pieces of NASA's Gateway Station to the Moon's orbit, with an expected launch date sometime in 2024. NASA picking SpaceX for stuff is going to be a big theme for 2021, in case you're wondering.

March

Hubble had some trouble in March, suffering a software glitch that knocked it out of commission for several days. While in itself not terrible, it would end up foreshadowing more serious problems later in the year.

We also got a new digital recreation of the complete Antikythera Mechanism, a roughly 2,000-year-old device discovered in an ancient Roman shipwreck in 1900 and considered the world's first mechanical computer.

The mysterious device is missing many key parts and is covered in two millennia of corrosion and sediment buildup, so figuring out how the device actually worked is one of archeology's greatest ongoing challenges.

We do know some things about it though, like the fact that it charted the positions of the planets, predicted lunar eclipses, and even counted down to the next Olympic games in Athens.

April

April was a historic month on Mars, as the Ingenuity helicopter drone made its first test flight after arriving on the planet with the Perseverance rover back in February.

It was the first time a human aircraft ever flew on another world, making it something of a Wright Brothers moment for NASA engineers.

"I don't think I can ever stop watching it over and over again," Ingenuity project manager MiMi Aung said afterward.

Back here on Earth, just a really long time ago, we learned something remarkable about every kid's favorite dinosaur: Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Looking at new simulations of how a T. rex's tail would have moved given what we know of its physiology, it turns out its typical walking speed was a sluggish 3 mph (5km/h)

Speed doesn't scale well with weight, so this shouldn't be surprising, but given how many other huge dinosaurs were around at the time, T. rex hunting prey might have been history's slowest chase scene. Considering that T. rex possibly numbered in the millions right up until 66 million years ago, it seems to have gotten along just fine. Until the asteroid hit anyway.

Finally, just before the end of the month, China put the first section of the Tianhe space station into orbit. Called the Tianhe core module, the module provides life support and living space for up to three crew members, and includes the necessary guidance and navigation controls for the station as more modules are added in the months ahead.

May

Following up on NASA's Perseverance, China landed its first rover, Zhurong, on Mars in May.

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The Mars landing is a historic feat for China, making it only the second country to put a rover on another planet, after the United States. This is a further sign of the brewing space race between the two countries that is expected to accelerate in the years ahead.

Zhurong is equipped with panoramic and multispectral cameras and equipment to analyze rock compositions, as well as ground penetrating radar to explore subsurface features of the Utopia Planitia region of the planet.

Looking out a little bit past Mars, scientists were able to watch and document a star being eaten by a black hole in a process known as spaghettification

This is where the tidal forces of the black holes gravity on the side of the star nearest it is so much greater than the gravity on the star's far side that the difference in gravity literally tears the star apart, turning it into a stream of material that eventually forms an accretion disk around the black hole as it slowly consumes the material.

We knew that this process happened, but this was the first time astronomers got to watch it happen to an actual star.

Finally, there was news in May that scientists have determined that the longest a human can ever live, biologically, is about 150 years. After that point, the body is simply no longer able to repair itself. So, it turns out humans do have a definite shelf life.

June

June saw some disturbing news on the climate front, as a satellite photos taken from 2017 to 2020 showed Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier – one of the continent's most endangered – dramatically losing up to 20% of its supporting ice shelf in just four years.

The consequences of this kind of rapid ice loss will be dire, as melting ice from collapsing glaciers and ice sheets contribute to catastrophic sea level rise.

While we're talking about Antarctica, the southern most continent on Earth now officially has its own ocean, the Southern Ocean

While the idea of the Southern Ocean isn't new, it wasn't officially listed alongside the four other recognized oceans: the Altantic, the Pacific, the Indian, and the Arctic.

June also saw more evidence emerge that a comet fragment impacted Earth 13,000 years ago and caused the Younger Dryas period, a 1,500 year stretch starting around 11,000 BCE where Earth's climate suddenly snapped back into ice age conditions just as the last ice age was coming to an end.

The comet fragment theory – or the Clovis comet impact hypothesis, as it is known – has been a controversial one over the years.

New research into a global layer of platinum and other deposits in the geological record right at the start of the Younger Dryas though are pointing more and more to an impact, providing crucial support for the theory.

More research needs to be done, but it's looking increasingly like humanity survived an apocalyptic impact event 13,000 years ago, and the subsequent impact winter might have forced hunter-gatherer societies to work the Earth to try and grow food as it became more scarce – essentially forcing human tribes to form civilization as we know it in response to the crisis.

July

There was a lot that happened in July, but arguably the most important story of the month was the Billionaire Space Race kicking into high gear.

Both Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos launched themselves into someone's definition of space, and we'll leave it to Bezos and Branson to pull out the measuring tape on that one and argue over where "outer space" actually begins.

Throw in half a year of Elon Musk's SpaceX launching a crewed mission to the International Space Station, several tests of SpaceX's Starship (many of which met a fiery end on a landing platform), and trash talk on Twitter, and one of the most obnoxious spectacles of the past decade spilled out into the open in July.

The saddest part about it all is that the future of space exploration is likely in their hands, and especially in the case of SpaceX, they are actually delivering results. So we're likely destined to have to put up with this for the foreseeable future as these companies become more integrated into our official space agencies in the US, Europe, and even in Russia.

Moving on from all that for now, there was also an exciting little tidbit of astronomy this August, with the discovery of a moon-forming disk around an exoplanet in a solar system in the earliest stages of its formation.

It was the first time we've ever seen anything like this, and it's a huge discovery for scientists researching solar system formation to actually see this process playing out.

As for the disk, it is surrounding an exoplanet that is about the size of Jupiter, and the disk itself is gargantuan, estimated to be about 500 times larger than the rings of Saturn, or comparable to the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

August

August was a huge month for quantum computing fans as Google announced that they had creating physics-breaking "time crystals", a quantum phenomenon that violates the principle of entropy laid out by the second law of thermodynamics.

The results have to be confirmed, and that isn't a simple task, obviously. No one just has a spare quantum computer lying around that researchers can use.

Still, if Google's Sycamore quantum computer has managed to create time crystals, all we can say is it's a big friggin' deal, and the implications of it still aren't clear even to physicists who do this for a living.

August also saw the announcement that researchers had identified the source of the dinosaur-killing asteroid that hit the Yucatan Peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico 66 million years ago.

Examining samples from the Chicxulub crater, the asteroid was determined to be a carbonaceous chondrite, an ancient class of asteroid that originates on the darkest, outer edges of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

It's suspected that Jupiter's gravitational influence nudged the space rock into the inner solar system, and simulation models show that this happens more often than we originally suspected, with impacts with Earth occurring about once every 250 million years. So we've got time, yet.

While not the most ground-breaking event in science this year, it's still really cool that researchers spotted a metal-laden white dwarf rocketing against the rotation of the Milky Way at nearly 2 million mph (about 3.2 million km/h) like it was shot out of a cosmic cannon.

And in a lot of ways, it probably was. Astronomers suspect that the white dwarf was the companion to a star that went supernova, and the blast was so violent that the white dwarf remnant shooting through the galaxy has enough velocity to escape the Milky Way entirely and fly off into intergalactic space.

Oh, and if you thought you were done with the Jeff Bezos-Elon Musk fight over who gets dibs on outer space, you'd be wrong. By the middle of August, Jeff Bezos was suing NASA over its awarding SpaceX the Artemis lunar lander program, even though Bezos's Blue Origin bid was almost twice what SpaceX's bid was.

While this isn't really a fight between Musk and Bezos as much as it is a fight between Musk's SpaceX and the legacy military-industrial complex mainstays like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrup Grumman, Bezos's lawsuit did manage to delay the Artemis mission and push it back to 2025 at the earliest.

September

Poisonous cane toads that even notoriously prickly Australian wildlife won't mess with have nothing to fear but themselves – literally.

The invasive cane toad, first introduced into Australia in the 1930s from South America as a pest control measure has spiraled out of control and now 200 million cane toads in Australia have made cannibalizing the young a key part of their development out of the tadpole stage, according to a recent study.

This in turn has made the cane toad hatchlings evolve to mature faster so that they can defend themselves against their older counterparts. This in turn is making the cane toads evolve to be even more ferocious in hunting down hatchlings to eat in a twisted evolutionary arms race.

"These toads have gotten to the point where their own worst enemy is themselves," the study author said.

We also saw new research in September that quantified the damage that a particularly strong solar flare could cause, and it's not good.

A powerful solar flare wouldn't harm any of us on the ground, not directly anyway. Earth's magnetic field protects us from any danger from the charged particles flying off the Sun during a solar flare event. But electronics? Yeah, they're toast.

The research revealed that there aren't enough redundancies in internet transmission capacity, particularly with undersea cables, which could be fried during a solar flare event and which could take months to replace.

Meanwhile, North America could be cut off from the rest of the world's internet until the cables were replaced, causing $7 billion dollars of economic damage a day while the internet remains out of commission.

In happier news, SpaceX's Inspiration4 mission, the first privately chartered space flight to orbit the Earth, helped raise tens of millions of dollars for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, which treats pediatric cancers and other diseases.

Inspiration4 also gave us something new from SpaceX: a cupola on the Dragon Crew capsule. This domed window gave the crew members stunning views of the Earth as they orbited, making everyone else on Earth jealous as hell.

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October

We had a couple of choice bits in October as well. First, there was news that researchers in Germany broke the record for the coldest temperature ever achieved in a lab.

Using a special state of matter known as a Bose-Einstein condensate, made from 100,000 rubidium atoms held in place with magnetic fields and cooled to about 2 billionths of a degree Celsius, the researchers dropped the condensate from a 120-foot tall freefall tower while flipping the magnetic field off and on rapidly.

This dropped the temperature of the atoms to just 38 picokelvins, or about 38 trillions of a degree Kelvin above absolute zero, for roughly two seconds.

Speaking of cold, a comprehensive study of wooly mammoth fossils and other environmental samples collected over 20 years claims to prove that the mammoths weren't hunted to extinction, but rather died off because of climate change.

Coming out of the last ice age, mammoths were adapted to finding and eating a tough kind of plant life that can survive in snowy climates, but when the snows melted, those plants got pushed out by the marshy plant life of a tundra, which the mammoths apparently couldn't eat, or which at least didn't provide the proper nutrients.

Finally, we got word toward the end of October that we might have spotted our first exoplanet in another galaxy. Unfortunately, it appears to be orbiting far enough away from a black hole or neutron star that we won't be able to confirm it using the transit method for about 70 years.

November

In November, we learned that it's no use hiding from you cat, they know where you are at all times thanks to some special process that can link sound to location like pinning audio cues on a 2D mental map.

Even when they're not looking, they're still watching you, apparently.

We also got new evidence of a unique kind of fast radio burst, one whose source appears to be repeatedly exploding, as many as 1,652 times in a single 60 hour period of observation.

The researchers who spotted it are at a loss to describe what could be causing such an unusual, and rapid, pattern, but they have some guesses.

We saw more space debris make the news in November as well, as several incidents involving space debris threatening the International Space Station made the news, including an anti-satellite weapons test conducted by Russia that sent shrapnel from the satellite into the path of the ISS, forcing astronauts to enter their Dragon and Soyuz capsules as an emergency precaution.

December

Closing out the year, we had a new EP drop from Mathematician and electronic music artist Dr. Valery Vermeulen that used data from black hole collisions and black hole simulations to create sometimes-haunting soundscapes.

We interviewed Vermeulen and explored the overlap between art and science, how we can use unorthodox tools to make complex science more accessible to the masses, and why that ultimately matters.

On the opposite end of the spectrum from black holes, the Parker Solar Probe finally touched the Sun's outer layer this year.

The announcement in December was met with a lot of understandable fanfare and wonder, but the accomplishment will also better help us understand solar winds and other space weather produced by the Sun.

And we obviously can't close out the year without talking about the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launch. The successor to Hubble, JWST will be the next-generation observation platform for astronomers for the next five to ten years, and probably longer.

The incredibly delicate deployment is still underway as you read this, but we're getting closer to having an entirely new eye on the universe that will let us see further back in time to the earliest galaxies and stars to ever have formed. Exciting stuff, assuming everything goes right.

Fingers crossed, otherwise that'll be a crappy way to kick off the year in science for 2022.

John (He / Him / His) is TechRadar's Computing Staff Writer and is also a programmer, gamer, activist, and Brooklyn College alum currently living in Brooklyn, NY. Named by the CTA as a CES 2020 Media Trailblazer for his science and technology reporting, John specializes in all areas of computer science, including industry news, hardware reviews, PC gaming, as well as general science writing and the social impact of the tech industry.

You can find him online on Twitter at @thisdotjohn

Currently playing: Back 4 Blood, Metroid Dread, EVE Online

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

restricted habitat
pastures becoming swampy
food sources disappearing

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

“However, Dr. Bataille and his colleagues note that the requirement for such a large range to roam in may have ultimately hastened the extinction of the species once the climate warmed and the shaggy grazers were hemmed in by shifting vegetation patterns.”

4.

Title:

Content: Skip to main content
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During the last ice age, woolly mammoths were among the largest creatures to walk the North American landscape. Now, a team of American and Canadian researchers has discovered that the elephantine beasts took the “walking” part of their job description quite seriously.

Based on an analysis of a single tusk from an adult male woolly mammoth found in Alaska, the scientists determined that the animal journeyed about 70,000 kilometres over the course of its life – a trip equivalent to nearly twice around the world.

“The range is staggering. ... He definitely moved across a huge, huge area,” said Clement Bataille, an assistant professor of earth and environmental science at the University of Ottawa and a co-author on the study.

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Dr. Bataille said the high degree of mobility may have been part of the mammoth’s mating strategy. In comparison, African elephants can travel a lot, too, he added, and males typically depart from the groups they are born into once they reach sexual maturity.

However, Dr. Bataille and his colleagues note that the requirement for such a large range to roam in may have ultimately hastened the extinction of the species once the climate warmed and the shaggy grazers were hemmed in by shifting vegetation patterns. That, in turn, would have left them more vulnerable to predators, including human hunters.

The study began in 2018 when Matthew Wooller, director of the Stable Isotope Facility at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, invited Dr. Bataille and other colleagues to join an effort to extract information from a mammoth fossil discovered in 2010 on the north side of the Brooks mountain range, a few hundred kilometres from the Arctic Ocean. The fossil dates back 17,000 years, to a time when much of Alaska was a glacier-free grass plain connected to Siberia by the Bering land bridge.

The researchers nicknamed their specimen “Kik,” after a river system near the place where it was found.

Using the mammoth’s sliced-open tusk, they obtained detailed measurements of oxygen and strontium isotopes that were locked in the ivory material. The mammoth acquired the isotopes, which vary according to local geology, through the vegetation and water it consumed over the course of its life. As the tusks grew at the rate of about five to six centimetres each year, they recorded changes in isotope levels, which reveal when and how often the animal moved between locations with different geology.

The team also tested isotope levels in rodents that were gathered in different parts of Alaska as part of museum collections. That allowed them to match their mammoth isotope measurements to geographic locations. Finally, they used artificial intelligence software to reconstruct possible paths the mammoth may have taken, working backward from the location where it died at the age of 28.

The results suggest that Kik began its life in the Yukon River basin of central Alaska. As a juvenile it moved regularly in a north-south pattern, during a time when it was likely part of a herd, the researchers said. At about age 16 its movements transitioned to longer distance travel, often centred on certain core areas where it stayed for periods of time before setting out for new pastures.

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“It just takes off and goes on these 500- to 600-kilometre trips all at one time, going from one core area to the next,” Dr. Bataille said. The study found that some of the places where the mammoth lingered are frequented today by migrating herds of caribou.

Jeffrey Rasic, a study co-author and archaeologist with the U.S. National Parks Service based in Fairbanks, said the data suggest that Kik followed a predictable sequence of movements. If that was typical for Alaskan mammoths, it would have provided a huge incentive for hunters moving into the area from Asia to situate themselves in places where they could reliably expect to meet their quarry at certain times of the year, rather than pursuing them over a vast landscape.

“That would be an ideal set-up for intercepting a really big ticket meal item like a mammoth,” he said.

Vincent Lynch, an evolutionary biologist at the University at Buffalo who was not involved in the study, said that while it’s not surprising to find animals moving over great distances, it’s quite a different matter to show that it happened in a species that no longer exists.

“That’s the trick that makes this study interesting,” he said. “It helps us better reconstruct the behaviour and ecology of mammoths in a way that’s really remarkable for an extinct species.”

Dr. Lynch, who has studied the genetics of the last known population of woolly mammoths, which died out about 4,000 years ago, said it’s an open question whether large-scale movement was a disadvantage.

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“We tend to think that widely distributed species which are mobile ... might be better able to find new habitats should the environment change. But could mammoths find refuge in a world that was warming?” he said.

One obvious limitation of the study is that its conclusions depend entirely on the movements of a single individual. Dr. Bataille said that he and his colleagues plan to perform a similar analysis on a female mammoth specimen for comparison.

The team’s study was published Thursday in the journal Science.

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According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

restricted habitat
shrank grassland
food sources disappearing

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

“What they found: The study noted that animal species are going extinct at rates 35 times faster than the historical norm over the past million years.”

5.

Title:

Content: 44 mins ago - Science

Earth's sixth mass extinction is underway and "rapidly accelerating," study warns

Earth's sixth mass extinction is already happening — and it is rapidly accelerating, researchers warned in a study out this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal.

Why it matters: The study adds to a growing understanding of how humans have — often negatively — impacted Earth's trajectory.

What they found: The study noted that animal species are going extinct at rates 35 times faster than the historical norm over the past million years.

  • Researchers highlighted the role of humans in the phenomenon, noting that animal species lost in the past 500 years would have taken about 18,000 to go extinct in the absence of humans.
  • Habitat destruction, illegal trade and climate disruption will likely continue to drive extinction rate acceleration in the coming decades, the study added.

The mass loss of animal species means losing a record of the planet's evolutionary history and potential, and will have ramifications for humans, Gerardo Ceballos, the study's lead author, told Axios.

  • "There is life on the planet because of the plants and animals — wild plants and animals — and the ecosystems that they form," Ceballos said.
  • The crops humans use, the combination of gases of the atmosphere that make it suitable for life on Earth, and active compounds used for medications, are all in some ways dependent on plants and animals, he added.
  • By losing entire branches of genera, "we're losing the capability of the planet to maintain life in general, and to maintain human life in particular," Ceballos said.

State of play: The new research builds on a number of studies from past years that warned Earth is experiencing a sixth mass extinction.

  • Scientists have previously warned that up to 1 million species are threatened with extinction and some could be lost within decades.
  • A separate study published earlier this summer in the journal Biological Reviews noted that the sixth mass extinction, currently underway, is the first mass extinction "directly induced by a single species – humans."
  • Researchers in June proposed the demarcation of a new epoch to reflect humans' impact on Earth.

Yes but: Not all scientists are convinced that the current wildlife loss constitutes a sixth mass extinction.

  • "We have no idea how to identify a sixth mass extinction," Stuart Pimm, the Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology at Duke University, told Axios.
  • Disagreeing with the premise of a sixth extinction doesn't mean disputing the fact that the Earth is experiencing wildlife loss that's much faster than in the last few million years, he stressed.
  • "When you start saying, 'Well, how does this compare to what happened 65 million years ago?' That's when it gets really difficult," Pimm said.

Ceballos defined mass extinction as a catastrophic event that happens relatively quickly, is caused by a natural catastrophe, and wipes out 70% of the plants and animals on Earth.

  • The debate over whether a sixth mass extinction is occurring "doesn't really matter," Ceballos said.
  • Regardless of what you call it, Earth is facing massive biodiversity loss, climate change, and the toxification of the environment, he added.

Background: The last mass extinction occurred after an asteroid struck the earth roughly 66 million years ago.

The bottom line: The new study notes that "immediate political, economic, and social efforts of an unprecedented scale" are necessary in order to prevent these mass extinctions and their impacts.

  • Humans have the science, technology, and knowledge "to do much better," Ceballos said.
Go deeper

“State of play: The new research builds on a number of studies from past years that warned Earth is experiencing a sixth mass extinction.”

These sentences collectively explain how rapid climate change, shifts in available vegetation, restriction of habitat range, and increased human hunting combined to drive the woolly mammoth to extinction.

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

They also provide a wider context for understanding human impact on megafauna and contemporary extinction rates.

**Key sentences relevant to the extinction of the woolly mammoth, focusing on environmental factors and human impact:**

1.

Title:

Content: Partners news
The cause of the extinction of mammoths
Scientists have found that mammoths died out due to climate change
Photo: Stanislav Krasilnikov / TASS
An international team of researchers found that the cause of the extinction of mammoths in Siberia was primarily a sharp climate change, not human activity.
The article is published in the journal Nature.
Woolly mammoths became extinct only about four thousand years ago.
They were not only the main source of meat of ancient people – the latter made from their bones the basis for dwellings, from their tusks made harpoons and even musical instruments.
Therefore, there is a widespread theory that the main cause of extinction was humans.
Researchers from the Institute of Earth Sciences of St. Petersburg State University together with colleagues from the UK, Denmark, China, Norway and the United States decided to restore the appearance of the tundrosteppe, which was inhabited by mammoths.
To do this, they using the shotgun method — obtaining from a random massive sample of cloned fragments of the original sequence — analyzed the DNA of ancient plants and animals collected from 535 different places in the Arctic, where the mammoth lived, over 20 years.
They also analyzed the DNA of more than 1,500 modern plants and animals.
Researchers were able to map the distribution of populations of mammoths and other representatives of the megafauna of the tundrosteppe.
They saw that over time their populations and genetic diversity became smaller and smaller — making survival increasingly difficult.
With the end of the Pleistocene about 12 thousand years ago and the accompanying retreat of glaciers and the formation of rivers, lakes and marshes, vegetation has decreased in volume, and it has become insufficient to maintain the previous level of populations.
As the climate warms, trees and swamp plants have taken the place of former mammoth pastures.
“We have shown that climate change, in particular rainfall, has directly led to changes in vegetation.
According to our models, people did not have any influence on them [mammoths], ” said the first author of the work, a researcher at the University of Cambridge Yuchen Wang.
However, the extinction of mammoths was influenced not only by the warming of the climate itself.
“His speed was the last nail in the lid of the coffin – they (megafauna tundrosteppe – approx.
“Tape.ru ”) could not adapt quickly enough, when the landscape radically changed and food was not enough, ” said the head of the scientific group, Professor of Copenhagen and Cambridge universities Eske Willerslev.
Only what is important to you is in the “Tape of the Day ” in Telegram.
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According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

_Scientists have found that mammoths died out due to climate change._
2.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

_Senior lecturer in zoology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, Seren Forby, says humans have played a crucial role in the extinction of many large mammals._
3.

Title:

Content: Cave lions in Europe and mammoths in the United States.
Scientists have told what the Earth would be without Homo sapiens
The researchers say that in general, the planet could be an exciting place, which would be inhabited by representatives of megafauna.
Scientists believe that without humans, the Earth would be a more wild and fertile place, in which giants such as ostrich moa birds with a height of 3.6 meters still lived.
They lived in New Zealand for millions of years, but disappeared 750 years after their land was invaded by man, writes LiveScience.
The vanished giant moas and eagles of Haast, whose wingspan was 2.6 meters or more, are a small example of how human activity has changed the planet.
The survival of such large animals is crucial in thinking about what the Earth would be like without humans, as such giants have a crucial influence on landscapes.
Senior lecturer in zoology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, Seren Forby, says humans have played a crucial role in the extinction of many large mammals.
Forby led the study, published in the journal Diversity and Distributions.
It said that without humans, the Earth would resemble an ecoregion in East Africa, the Serengeti, teeming with life.
In such a scenario, extinct animals, along with elephants, rhinos and lions, would live throughout Europe.
For example, the African lions (Panthera leo) would still be replaced by cave lions (Panthera spelaea), a larger species that lived in Europe about 12,000 years ago.
At the same time, America would be home to larger relatives of elephants and bears, as well as unique species such as the glyptodon – car-sized armadillos and giant sloths.
“In a world without humans, there would be a lot more different species of large mammals, as well as a much more open habitat, ” says Forby.
Elephants or other species of large animals do not tolerate obstacles in their search for food.
In such cases, the territory acquires a less wooded appearance.
The world would be brighter
During the last Pleistocene Ice Age (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago), the Earth was rich in megafauna.
Much of it went extinct after the end of this ice age or millennia later.
A 2021 study from the journal Nature found that climate change had wiped out woolly mammoths as well as other Arctic megafauna, but humans also put additional pressure on these species by hunting them.
Christopher Doughty, an ecologist at the University of Northern Arizona, modeled how large animals, among other things, affected ecosystems by moving seeds and nutrients during eating and defecating.
The expert found that the movement of elements such as phosphorus, calcium and magnesium, which play a crucial role in life, decreased by almost 90% along with the disappearance of megafauna.
The researcher emphasizes that without human intervention, all the necessary elements would be evenly distributed throughout the landscape.
Thus, the soil would be more fertile and productive.
Agriculture and zoning make land less fertile compared to systems in the wild.
Such increased fertility means that the Earth would be much richer in crops and colors, the planet would definitely be brighter without humans.
Without humans, the climate would be different.
Human induced global warming is known to have raised the average temperature by 1 degree Celsius since the early 20th century.
Consequently, the weather on the planet would be cooler without humanity.
A 2016 study in the journal Nature found that current warming delayed the onset of the ice age by at least 100,000 years.
But this should not have happened for another 50,000 years, so it is unlikely that without humans there would be another ice age on Earth right now.
People are inevitable
Modern humans (Homo sapiens) were not always the only hominins on the planet.
The disappearance of Homo sapiens could open up new perspectives for Neanderthals.
There is no single answer to the question of why the Neanderthals died out about 40 thousand years ago.
There were probably several reasons for their disappearance, and Homo sapiens are the main suspects.
Professor Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum in London believes that the competition between Neanderthals and humans was one of the reasons for the disappearance of the former.
“If Homo sapiens hadn ’ t come to Europe about 45,000 or 50,000 years ago, I think Neanderthals and their descendants would still have lived on Earth, ” Stringer says.
The expert notes that Neanderthals led a complex life in Europe, they faced climate change, were a small group with low genetic diversity.
“Neanderthals probably were already in distress when modern humans came to their lands, and this factor could be the last, ” the expert notes.
But humans could have influenced the survival of more than just Neanderthals.
At least there is another relative of Homo sapiens who shared land with humans and Neanderthals: the Denisovans.
This line is closer to Neanderthals than to modern humans in terms of genes and appearance.
Judging by a number of studies, people interbred with Denisovans, because modern people continue to find the DNA of Denisovans.
It is assumed that Denisovans had a wider range of habitat than Neanderthals.
They may also have more genetic diversity than Neanderthals.
"Perhaps the Denisovans were even better species for survival than the Neanderthals," Stringer said.
In general, Denisovans and Neanderthals could pave the way similar to H. sapiens, moving from hunting and gathering to the development of agriculture.
"There is no obvious reason why Neanderthals or Denisovans would not have evolved if they had the time to do so," he said.

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

_Much of it went extinct after the end of this ice age or millennia later._
4.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

from 300,000 years ago up until 10,000 years ago

When did the wooly mammoth mostly become extinct?

_In one of the most common versions of the extinction of giant mamutes, it is claimed that this was caused by the hunting of ancient people._
5.

Title:

Content: In one of the most common versions of the extinction of giant mamutes, it is claimed that this was caused by the hunting of ancient people.
Our ancestors literally ate most of the animals.
But recent studies say that this is not the case and people have become far from the main reason for the disappearance of mammoths.
Hunger caused by climate change is the real killer.
Searching for gold, but found mammoths: an incredible story with the Yukon
Drawing of a mammoth on the wall of the cave of Arcy-sur-Cure, France / Photo Wikipedia
The Hungry Death of Great Animals
It would seem that mammoths existed for millions of years and survived several ice ages.
That is, climate change did not affect them critically.
But as soon as they encountered humans, they began to die out.
Finally, we were able to prove that the problem was not only climate change, but also the speed of these changes.
This was the last nail in the coffin – the mammoths could not adapt quickly enough when the landscape changed dramatically and food became scarce.
- says the author of the study Eske Willerslev, a professor at the University of Cambridge and director of the Center for Geogenetics of the Lundbeck Foundation at the University of Copenhagen.
The team, led by Prof. Willerslev, sequenced the DNA of plant, animal, and their fossilized excrement, coprolites.
The selection of these samples lasted about 20 years and allowed us to fully understand why the majestic animals died out.
After the end of the last cooling, the glaciers began to melt.
The environment quickly became quite humid, leading to a chain change in flora.
Typical mamut habitats and pastures became increasingly swampy and vegetation changed accordingly.
As a result, there is simply no food left typical for animals.
From birth to death: scientists have fully investigated the life path of the mammoth
Giants did not have time to adapt to rapid changes, so the total number of mammoths was constantly declining.
Because of this, isolated and partially isolated animal populations arose, which already caused little genetic diversity.
It is clear that all this did not positively affect the chances of survival.
Scientists say climate change is critical.
When such changes destroyed mammoths and probably another megafauna.
Today, we live in a time when the average temperature on the planet is rising again, so we need to take this “harsh lesson ” seriously.

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

_But recent studies say that this is not the case and people have become far from the main reason for the disappearance of mammoths._
6.

Title:

Content: In one of the most common versions of the extinction of giant mamutes, it is claimed that this was caused by the hunting of ancient people.
Our ancestors literally ate most of the animals.
But recent studies say that this is not the case and people have become far from the main reason for the disappearance of mammoths.
Hunger caused by climate change is the real killer.
Searching for gold, but found mammoths: an incredible story with the Yukon
Drawing of a mammoth on the wall of the cave of Arcy-sur-Cure, France / Photo Wikipedia
The Hungry Death of Great Animals
It would seem that mammoths existed for millions of years and survived several ice ages.
That is, climate change did not affect them critically.
But as soon as they encountered humans, they began to die out.
Finally, we were able to prove that the problem was not only climate change, but also the speed of these changes.
This was the last nail in the coffin – the mammoths could not adapt quickly enough when the landscape changed dramatically and food became scarce.
- says the author of the study Eske Willerslev, a professor at the University of Cambridge and director of the Center for Geogenetics of the Lundbeck Foundation at the University of Copenhagen.
The team, led by Prof. Willerslev, sequenced the DNA of plant, animal, and their fossilized excrement, coprolites.
The selection of these samples lasted about 20 years and allowed us to fully understand why the majestic animals died out.
After the end of the last cooling, the glaciers began to melt.
The environment quickly became quite humid, leading to a chain change in flora.
Typical mamut habitats and pastures became increasingly swampy and vegetation changed accordingly.
As a result, there is simply no food left typical for animals.
From birth to death: scientists have fully investigated the life path of the mammoth
Giants did not have time to adapt to rapid changes, so the total number of mammoths was constantly declining.
Because of this, isolated and partially isolated animal populations arose, which already caused little genetic diversity.
It is clear that all this did not positively affect the chances of survival.
Scientists say climate change is critical.
When such changes destroyed mammoths and probably another megafauna.
Today, we live in a time when the average temperature on the planet is rising again, so we need to take this “harsh lesson ” seriously.

According to most recent research, what cause of wooly mammoth extinction is not as important as previously believed?

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

_This was the last nail in the coffin – the mammoths could not adapt quickly enough when the landscape changed dramatically and food became scarce._
7.

Title:

Content: In one of the most common versions of the extinction of giant mamutes, it is claimed that this was caused by the hunting of ancient people.
Our ancestors literally ate most of the animals.
But recent studies say that this is not the case and people have become far from the main reason for the disappearance of mammoths.
Hunger caused by climate change is the real killer.
Searching for gold, but found mammoths: an incredible story with the Yukon
Drawing of a mammoth on the wall of the cave of Arcy-sur-Cure, France / Photo Wikipedia
The Hungry Death of Great Animals
It would seem that mammoths existed for millions of years and survived several ice ages.
That is, climate change did not affect them critically.
But as soon as they encountered humans, they began to die out.
Finally, we were able to prove that the problem was not only climate change, but also the speed of these changes.
This was the last nail in the coffin – the mammoths could not adapt quickly enough when the landscape changed dramatically and food became scarce.
- says the author of the study Eske Willerslev, a professor at the University of Cambridge and director of the Center for Geogenetics of the Lundbeck Foundation at the University of Copenhagen.
The team, led by Prof. Willerslev, sequenced the DNA of plant, animal, and their fossilized excrement, coprolites.
The selection of these samples lasted about 20 years and allowed us to fully understand why the majestic animals died out.
After the end of the last cooling, the glaciers began to melt.
The environment quickly became quite humid, leading to a chain change in flora.
Typical mamut habitats and pastures became increasingly swampy and vegetation changed accordingly.
As a result, there is simply no food left typical for animals.
From birth to death: scientists have fully investigated the life path of the mammoth
Giants did not have time to adapt to rapid changes, so the total number of mammoths was constantly declining.
Because of this, isolated and partially isolated animal populations arose, which already caused little genetic diversity.
It is clear that all this did not positively affect the chances of survival.
Scientists say climate change is critical.
When such changes destroyed mammoths and probably another megafauna.
Today, we live in a time when the average temperature on the planet is rising again, so we need to take this “harsh lesson ” seriously.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

restricted habitat
shrank grassland
food sources disappearing

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

_It is clear that all this did not positively affect the chances of survival._
8.

Title:

Content: In one of the most common versions of the extinction of giant mamutes, it is claimed that this was caused by the hunting of ancient people.
Our ancestors literally ate most of the animals.
But recent studies say that this is not the case and people have become far from the main reason for the disappearance of mammoths.
Hunger caused by climate change is the real killer.
Searching for gold, but found mammoths: an incredible story with the Yukon
Drawing of a mammoth on the wall of the cave of Arcy-sur-Cure, France / Photo Wikipedia
The Hungry Death of Great Animals
It would seem that mammoths existed for millions of years and survived several ice ages.
That is, climate change did not affect them critically.
But as soon as they encountered humans, they began to die out.
Finally, we were able to prove that the problem was not only climate change, but also the speed of these changes.
This was the last nail in the coffin – the mammoths could not adapt quickly enough when the landscape changed dramatically and food became scarce.
- says the author of the study Eske Willerslev, a professor at the University of Cambridge and director of the Center for Geogenetics of the Lundbeck Foundation at the University of Copenhagen.
The team, led by Prof. Willerslev, sequenced the DNA of plant, animal, and their fossilized excrement, coprolites.
The selection of these samples lasted about 20 years and allowed us to fully understand why the majestic animals died out.
After the end of the last cooling, the glaciers began to melt.
The environment quickly became quite humid, leading to a chain change in flora.
Typical mamut habitats and pastures became increasingly swampy and vegetation changed accordingly.
As a result, there is simply no food left typical for animals.
From birth to death: scientists have fully investigated the life path of the mammoth
Giants did not have time to adapt to rapid changes, so the total number of mammoths was constantly declining.
Because of this, isolated and partially isolated animal populations arose, which already caused little genetic diversity.
It is clear that all this did not positively affect the chances of survival.
Scientists say climate change is critical.
When such changes destroyed mammoths and probably another megafauna.
Today, we live in a time when the average temperature on the planet is rising again, so we need to take this “harsh lesson ” seriously.

_This could be both climate change and human activity._
9.

Title:

Content: Science 2021-11-11T12: 03: 35 + 02: 00
Ukrainian News
Giant armadillos and mammoths.
Scientists have told what the Earth would look like if there were no people on it.
Giant armadillos and mammoths.
Scientists have told what the Earth would look like if there were no people on it.
This is what a glyptodon might look like, an armadillo-like creature that went extinct during the Ice Age.
Photo by Stocktrek Images
Man has greatly changed the landscape of planet Earth since the time of the development of tools.
And the more active the progress, the faster a person changes the face of the world around.
But if there were no humans on the planet, then there would be giant animals that are now extinct.
This conclusion was made by scientists, writes the publication Live science.
The land would belong to giant plants and animals.
Along with megafauna, Neanderthals, the distant ancestors of man, would also live.
Animals would be bigger.
For example, moa birds, similar to ostriches, would still live in New Zealand.
After humans came to the islands, the birds became extinct in 200 years.
According to Seren Faurbi of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, for thousands of years, humans have played a crucial role in the extinction of many giant animals.
Without us, today ’ s Earth would in many ways resemble an African ecosystem teeming with life.
Thus, the animal world of Europe would resemble Africa with its elephants, lions and rhinos.
But instead of African lions, cave lions would live - they are larger.
And in Africa, there would be giant bears and animals similar to armadillos, but the size of a car.
Scientists are still arguing about what led to the extinction of mammoths.
This could be both climate change and human activity.
Christopher Doughty of the University of Northern Arizona studied how representatives of megafauna contributed to the distribution of seeds.
He believes that with the extinction of large animals, the redistribution of elements such as phosphorus, calcium and magnesium decreased by 90%.
Without humans, these elements would have been more evenly distributed, he said, leading to a more productive system.
Without humans, the climate would be different.
But what exactly – scientists can not say exactly.
As reported by Ukrainian News, in Tanzania found the bones of a previously unknown species of titanosaur with a unique coccyx in the shape of a heart.
The deposits in which the bones were found are dated to 100-110 million years old.
On the British Isle of Wight, archaeologists have found two new species of dinosaurs that were predators of large size.
In size, the fossil lizards were no less than a bus and hunted both on land and in water.
They had crocodile-like snouts, sharp teeth, and a whip-like tail.
In addition, scientists have discovered a small crab that was stuck in wood tar 100 million years ago, so perfectly preserved.
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What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

_Without humans, the climate would be different._
10.

_“But perhaps it was a case where they contributed to their own death,” explains one of the authors of the work._
11.

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Could volcanoes have caused the extinction of ancient whales?
New research suggests that a period of intense volcanism in the Central Andes may be the missing link in the history of past climate changes that led to the extinction of ancient marine mammals.
Photo: Ferra.ruFerra.ru
While we often hear about the important role of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions in today ’ s climate, much of our understanding of current and future climate is based on the long history of Earth ’ s changing climate.
Many factors affect the carbon cycle – carbon moves between the atmosphere, oceans, rocks, soil, and living things.
Between 7.6 and 5.4 million years ago, the planet experienced a period of sharp cooling, known as the Late Miocene cooling.
This has been accompanied by large-scale changes in plant and animal communities both on land and in the oceans.
Until recently, this cooling was due to the leaching of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as a result of the silicate weathering of the Himalayas.
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Scientists suggest another factor contributing to this is a significant increase in volcanism in the Andes about seven million years ago.
They explain that the Andes were arranged to deliver ash to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, providing nutrients to the world ’ s oceans, which served as an impetus for the rapid development of life.
Small marine organisms called diatoms used these nutrients to thrive, and in turn, marine mammals that ate them, such as whales, also thrived.
Given their huge size, a large number of marine mammals could have accumulated a lot of carbon.
By dumping their waste in shallow water, whales return nutrients back to diatoms communities, and this cycle continues.
“But perhaps it was a case where they contributed to their own death, ” explains one of the authors of the work.
Too much nutrients in the water can lead to toxic algal blooms – one possible stress factor that contributed to the extinction that followed the heyday of life.
Another possibility is that ash from ongoing volcanism could have poisoned the air.
The researchers plan to look for evidence in the future to distinguish between these possible extinction factors.

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

_The reason is the fragmentation of the habitat and the destruction of natural ecosystems._

**These sentences together emphasize:**
- The primary role of climate change, especially at the end of the last Ice Age, in driving mammoth extinction.

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On the way to disaster: the sixth mass extinction has already begun
According to some scientists, the sixth mass extinction has already begun.
Don ’ t you think that reality is becoming more and more like apocalyptic movies?
Take, for example, “Don ’ t Look Up ” with DiCaprio and Lawrence in the lead roles.
The characters and events of the film are certainly grotesque, but sometimes what happens on the screen becomes more difficult to distinguish from reality.
And although the killer asteroid does not fall on us, the problems of humanity do not become less.
I would even say there are too many.
One such problem is the beginning of the sixth mass extinction of wildlife.
We ourselves are on the verge of extinction – the most optimistic forecasts give our civilization a little more than four hundred years.
But the current extinction, unlike any other, is our handiwork.
Climate change, habitat destruction, pollution and industrial agriculture all play a role in humanity ’ s journey to self-destruction.
Extinction is near
We are witnessing the first mass extinction in 65 million years – at least one million species are at risk of extinction.
Even more alarming are the results of a major study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which showed that life on Earth is at risk.
According to calculations, the extinction of species can occur at a time different from the previous mass extinctions that swept the planet in the distant past.
We are faced with radical changes that occur within one human life.
Data collected as part of the IUCN report showed that 77 of the most endangered species have lost 94% of their populations over the past century.
It turns out that over the past 100 years, more than 400 vertebrate species have died out - a figure that would have taken about 10,000 years to reach in the normal course of evolution.
Climate change threatens wildlife
Available data also point to a series of extinctions in the near future that could have catastrophic consequences for the natural ecosystem.
Experts warn that “extinction breeds extinction, ” as species whose well-being depends on endangered life forms are also on the path to extinction as a result.
It is believed that over the next 20 years, about 500 species will disappear forever from the face of the Earth.
Mass Extinction of Animals Could Turn Water into ‘ Poisonous Soup ’
What does the sixth mass extinction look like?
It is no secret that 99% of all living organisms that have ever lived on Earth are extinct.
The natural ecosystem of the planet is constantly evolving, and as the environment changes, some species will begin to disappear anyway.
So, groups of researchers around the world are studying species capable of transmitting dangerous viruses to humans, as wild animals and humans are increasingly forced into close contact.
The reason is the fragmentation of the habitat and the destruction of natural ecosystems.
Here ’ s an example of what ’ s already happening – the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 likely came about thanks to children playing near a tree full of bats.
Although the origin of COVID-19 is still unclear, some scientific studies have linked it to wild bats.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that about 10 million hectares of forest have been cut down each year since 2015.
Another example is the extinction of birds and insects.
Bees, for example, play a vital role in our food security.
About a third of the world ’ s food supply depends on pollinators such as bees, and if they die out, crop yields could plummet, the researchers write.
What ’ s more, some crop pests can thrive as predators disappear, further affecting yields.
Millions of people rely on wild species as a source of food and livelihood, especially for fisheries, which are already facing challenges.
See also: The media reports about the leak of the UN report on climate change.
What does it say?
Fishing seriously affected by climate change
Food insecurity, which will also be associated with increased drought and floods, will hit poor regions hardest, especially sub-Saharan Africa and parts of south-east Asia.
Agriculture will also be at risk, as soil health depends on microorganisms that, according to some scientists, are dying out at a rapid pace.
The New Normal – Lack of Water and Food
Most of the world ’ s fresh water comes from lands that purify and redistribute this source of life.
For example, the Himalayan water tower, fed by rivers, supplies about two billion people.
If such systems collapse, including algal blooms and the disappearance of vegetation, humanity could lose a lot of drinking water and resources for agricultural use.
Read more fascinating articles about the future of humanity and the Universe on our channel in Yandex.Zen.
There are regularly published articles that are not on the site
As forests shrink, rainfall patterns are likely to change, and with the loss of trees and vegetation — the main regulators of atmospheric carbon dioxide — climate change is expected to worsen, leading to more extreme weather events.
In connection with fires unprecedented before, many animals have lost their habitat
Crop failures and other environmental threats are likely to trigger mass migration as people flee hunger and conflict over dwindling resources.
Fortunately, dedicated conservation biologists and conservation agencies are doing their best to focus on endangered birds and mammals.
Scientists believe that some species can be saved from extinction.
Fortunately, we still have the opportunity to prevent a catastrophe and save as many living beings as possible.
The full text of the work can be found here.
Comment

- The debate surrounding the impact of early human hunting, with some studies downplaying it as the main cause but not ruling out a contributing role.

Title:

Content: In one of the most common versions of the extinction of giant mamutes, it is claimed that this was caused by the hunting of ancient people.
Our ancestors literally ate most of the animals.
But recent studies say that this is not the case and people have become far from the main reason for the disappearance of mammoths.
Hunger caused by climate change is the real killer.
Searching for gold, but found mammoths: an incredible story with the Yukon
Drawing of a mammoth on the wall of the cave of Arcy-sur-Cure, France / Photo Wikipedia
The Hungry Death of Great Animals
It would seem that mammoths existed for millions of years and survived several ice ages.
That is, climate change did not affect them critically.
But as soon as they encountered humans, they began to die out.
Finally, we were able to prove that the problem was not only climate change, but also the speed of these changes.
This was the last nail in the coffin – the mammoths could not adapt quickly enough when the landscape changed dramatically and food became scarce.
- says the author of the study Eske Willerslev, a professor at the University of Cambridge and director of the Center for Geogenetics of the Lundbeck Foundation at the University of Copenhagen.
The team, led by Prof. Willerslev, sequenced the DNA of plant, animal, and their fossilized excrement, coprolites.
The selection of these samples lasted about 20 years and allowed us to fully understand why the majestic animals died out.
After the end of the last cooling, the glaciers began to melt.
The environment quickly became quite humid, leading to a chain change in flora.
Typical mamut habitats and pastures became increasingly swampy and vegetation changed accordingly.
As a result, there is simply no food left typical for animals.
From birth to death: scientists have fully investigated the life path of the mammoth
Giants did not have time to adapt to rapid changes, so the total number of mammoths was constantly declining.
Because of this, isolated and partially isolated animal populations arose, which already caused little genetic diversity.
It is clear that all this did not positively affect the chances of survival.
Scientists say climate change is critical.
When such changes destroyed mammoths and probably another megafauna.
Today, we live in a time when the average temperature on the planet is rising again, so we need to take this “harsh lesson ” seriously.

According to most recent research, what cause of wooly mammoth extinction is not as important as previously believed?

- That both climate change and human activities (habitat fragmentation, ecosystem destruction) are significant factors in species extinction, historically and in the context of the mammoth.

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

- The inability of mammoths to adapt to rapidly changing environments and food scarcity as a significant factor in their extinction.

Title:

Content: In one of the most common versions of the extinction of giant mamutes, it is claimed that this was caused by the hunting of ancient people.
Our ancestors literally ate most of the animals.
But recent studies say that this is not the case and people have become far from the main reason for the disappearance of mammoths.
Hunger caused by climate change is the real killer.
Searching for gold, but found mammoths: an incredible story with the Yukon
Drawing of a mammoth on the wall of the cave of Arcy-sur-Cure, France / Photo Wikipedia
The Hungry Death of Great Animals
It would seem that mammoths existed for millions of years and survived several ice ages.
That is, climate change did not affect them critically.
But as soon as they encountered humans, they began to die out.
Finally, we were able to prove that the problem was not only climate change, but also the speed of these changes.
This was the last nail in the coffin – the mammoths could not adapt quickly enough when the landscape changed dramatically and food became scarce.
- says the author of the study Eske Willerslev, a professor at the University of Cambridge and director of the Center for Geogenetics of the Lundbeck Foundation at the University of Copenhagen.
The team, led by Prof. Willerslev, sequenced the DNA of plant, animal, and their fossilized excrement, coprolites.
The selection of these samples lasted about 20 years and allowed us to fully understand why the majestic animals died out.
After the end of the last cooling, the glaciers began to melt.
The environment quickly became quite humid, leading to a chain change in flora.
Typical mamut habitats and pastures became increasingly swampy and vegetation changed accordingly.
As a result, there is simply no food left typical for animals.
From birth to death: scientists have fully investigated the life path of the mammoth
Giants did not have time to adapt to rapid changes, so the total number of mammoths was constantly declining.
Because of this, isolated and partially isolated animal populations arose, which already caused little genetic diversity.
It is clear that all this did not positively affect the chances of survival.
Scientists say climate change is critical.
When such changes destroyed mammoths and probably another megafauna.
Today, we live in a time when the average temperature on the planet is rising again, so we need to take this “harsh lesson ” seriously.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

**Key Sentences Extracted, Relevant to Causes of Mammoth Extinction (Focusing on Environmental Factors and Human Activity):**

1.

Title:

Content: General Supervision
Elham Aboul Fath
Editor-in-Chief
Thank you for your patience.
General Supervision
Elham Aboul Fath
Editor-in-Chief
Thank you for your patience.
The Sixth Mass Extinction.
A study that raises questions about the future of life on Earth.
A new study raises troubling concerns about the future of life on planet Earth, suggesting that we may already be in the midst of a sixth mass extinction.
Mass extinctions throughout history
Earth's history has seen five major mass extinctions, which wiped out a large proportion of living species.
These extinctions are thought to have been caused by catastrophic factors such as asteroid collisions and intense volcanic activity.
Evidence of the Sixth Extinction
The new study is based on an analysis of species extinction rates in the modern era, and the results suggest that current extinction rates are much higher than normal rates, and that we have already lost a large number of species.
Contributing factors
Scientists attribute the main cause of the sixth extinction to human activities, including:
Habitat destruction: Urban, agricultural and industrial expansion is destroying forests and other natural areas, threatening the survival of many species.
Climate change: Rising temperatures and changing weather patterns strain ecosystems and threaten the survival of species that cannot adapt.
Pollution: Pollution of various types poisons the environment and destroys habitats, affecting the health and survival of species.
Overfishing and illegal wildlife trade: The unsustainable exploitation of species causes their numbers to decline and threatens their survival.
Consequences
Scientists warn that the sixth extinction will have serious consequences for the environment and human health.
The loss of biodiversity affects the stability of ecosystems and threatens the services they provide to us, such as pollination and purification of water and air.
SOLUTIONS
Scientists stress the urgent need to take serious action to reduce biodiversity loss.
These procedures include:
Protection of natural habitats: establishment of natural reserves and expansion of protected areas.
Combating climate change: reducing greenhouse gas emissions and switching to renewable energy sources.
Reducing pollution: Applying strict laws to reduce various types of pollution.
Combating poaching and illegal wildlife trafficking: strengthening law enforcement and raising awareness of the importance of wildlife protection.
The Future of Life on Earth
The future of life on Earth depends on our ability to take decisive action to address the environmental challenges we face.
Scientists warn that failure to do so could lead to catastrophic consequences for our planet and civilization.

"During the last ice age (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago), the world was rich in megafauna, but most of them died at the end of the ice age, or in the thousands of years since."

Title:

Content: How would the earth be different if modern man did not exist?
The Libyan Observatory Newspaper
LATEST NEWS
The human footprint can be seen across the planet today, from the towering skyscrapers that define our modern capitals to the pyramids and other ancient relics from our past.
Human activity also represents the sprawling open fields of agriculture, the roads that connect everything together.
But what would the world look like if humans didn ’ t exist before?
Some scientists paint a picture of a pure wilderness and an abundance of species, from fashionable to uncommon.
Trevor Worthy, a paleontologist and assistant professor at Flinders University in Australia, told Live Science: “I think it would be a much more vegetative place with a wealth of animals, of great size, spread across all continents except Antarctica. ”
A world without modern humans may also mean that our extinct human relatives, such as Neanderthals, will still exist.
And, of course, they would have changed the scene as well.
Humans shaped the world at the expense of many species, from the dodo (Raphus cucullatus) to the Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus), which pushed us to extinction through activities such as hunting and habitat destruction.
The rate of extinction on Earth today is more than 100 times what it would have been without humans, according to the most conservative estimates, and has not been higher since the Cretaceous and Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event that wiped out about 80% of animal species, including non-floating dinosaurs, 66 million years ago.
In other words, humans collided with the planet like an asteroid, and the dust continues to settle as wildlife continues to deteriorate.
“My great-grandfather was able to see herds of thousands of parrots in the landscape, my grandfather saw a hundred flocks, my father saw little and I ’ m lucky if I could see two in the woods, ” said Worthy.
The human-driven decline of nature suggests that Earth would be a more wild place without us, with some lost giants, such as moas, standing out the most.
This group of ostrich-like birds, some of which extend up to 11.8 feet (3.6 m) in New Zealand, evolved over millions of years.
Within 200 years of humans reaching their land 750 years ago, all nine species of moa have disappeared, along with at least 25 other vertebrate species, including the giant Haast eagles (Hieraaetus moorei) that hunted moa, according to Worthy.
The giant moa and the Haast vultures are recent examples of large animals whose eventual extinction is linked to human activities, such as unsustainable hunting and the introduction of invasive species into new habitats.
They are also indicators of what our relationship with large animals might be like elsewhere.
The survival of large animals is crucial to speculate on the existence of a land without humans, as these monsters have a significant impact on the landscape.
– Serengeti System
Soren Furby, senior lecturer in zoology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, believes that humans played a key role in the disappearance of many large mammals thousands of years ago.
He led a 2015 study, published in the journal Diversity and Distributions, which suggested that without humans, the Earth would be much like the contemporary Serengeti system, an African ecosystem teeming with life.
In this scenario, extinct animals similar to those found in Serengeti today – including elephants, rhinos and lions – would live across Europe.
For example, instead of African lions (Panthera leo), there are still cave lions (Panthera spelaea), a slightly larger species that lived in Europe until about 12,000 years ago.
Meanwhile, the Americas will be home to relatives of huge elephants and bears, along with unique species, according to Forby.
"In a world without humans, there will be much more diversity than large mammals, and if you see a greater diversity than large mammals, you tend to see a more open habitat," Forby said.
Elephants and other large animals are well identified when finding food, and will not tolerate unnecessary obstacles.
“If you ’ re old enough, it might be easier to knock on a tree and eat fresh leaves on top of it, ” Forby said.
But also, if there are a large number of large mammals, there is a tendency to have fewer wooded plants in the first place, he said.
Large animals, such as elephants, are known as megafauna.
During the last ice age (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago), the world was rich in megafauna, but most of them died at the end of the ice age, or in the thousands of years since.
For example, about 38 genera of large animals went extinct in North America at the end of the last ice age, according to a 2020 study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Over the past century, scientists have debated whether natural climate changes or human activities, such as overfishing, are the main reason for the decline of these large animals.
A 2021 study published in Nature concluded that climate change ultimately wiped out the woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) and other Arctic megafauna that survived the end of the ice age.
However, humans hunted mammoths.
Scientists who believe humans may have been the main factor in their extinction, such as Forby, argue that mammoths survived climate change before humans appeared and would probably survive to this day had it not been for the added pressure humans placed on them.
Christopher Dottie, an associate professor and ecologist at Northern Arizona University, is modeling how past and present large animals transport seeds and nutrients through eating and defecating.
His work indicates that the transport of elements such as phosphorus, calcium and magnesium, which are important for life, was reduced by more than 90% through the extinction of large animals.
Dotti hypothesizes that without humans, elements would be evenly distributed across the landscape.
This means more fertile soil, which makes ecosystems more productive.
Humans tend to group elements together through practices such as farming and creating fenced areas, so that these areas become less fertile over time compared to terrestrial systems, according to Dauty.
Greater fertility means that plants can devote their resources to more fruit and flowers, so that the world looks more vibrant and feeds more animals.
While it is difficult to determine how humans and megafauna have influenced climate change for thousands of years with evidence obscured over time, it is much easier to judge our impact on Earth ’ s climate today.
Through global warming, caused by activities such as burning fossil fuels, humans have raised the global average temperature by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degrees Celsius) since the beginning of the 20th century.
Therefore, the Earth would have been at least colder without us.
A 2016 study published in the journal Nature concluded that human-induced warming would delay the next ice age by at least 100,000 years.
And it wasn't due for another 50,000 years, though, even without human delay, so it's unlikely that Earth would be in the middle of another ice age today if we didn't exist.
Humans are inevitable.
Scientists aren ’ t sure why Neanderthals went extinct about 40,000 years ago, but because they mate with Homo sapiens, parts of their DNA are found in some of us.
There were probably multiple causes of Neanderthal death, but we're a prime suspect.
Chris Stringer, a professor and research leader in human origins at the Natural History Museum in London, believes competition for resources was a factor in the disappearance of Neanderthals.
“If we weren ’ t around, if we hadn ’ t come to Europe 45,000 or 50,000 years ago, I think they ’ d probably stay here, ” he told Live Science.
According to Stringer, Neanderthals lived a complex life in Europe, similar to modern humans, but they had difficulty adapting to climate change and were relatively few in number, with low genetic diversity.
This is bad news for any species, as it is a sign of inbreeding and ill health.
Stringer said Neanderthals were probably “already in trouble, and when modern humans got there too, I think that ’ s probably what pushed them to the edge. ”
Scientists are still learning about at least one human lineage that lived around the same time as modern humans and Neanderthals: Denisovans.
This lineage appears to be closer to Neanderthals than modern humans in genes and appearance, but it can be distinguished from Neanderthals with very large molars.
There is evidence of DNA in current humans living in places like New Guinea in Oceania — a finding that suggests Denisovans were in Southeast Asia interacting with ancestors of modern humans who later settled in the East, according to a 2012 study published in the journal Science.
These Denisovan interactions, along with fossil evidence, suggest that they had a larger geographic range than Neanderthals, encompassing a variety of environments and, therefore, arguably, were more adaptive than Neanderthals.
DNA evidence also suggests that Denisovans may have had greater genetic diversity than Neanderthals, according to Stringer.
Stringer said: “There ’ s no reason why Neanderthals or Denisovans shouldn ’ t do it eventually, given enough time. ”
He added that they may have overcome any potential intellectual deficiency, which is not clear to them, through evolution.
So maybe the world won ’ t look completely different after all.
Likewise, they could have made the same mistakes we have made since then.
So, global warming could have been here, but with Neanderthals or Denisovans leading it, not us.
"Who knows?"
Source: Live Science

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

When did the last population of wooly mammoth become extinct?

from 300,000 years ago up until 10,000 years ago

When did the wooly mammoth mostly become extinct?

Title:

Content: The sixth mass extinction on Earth begins.
Warning of "devastating" negative effects on humans
2023-09-24 | 04: 45
Alsumaria News - Miscellaneous
In a new study, researchers warn that the sixth mass extinction on Earth has already begun and is accelerating dramatically, noting that the rate of extinction among animals will be significantly higher than it has historically been, adding to similar studies that warned that the Earth is not in good shape.
The new study, published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said the study is important because it sheds more light on how humans affect Earth's trajectory, usually negatively.
According to the study, animal species will be extinct at a rate 35 times faster than historically recognized during the past million years, and the researchers highlighted the role of humans in this phenomenon, noting that animal species that became extinct during the past 500 years would have taken about 18,000 years to extinction in the absence of humans.
But habitat destruction, illegal trade, and climate disruption will likely continue to accelerate the pace of extinction over the next decades.
Gerardo Ceballos, the lead author of the study, says that the mass loss of animal species means the loss of a record of the Earth's evolutionary potential and history, adding that "there is life on this planet thanks to plants and animals, including wild animals and plants, and the ecosystem that forms them."
Ceballos noted that the crops used by humans, the combination of atmospheric gases that make the Earth habitable, and the active compounds used in medicines all depend in one way or another on plants and animals, and that when we lose whole branches of species, “we lose the planet ’ s ability to sustain life in general, and save life in particular. ”
The new research builds on a number of studies that have warned of a mass extinction event in recent years, and scientists have previously warned that up to a million species are threatened with extinction, and that some of them could be lost within a few decades.
A separate study published in the journal Biological Reviews earlier this summer suggested that the current sixth mass extinction event was the first mass extinction “to occur as a direct result of the actions of one species: humans. ”
In June 2023, researchers proposed the start of a new era that reflects the impact of humans on the planet, but not all scientists are convinced that the current loss of wildlife represents a sixth mass extinction event.
Stuart Beam, a professor of conservation at Duke University, told MEE: "We have no idea how to determine the sixth mass extinction event," but he stressed that disagreeing with the sixth extinction hypothesis does not mean denying the fact that the Earth is experiencing loss of wildlife, at a faster pace than in the past millions of years.
While Ceballos says the debate about whether or not the sixth mass extinction will occur “doesn ’ t really matter, ” he said, adding that the Earth is already suffering from a significant loss of biodiversity, climate change, and environmental poisoning — regardless of the label.
It is noteworthy that the Earth has experienced 5 mass extinctions, namely:
The Ordovician Silurian Extinction – 444 million years ago
Late Devonian extinction – 383 to 359 million years ago
Permian – Triassic extinction – 252 million years ago
Extinction of the Jurassic Triassic – 201 million years ago
The Cretaceous and Paleogene Extinction – 66 million years ago
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"Over the past century, scientists have debated whether natural climate changes or human activities, such as overfishing, are the main reason for the decline of these large animals."

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Study warns of mass extinction of humans
And the reason is not a meteorite like the dinosaurs did.
© AFP 2023 / NOAA
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A study argues that humans are in the midst of a sixth mass extinction, which will not happen as a space rock collides with Earth as the dinosaurs, which disappeared 66 million years ago.
The research, published in the journal PNAS, believes that the extinction of humans will occur due to excessive population growth around the world, the transformative behavior of one species, as well as the climate crisis, resulting from human destruction of the environment.
Groups of related animal species are disappearing at a rate 35% higher than normally expected, the study said, adding that while every mass extinction has winners and losers, there is no reason to assume that humans in this case will be among the survivors.
A community.
Study Shows How ‘ Huge Dust Cloud ’ Killed Dinosaurs
Study co-author Gerardo Ceballos believes the opposite could happen, with a sixth mass extinction turning the entire biosphere, or the world ’ s habitable zone — perhaps into a state in which it would be impossible for humanity to continue unless dramatic action is taken.
“Undoubtedly, the sixth human-caused mass extinction is more serious than previously assessed and is accelerating rapidly, with current global extinction rates 35 times higher than the baseline projected in the past million years, in the absence of human impacts, ” the study wrote.
“Species lost in the last five centuries would have taken about 18,000 years to disappear in the absence of humans, and current public extinction rates are likely to accelerate dramatically in the next few decades due to the drivers associated with the growth and consumption of the human enterprise, such as habitat destruction, illegal trade, and climate disruption. ”
Such distortion of the tree of life, and the resulting loss of ecosystem services provided by biodiversity to humanity, poses a serious threat to the stability of civilization, and immediate political, economic and social efforts on an unprecedented scale are necessary if we are to prevent these extinctions and their societal impacts.
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"The cause of these extinctions remains unclear."

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Content: Scientists fear a repeat of an ancient fire that wiped out entire species
Science and Technology
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Over the past decade, deadly wildfires have become increasingly common due to human-induced climate change and disruptive land management practices.
Southern California experienced a wave of wildfires 13,000 years ago.
These fires have permanently changed vegetation in the region and contributed to the largest extinction on Earth in more than 60 million years.
A team of researchers has a unique perspective on the causes and long-term consequences of environmental changes, both those associated with natural climate variability and those caused by humans.
In a new study published in August 2023, researchers sought to understand the changes that occurred in California during the last major extinction event at the end of the ice age.
The event wiped out most of the large mammals on Earth about 10,000 to 50,000 years ago, as dramatic climatic disturbances spread.
Scientists often call the past 66 million years of Earth's history the Age of Mammals.
During that time, some organisms exploited the extinction of dinosaurs to become the dominant species on the planet.
During the Ice Age, Eurasia and the Americas were teeming with enormous beasts such as woolly mammoth, giant bears, and terrible wolves.
Two camels, three species of ground sloths and five species of big cats roamed what is now Los Angeles.
And then suddenly she went away.
Around the world, the large mammals that characterized global ecosystems have disappeared for tens of millions of years.
North America has lost more than 70% of mammals weighing more than 97 pounds (44 kg).
South America lost more than 80%, and Australia lost almost 90%.
Africa, Antarctica and a few remote islands hold what can be considered “normal ” animal communities today.
The cause of these extinctions remains unclear.
For decades, paleontologists and archaeologists have debated possible causes.
With the end of the last ice age, the warming of the climate changed weather patterns and reorganized plant communities.
At the same time, the population was growing rapidly and spreading all over the world.
Either or both of these processes could be involved in the extinction event.
But the fossil record of any region is usually so rare that it is not known exactly when large mammal species from different regions disappeared.
This makes it difficult to determine whether habitat loss, resource scarcity, natural disasters, human hunting, or a combination of these factors is the cause.
Some records provide evidence.
La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, the richest ice age fossil site in the world, preserves the bones of thousands of large mammals that have been trapped in sticky asphalt spills for the past 60,000 years.
The proteins in these bones can be accurately dated using radiocarbon, giving scientists unprecedented insight into the ancient ecosystem and a chance to shed light on when – and why – it collapsed.
A recent study of La Brea Tar Pits and nearby Lake Elsinore uncovered evidence of a tragic event 13,000 years ago that permanently altered southern California ’ s vegetation and caused the disappearance of La Brea ’ s famous mega-mammals.
Sediment archives from the bottom of the lake and archaeological records provide evidence of a deadly combination — a warm climate punctuated by decades of drought and a rapidly growing population.
These factors have pushed the Southern California ecosystem to a turning point.
The catalyst for this dramatic shift seems to have been the unprecedented increase in wildfires, possibly caused by humans.
The processes that led to this collapse are familiar today.
As California warmed up after emerging from the last ice age, the landscape became drier and forests receded.
In La Brea, herbivores have declined, possibly due to a combination of human hunting and habitat loss.
In the millennium before the extinction, average annual temperatures in the region rose by 5.5 degrees Celsius, and the lake began to evaporate.
Then, 13,200 years ago, the ecosystem went into a 200-year drought.
Half of the remaining trees were lost.
With fewer large herbivores eating them, dead plants accumulated on the landscape.
Humans and our ancestors have used fire for hundreds of thousands of years, but fire has different effects on different ecosystems.
Coal records from Lake Elsinore reveal that before humans, fire activity was low on the southern coast of California.
But from 13,200 to 13,000 years ago, as the population grew, fires in the region increased in order of magnitude.
The research suggests that the combination of heat, drought, loss of herbivores and human fires has pushed this system to a tipping point.
At the end of this period, Southern California was covered with plants that thrive after the fires.
A new fire system was created, and the huge animals disappeared.
Lessons for the future
Studying the causes and consequences of Pleistocene extinctions in California can provide a valuable context for understanding today ’ s climate and biodiversity crises.
A similar combination of climate warming and population expansion, biodiversity loss and human-ignited fires that marked the receding ice age in Southern California is once again emerging today.
The worrying difference is that temperatures today are rising 10 times faster than they were at the end of the ice age, mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels.
This human-caused climate change has contributed to a fivefold increase in the frequency, intensity and area burned in California in the past 45 years.
While California is now famous for severe fires, the study reveals that fire is a relatively new phenomenon in this region.
In the 20,000 years leading up to the extinction, the Lake Elsinore record showed a drastic reduction in the incidence of any fire even during similar droughts.
It is only after the arrival of man that fire becomes a regular part of the ecosystem.
Even today, collapsed power lines, campfires and other human activities have caused more than 90% of wildfires on the California coast.
The similarities between the massive extinctions of the Pleistocene and the current ecological crises are striking.
The past teaches us that the ecosystems we depend on are prone to collapse when subjected to multiple intersecting pressures.
Redoubling efforts to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, prevent reckless fires and preserve the massive organisms remaining on Earth could help avoid another, more catastrophic transformation.
The report was prepared by Lisa N. Martinez, PhD candidate in Geography from the University of California, Los Angeles, and Regan E. Dunne, Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences from the School of Arts, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California, Duransev.
Source: Science Alert
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"The research suggests that the combination of heat, drought, loss of herbivores and human fires has pushed this system to a tipping point."

"It is only after the arrival of man that fire becomes a regular part of the ecosystem."

"The new study, published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said the study is important because it sheds more light on how humans affect Earth's trajectory, usually negatively."

"Scientists estimate that up to 99.9 percent of all plant and animal life has been wiped out."

Title:

Content: Study: Sixth mass extinction in Earth by 2100
11: 49 PM Thursday 09 Dec 2021
Washington, D.C.:
The planet could face a serious event leading to mass extinction by 2100, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology warned, adding that climate change is pushing our oceans to the brink of collapse.
Professor Daniel Rothman added that at least five mass extinctions have occurred in the past, driven by cosmic and natural phenomena.
Scientists estimate that up to 99.9 percent of all plant and animal life has been wiped out.
The last extinction, the so-called third Cretaceous extinction, occurred about 66 million years ago when a deadly asteroid struck the planet off the coast of modern Mexico.
Not only did the Cretaceous extinction abruptly end the reign of the dinosaurs, it wiped out as much as 75% of life on Earth at that point.
Many scientists fear that a similar fate may await us in the future, and even more worrisome is that humans may have a hand in the planet ’ s demise.
According to geophysicist Rothman, human activity has the potential to disrupt the global carbon cycle and cause a 10,000-year environmental disaster.
In a study published in the journal Science Advances, Rothman said he analyzed changes in the carbon cycle over the past 540 million years, including the past five mass extinctions.
Based on his research, Professor Rothman claimed that the Earth could enter an “unstudied zone ” by 2100, leading to a planet-wide disaster that could last up to 10,000 years.
The MIT scientist is concerned about how much carbon is deposited in the oceans as a result of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
The presence of so much carbon in the ocean makes the water extremely acidic and potentially inhospitable to many animal species.
According to Professor Rothman, at least four of the past five mass extinctions have been linked to an increase in the rate of carbon cycle change.
He believes humans pump a lot of carbon into the atmosphere, faster than in past geological events and on much shorter time scales.
Professor Rothman estimates the amount of carbon in the ocean at about 300 gigatons per century.
Unfortunately, some estimates suggest that Earth is on track to add up to 500 gigatons by 2100.
“Mass extinctions represent a kind of chain reaction that causes the global ecosystem to collapse, ” Rothman said.
“What we see today is extremely dangerous; however, I don ’ t know how much is necessary to take us to a tipping point that would create a global catastrophe for the global ecosystem. ”
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"Many scientists fear that a similar fate may await us in the future, and even more worrisome is that humans may have a hand in the planet’s demise."

Title:

Content: A community.
Follow the latest news on social issues and cultural events in the Arab world and the world.
Find out about the latest community news, humanitarian stories, and video reports about community life.
Study warns of mass extinction of humans
And the reason is not a meteorite like the dinosaurs did.
© AFP 2023 / NOAA
Follow us via
A study argues that humans are in the midst of a sixth mass extinction, which will not happen as a space rock collides with Earth as the dinosaurs, which disappeared 66 million years ago.
The research, published in the journal PNAS, believes that the extinction of humans will occur due to excessive population growth around the world, the transformative behavior of one species, as well as the climate crisis, resulting from human destruction of the environment.
Groups of related animal species are disappearing at a rate 35% higher than normally expected, the study said, adding that while every mass extinction has winners and losers, there is no reason to assume that humans in this case will be among the survivors.
A community.
Study Shows How ‘ Huge Dust Cloud ’ Killed Dinosaurs
Study co-author Gerardo Ceballos believes the opposite could happen, with a sixth mass extinction turning the entire biosphere, or the world ’ s habitable zone — perhaps into a state in which it would be impossible for humanity to continue unless dramatic action is taken.
“Undoubtedly, the sixth human-caused mass extinction is more serious than previously assessed and is accelerating rapidly, with current global extinction rates 35 times higher than the baseline projected in the past million years, in the absence of human impacts, ” the study wrote.
“Species lost in the last five centuries would have taken about 18,000 years to disappear in the absence of humans, and current public extinction rates are likely to accelerate dramatically in the next few decades due to the drivers associated with the growth and consumption of the human enterprise, such as habitat destruction, illegal trade, and climate disruption. ”
Such distortion of the tree of life, and the resulting loss of ecosystem services provided by biodiversity to humanity, poses a serious threat to the stability of civilization, and immediate political, economic and social efforts on an unprecedented scale are necessary if we are to prevent these extinctions and their societal impacts.
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"He believes humans pump a lot of carbon into the atmosphere, faster than in past geological events and on much shorter time scales."

Title:

Content: A community.
Follow the latest news on social issues and cultural events in the Arab world and the world.
Find out about the latest community news, humanitarian stories, and video reports about community life.
Study warns of mass extinction of humans
And the reason is not a meteorite like the dinosaurs did.
© AFP 2023 / NOAA
Follow us via
A study argues that humans are in the midst of a sixth mass extinction, which will not happen as a space rock collides with Earth as the dinosaurs, which disappeared 66 million years ago.
The research, published in the journal PNAS, believes that the extinction of humans will occur due to excessive population growth around the world, the transformative behavior of one species, as well as the climate crisis, resulting from human destruction of the environment.
Groups of related animal species are disappearing at a rate 35% higher than normally expected, the study said, adding that while every mass extinction has winners and losers, there is no reason to assume that humans in this case will be among the survivors.
A community.
Study Shows How ‘ Huge Dust Cloud ’ Killed Dinosaurs
Study co-author Gerardo Ceballos believes the opposite could happen, with a sixth mass extinction turning the entire biosphere, or the world ’ s habitable zone — perhaps into a state in which it would be impossible for humanity to continue unless dramatic action is taken.
“Undoubtedly, the sixth human-caused mass extinction is more serious than previously assessed and is accelerating rapidly, with current global extinction rates 35 times higher than the baseline projected in the past million years, in the absence of human impacts, ” the study wrote.
“Species lost in the last five centuries would have taken about 18,000 years to disappear in the absence of humans, and current public extinction rates are likely to accelerate dramatically in the next few decades due to the drivers associated with the growth and consumption of the human enterprise, such as habitat destruction, illegal trade, and climate disruption. ”
Such distortion of the tree of life, and the resulting loss of ecosystem services provided by biodiversity to humanity, poses a serious threat to the stability of civilization, and immediate political, economic and social efforts on an unprecedented scale are necessary if we are to prevent these extinctions and their societal impacts.
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"In a study published in the journal Science years ago, environmentalists noted that 'climate change could push one-sixth of the world’s animal and plant species to extinction.'"

Title:

Content: Impacts of climate changeReuters
Climate change..
A real threat to biodiversity
Climate change is wreaking real devastation on the natural environment, leading to higher temperatures, melting ice, rising sea levels and changing rainfall patterns.
All animal and plant species are affected by climate change, but some species are particularly affected, with animals living in polar regions facing extinction due to melting ice.
In contrast, animals living in coastal areas are subject to extinction due to sea level rise.
Extinction of animals
Egyptian expert on climate affairs, Dr. Ahmed Abdel Aal, says that "rising temperatures lead to increased evaporation, and therefore a lack of water that directly affects the lives of marine organisms."
The impact on the lives of marine organisms does not stop, according to Dr. Abdel Aal to Eram News, but the repercussions of climate change extend to maritime traffic, which causes significant economic repercussions due to the decline of maritime traffic.
In a study published in the journal Science years ago, environmentalists noted that “climate change could push one-sixth of the world ’ s animal and plant species to extinction. ”
Organisms in South America, Australia and New Zealand are most at risk because many live in limited areas and cannot easily adapt to heat waves, droughts, floods or rising sea levels.
Experts agree that "climate change affects all aspects of life, including human health, food availability, economic growth, migration, food security, and social change, and also affects all other organisms, where it can lead to the extinction of some species."
An environmental disaster
For his part, explains Professor of Environmental Sciences at Ain Shams University, Dr. Wahid Imam, that "exceeding the temperature rise of 1.5 ° C is a disaster, because it will lead to desertification of agricultural lands, and increase droughts, which is a direct danger to human life and other living organisms."
Imam stressed, in a statement to "Eram News", that "the extinction of living organisms affects the environmental balance, which puts human life and the environment at risk," noting that "drought and desertification cause the degradation of agricultural lands, which increases the scarcity of food in the world."
Some conservationists worry that removing plants and animals from their ecological context would alter their evolutionary trajectory or even accelerate their extinction.
Animals play an important role in maintaining a healthy environment, and every species lost due to human intervention can bring us one step closer to irreparable environmental damage.
According to Live Science, the rate of animal extinction is accelerating, with one million species currently threatened with extinction, and the loss of these animals will have unprecedented and irreversible effects on the environment, and may lead to the loss of other species.
"Many organisms cannot survive, except at freezing latitudes or in corals that will dwindle under constant high temperatures."
Heat stress
Professor of Geology and Water Resources at Cairo University, Dr. Abbas Sharaki, pointed out that "the increase in evaporation intensity in water, causes many burdens for most countries of the world, where it leads to low water levels, which affects plants and animals, and causes the so-called thermal stress, which affects the productivity and growth of plants, and the ability of animals to grow."
Sharaki added, in statements to Eram News, that "the burning of fossil fuels, especially coal, is the main reason for the increase in the pace of climate change, as the burning of fossil fuels results in greenhouse gases that lead to higher temperatures, and increased climate variability."
The Secretary General of the Environmental Training Center in Sweden, Dr. Ezzat Hassan, explains that "the pollution of the seas and oceans affects the health and diversity of marine organisms, and causes changes in the forms of some organisms, making them unable to adapt to the new environment."
What's the solution?
On ways the world can avoid worsening the crisis, environmentalists agree that “reliance on renewable fuels is the best solution to climate change. ”
Dr. Ezzat Hassan explained, in statements to "Eram News", that "renewable fuel does not produce carbon emissions, which helps to reduce the temperature of the Earth."
“Fuel emissions lead to higher temperatures, melting ice, rising sea levels and changing rainfall patterns, causing the extinction of some species, changing genetic diversity and disrupting the food chain, ” he said.
The Ambassador of the European Climate Charter, Ambassador Mustafa Al-Sherbini, believes that “the immediate elimination of fossil fuels is impossible, because renewable energy sources are unable to meet the needs of many industries, especially heavy industries, such as iron and steel. ”
Although relying on green hydrogen is an important step in the fight against climate change, it still faces challenges, such as its high cost in Europe, Al-Sherbini told Erm News, who pointed out that "Arab countries have the advantage of the solar belt, which makes them more suitable for the production of hydrogen."
“Nuclear energy is a vital option to address climate change, as it can fill the deficit caused by reducing the use of fossil fuels, as well as it does not depend on external factors such as the weather, making it more stable than renewable energy sources, ” said Dr. Wahid Imam.
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"Organisms in South America, Australia and New Zealand are most at risk because many live in limited areas and cannot easily adapt to heat waves, droughts, floods or rising sea levels."

**Summary for Context:**
From the provided text, the principal causes discussed for the extinction of woolly mammoths and other megafauna include the end of the last ice age (a period of significant climate change), compounded by the arrival and activities of early humans—especially the use of fire and possible overhunting.

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

While the exact proportions of each factor remain debated among scientists, evidence points to a combination of climatic warming, habitat changes, increased fire regimes due to human intervention, and direct hunting as crucial drivers of these ancient extinctions.

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

The discussion signals the important lesson that both rapid environmental change and human impacts can push ecosystems and species beyond tipping points, leading to extinction.

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Here are the key sentences extracted from the text, based on their relevance to your request for understanding the causes of species extinction, with a particular focus on environmental factors, human impact, and the lessons for prehistoric extinctions such as the woolly mammoth:

1.

Title:

Content: A recent study has revealed the mysterious disappearance of marine animals that occurred in Antarctica between 390 and 38.5 billion years ago.
The study provides new insights into the profound impacts of climate and sea level changes on marine ecosystems.
During the Early Middle Devonian period, Gondwana supercontinent was located near Antarctica, including parts of present-day Africa, South America and Antarctica.
Contrary to the icy landscape we now associate with Antarctica, this ancient land experienced a warmer climate and higher sea levels that led to widespread flooding.
Scientists have long been puzzled by the emergence and subsequent disappearance of the Malvinnox Hawthorne biota, a group of marine animals that thrive in colder waters.
This group consists of various types of shellfish, many of which are now extinct.
After two centuries of mystery, the study ’ s lead author, Dr Cameron Payne Clark, explains that the origin and disappearance of these animals has finally been unravelled.
To study this phenomenon, researchers collected and analyzed large amounts of fossil data.
By using advanced analytical methods, they scrutinized ancient rock formations, each containing its unique fossil record.
The analysis showed seven to eight different layers, indicating a gradual decline in marine animal diversity.
Comparing these layers with ancient environmental data and global temperature records, the researchers made a shocking discovery.
They found a strong correlation between the decline in marine species diversity and sea level fluctuations and climate change.
It was during the global cooling phase that the Malvinnox Hawthorne biota flourished.
Cooler conditions allowed these animals to specialize by benefiting from the circumpolar thermal barrier near the poles.
However, as temperatures began to rise, the Malvinnox Hawthorne animals disappeared, making way for species more suited to warmer waters.
Changes in sea level during this period may have broken the natural ocean barrier, allowing warm equatorial waters to penetrate the Antarctic.
As a result, these warm-water species dominate, marking the demise of Marvellous Knox Hawthorne marine life.
The collapse of the polar ecosystem caused by the disappearance of the Malvinnox Hawthorne biota is catastrophic and irreversible.
Dr Payne-Clark described it as a "murder mystery 39 billion years ago."
The results show that the combined effects of sea level and temperature change are the main factors that triggered this extinction event.
Although this particular event coincided with a known extinction event during the Early Middle Devonian period, the researchers lacked accurate age inference.
Understanding the sensitivity of polar environments and ecosystems to changes in sea level and temperature is critical, especially given the current biodiversity crisis.
The study highlights the permanence of the changes taking place in the polar regions.
These findings highlight the urgency of protecting and preserving these fragile ecosystems.
The source:
– Study lead author Dr. Cameron Penn-Clarke of the Institute of Evolutionary Studies at King Hill University.

"The study provides new insights into the profound impacts of climate and sea level changes on marine ecosystems."

Title:

Content: People 's Daily Online > > Economy and Technology
Volcanic activity may be background condition for the late Cretaceous mass extinction
July 24, 2022 09: 08 | Source: Guangming Daily
Small number
At the end of the Cretaceous period, about 66 million years ago, there was the fifth extinction event of the Epoch, which fundamentally reshaped the ecological structure of the earth and ended the era of dinosaurs that exceeded 150 million years ago.
Volcanic eruptions and meteorite impacts, who caused the fifth mass extinction? At present, the scientific community is still uncertain about the cause of the mass extinction event.
Among them, the Indian Deccan basalt eruption caused the mass extinction event is one of the mainstream views.
About 150,000 to 300,000 years before the mass extinction, the large igneous province of Deccan released a large amount of greenhouse gases by invasion and eruption, which may cause global warming of 2 ° C to 5 ° C, known as the Maastricht end-stage warming event.
However, there is currently very limited knowledge of the event, in particular whether records related to the first eruption of the Deccan volcano can be found in terrestrial deposits, and how did the warming event at the end of the Maastricht period affect terrestrial ecosystems?
Both issues have been missing crucial evidence.
Li Sha, a researcher at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Wang Bo, a researcher at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, collaborated with Professor Chen Jiubin of Tianjin University and Professor Wan Xiaoqiao of the Chinese University of Geosciences (Beijing). Recording and the response of lake environments and biota to this event.
The results provide strong evidence for the coupling between the late Maastricht warming event and the first eruption of the Deccan volcano, and show that the warming event also had a significant impact on the lake environment and biota.
The relevant research results were published online in the well-known international journal Geology on July 18.
Mercury records are widely used as a tracer of volcanic activity, since large amounts of mercury released by volcanic eruptions are recorded in strata.
Two drilling samples from this study showed strong mercury enrichment during the late Maastricht warming event prior to the Cretaceous / Paleogene boundary, suggesting direct volcanic emission.
Carbon isotopes and paleontology were also carried out to investigate the effects of volcanic activity on the lake environment and biota. Simultaneous strong negative biases of organic carbon isotopes and inorganic carbon isotopes in the Jiaolai Basin showed that major pulses in the Degan igneous Province had a huge impact on mercury and the global carbon cycle.
The biota of the two lakes also had obvious response to the warming event, and the phylogeny and mesophytes of the Heping Yi Basin of Jiaolai Basin had obvious breeding effect, and the biodiversity was increased.
But in the ocean, the phenomenon of partial extinction, dwarfing and the prevalence of disaster species of the genus Foraminifera shows that the warming event at the end of Maastricht period affected the marine and terrestrial ecosystems with different mechanisms.
The results show that the Deccan volcanic activity puts the Earth in relatively warm climatic conditions, and this warming may bring the global biogeochemical cycle closer to the tipping point of runaway greenhouse environment.
"The results provide new evidence for understanding the relationship between volcanic carbon emissions and the greenhouse Earth, as well as for understanding the impact of global warming on lake environments and biota," Li said.
(Editor: Wang Renhong, Li Nanhua)
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"They found a strong correlation between the decline in marine species diversity and sea level fluctuations and climate change."

Title:

Content: The Anthropocene: Has Humanity Really Changed the Earth?
Stone Science Studio 2023 / 7 / 22 13: 17: 06 Editor ： Mengze
Background
On July 11, the International Commission on Stratigraphy ’ s “Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) ” recommended that Lake Crawford, Ontario, Canada, be regarded as a“ golden nail ” to open a new chapter in the geological era, marking the Earth ’ s entry into the “Anthropocene. ”
Small knowledge: stratigraphy "golden nail"
Since the formation of the earth 4.6 billion years ago, in the original crust, slowly covered with layers of rock, for the evolution of the earth left a stone made of "ten thousand books".
In geology, these rocks are strata, and each strata has its own geologic age.
How to accurately demarcate the "age" of the strata? Under the diligent exploration of scientists, the definition of "golden nail" came into being.
Officially known as the Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP), the rock record at this point clearly distinguishes it from previous geological ages.
Gold nails contain particularly rich information on strata events
According to the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) and the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the "golden nail" is the only symbol for determining and identifying the boundary between the two epochal stratigraphic layers.
The earth's cosmos, epochs, epochs, epochs and epochs must be distinguished by the "golden nail", and once it is "nailed down" somewhere in the world, the site will become the "international standard" of a geological age.
Minor knowledge: Geological age
Geological age generally refers to relative age and absolute age.
The relative age of the Earth is determined primarily by fossils.
In the strata of different periods, most of the standard fossils of ancient animals and plants are preserved.
All kinds of animal and plant fossils appear in a certain order in the morning and evening, and the lower the level, the earlier they appear, the higher the level, the later they appear.
This is the British geologist Smith proposed the "fossil sequence."
So how do we relate time to biological fossils? We know that there are different marker fossils or fossil combinations in the strata of different epochs, so we can invert the strata ages of these fossils by means of marker fossils.
The absolute age of the earth is based on the determination of the content of a radioactive element and its metamorphosis products in the rock to calculate the actual number of years after the formation of the rock.
The older the rock, the longer the strata are.
What is the "Anthropocene"?
Earth is about 4.6 billion years old.
In order to describe the long period of earth history and major earth historical events, geologists and paleontologists have divided the earth's nearly 4.6 billion years of history into several stages according to the sequence of natural formation of the strata.
The unit of expression of the earth's age in time can be divided into the universe, generation, period, period and time.
For example, the geological epoch in which we are currently living is: Eocene / Cenozoic / Quaternary / Holocene.
The beginning of the Holocene was marked by the end of the last Quaternary glacial period 11,700 years ago.
But some geologists wanted a new geological age to describe the impact of human activity on the planet, so they proposed the Anthropocene Epoch, the age of humanity.
The Origin of the Anthropocene
As early as 1873, the Italian geologist Stopani said that the earth has entered the "age of mankind."
The word he used at the time was “human. ”
Later, the former Soviet geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky (Владимир Иванович Вернадский, 1863-1945) proposed a more modern concept of the Anthropocene, the "Anthropocene". Vernadez also participated in the development of the Soviet atomic bomb, so he foresaw at that time the human ability to transform the world.
Unfortunately, this concept, similar to the "biosphere", did not receive enough attention from Western academia at the time.
Until 2000, atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen (Figure 1, Paul J.
Crutzen, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, began popularizing the term “Anthropocene ” widely, arguing that a new geological age was created due to the effects of human behavior on the Earth ’ s atmosphere over recent centuries (Crutzen and Stoermer, 2021).
Paul Crutzen's influence soon attracted wide attention, and the word "Anthropocene" appeared in more and more articles in the title.
An article from the British Guardian details the next development of this matter (Davison, 2019). At a meeting of the Geological Society of London in 2006, a stratigrapher named Jan Zalasiewicz proposed a formal definition of the Anthropocene in the geological age.
However, the content of the chronological strata table, like the adoption of a constitutional amendment at the national level, needs to be adopted through multiple rounds of proposals and deliberations within the International Commission on Stratigraph-y (ICS).
As a result, the Quaternary Stratigraphy Subcommittee of the International Commission on Stratigraphy established the "Anthropocene Working Group" in 2009 to investigate and define the "Anthropocene", chaired by Zarasvić.
After 10 years of research, on May 21, 2019, 34 members of the Anthropocene Working Group voted on whether the Anthropocene should be recognized as a new geological age, and 29 voted in favor.
At this point, the group ’ s next priority is to identify the “golden nail ” that distinguishes the Holocene from the Anthropocene (Figure 3,“ golden nail ” is the only global criterion for geologically dividing geologic chronological strata, see Waters et al. (2018))).
Previously, the Anthropocene Working Group had listed 10 candidate sites, including Sihai Longwan Lake in northeastern China and Lake Crawford in Canada (Figure 2).
But as the press reported on July 11 this year, Four Seas Longwan Lake fell off the list, and the Anthropocene Working Group nominated Lake Crawford as the “golden nail ” of the Anthropocene at a stratigraphic conference in Lille, France, and at a press conference in Berlin, Germany (McCarthy et al., 2023), where the lake floor mud layer recorded an increase in radioactive plutonium resulting from nuclear bomb tests.
If adopted, the proposal will be submitted to the International Commission of Stratigraphy and finally to the International Union of Geosciences.
By then, if the proposal is finally approved, the sediment core of Crawford Lake will mark the beginning of the Anthropocene.
The controversial "Anthropocene"
The term has been hotly debated by scientists since it was first formally proposed.
In these debates, it is worth recalling at least two points:
Should a “Anthropocene ” be established?
Proponents argue that the impact of human activities on the planet has greatly exceeded natural change itself.
As the geologist Colin Waters said: “If you were in 1920, your sense of nature would be, ‘ Nature is too big for small humans to change it ’. ” But this thinking has completely subverted over the past century, and the change in thinking is as dramatic as a planet hitting the earth.
Many studies have revealed the unnegligible changes that human activity has caused to the natural world.
Examples include “plastic rocks ” reported earlier this year (Figure 4, (Wang et al., 2023)) and traces of radioactive debris from every human nuclear test (Figure 5).
Some opponents argue that compared to the cataclysmic events of Earth's history, such as the Cretaceous mass extinction event 65 million years ago (which wiped out all dinosaurs and eventually led to the extinction of about 80% of the Earth's species), the changes currently experienced are not too serious, and the traces of human activity are only "about two centimeters thick loose organic matter".
Others argue that the name Anthropocene may also have dangerous political significance.
For example, climate warming, which may be caused by humans, has become a means of political criticism.
In this regard, the Anthropocene Working Group believes that human activities, especially after the Industrial Revolution, have become a geological force that has led to changes throughout the earth.
We need a whole new time unit to describe these changes.
And these changes are not yet over, and human activities may have a greater impact on the planet in the future.
When should the “Anthropocene ” begin?
If the Anthropocene period is to be determined, it must be proved that the Holocene period is over.
At this point in time, the geological community has different opinions.
Some scholars have suggested that the soaring concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a node, because the heavy use of fossil fuels by humans has led to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions.
Some scholars have suggested using human artifacts as a marker, such as plastic bags, ballpoint pens will exist in rock formations for millions of years.
Through these remnants, it is possible to clearly distinguish them from the different geological ages before them.
The alternation of geological epochs is always accompanied by the extinction of a wide range of plants and animals.
Therefore, some scholars hope to determine the boundaries of the Anthropocene by counting human-caused extinctions.
In March 2015, Nature published an article on the definition of the Anthropocene suggesting the beginning of the two Anthropocene periods, 1610 and 1964 (Lewis and Maslin, 2015).
These two time points represent the two growth points of global civilization (Great Acceleration): the advent of the Great Voyage era and the high concentration of radioactive elements. In 2019, 29 scientists in the Anthropocene Working Group identified the beginning of the “Anthropocene ” around 1950, because it was the moment when humanity exploded the first atomic bomb.
However, there were four negative votes on the two issues, which shows that there are still many voices of opposition and doubt (Davison, 2019).
Opponents argue that linking the beginning of a new era to the atomic bombings ignores the fact that humanity has been changing the planet for much longer.
Is the Anthropocene really important?
Current natural changes associated with the Anthropocene include: loss of biological habitats, global warming, the emergence of concrete, plastics and other substances.
These changes will persist for millennia or more and will gradually change the Earth system.
So the Anthropocene "golden nail" is not to determine the time point of human activity on Earth, but to recognize the enormous human impact on the planet.
It is a meaningful step to remind humanity of the geological impact of human social activities on the planet, and we must recognize this and find ways to deal with possible future crises. ”
But there are also doubts that the push for formal recognition of the Anthropocene may be more of a political cause than a pursuit of its geological significance.
For example, from a geological point of view, the change in the Anthropocene is actually not at the level of the Holocene, and it can be the fourth period of the Holocene, that is, the Crawford period after the Greenlandic period, the Northripian period, and the Meghalian period, but it is obviously not as remarkable as the Anthropocene (Davison, 2019).
In Colin Waters ’ words, the Anthropocene represents that “humanity ” itself has become a geological process.
I can ’ t help but think of the last Earth overlord – the dinosaurs.
Anyway, with the passage of time, the epoch of humanity, including you and me, will always be represented by the geological year.
But relative to this, I am more curious: dinosaurs may have evolved into chickens (Asara et al., 2007), what is the future of humanity?
REFERENCES
• Asara, J.M., Schweitzer, M.H., Freimark, L.M., Phillips, M., Cantley, L.C., 2007.
Protein sequences from mastodon and Tyrannosaurus rex revealed by mass spectrometry.
316, 280-285.
• Crutzen, P.J., Stoermer, E.F., 2021.
The ‘ Anthropocene ’ (2000).
19-21.
• Davison, N., 2019.
The Anthropocene epoch: have we entered a new phase of planetary history?
30, 2019.
• Lewis, S.L., Maslin, M.A., 2015.
Defining the anthropocene.
519, 171-180.
• McCarthy, F.M., Patterson, R.T., Head, M.J., Riddick, N.L., Cumming, B.F., Hamilton, P.B., Pisaric, M.F., Gushulak, A.C., Leavitt, P.R., Lafond, K.M., 2023.
The varved succession of Crawford Lake, Milton, Ontario, Canada as a candidate Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point for the Anthropocene series.
10, 146-176.
• Wang, L., Bank, M.S., Rinklebe, J.r., Hou, D., 2023.
Plastic – rock complexes as hotspots for microplastic generation.
57, 7009-7017.
• Waters, C.N., Zalasiewicz, J., Summerhayes, C., Fairchild, I.J., Rose, N.L., Loader, N.J., Shotyk, W., Cearreta, A., Head, M.J., Syvitski, J.P., 2018.
Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) for the Anthropocene Series: Where and how to look for potential candidates.
178, 379-429.
This article comes from WeChat public number: Stone Science Studio (ID: Dr _ _ Stone), author: Ye Xiangying
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"The results show that the combined effects of sea level and temperature change are the main factors that triggered this extinction event."

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

Title:

Content: If we continue to live the way we are, I am worried for the people who will see the next 90 years.
The latest scientific explanation suggests that the biological world is on the verge of destruction.
The collapse has indeed begun, and it is bound to accelerate, leading to an increase in the scale of the collapse and its impact.
Everything that we depend on for our survival — what our environment has always given us — may begin to falter or disappear altogether.
The predicted disaster will be more devastating than Chernobyl or any event to date, not only causing floods, powerful hurricanes and summer wildfires, but also reducing the quality of life for each victim and their descendants, with irreparable consequences.
When the global ecological collapse is finally resolved and a balance is reached, humanity will live forever on a barren planet if it still exists on Earth.
2030s
Decades of large-scale deforestation and illegal burning in the Amazon basin by people who want to develop more land for agricultural purposes will reduce the area of the Amazon rainforest to 75% of the original forest by the 2030s.
Although still massive, this could be a tipping point in the Amazon rainforest, triggering a phenomenon known as forest dieback.
Forests suddenly become unable to generate enough water from the shrinking canopy to nourish rain clouds, and the most vulnerable areas of the Amazon rainforest degenerate first into seasonal drylands and later into savannahs.
The phenomenon of this decline is self-propelled — the more cases of blight occur, the more trees will die; as a result, drought will quickly sweep across the Amazon basin, causing severe damage.
The loss of biodiversity is devastating, with one in 10 known species in the world inhabiting the Amazon basin, representing innumerable local extinctions that create a domino effect across the ecosystem.
All wild populations will be severely damaged, and it will become increasingly difficult for each individual to feed and find a mate.
Perhaps some of the species used in medicine, new food, and industry disappeared before we even knew it existed, and the human cost was even more profound and heavy.
As the forests wither, the Amazon basin floods frequently, flushing the soil from tree roots into rivers; 30 million people may have to leave the watershed, including nearly 3 million native inhabitants; changes in moisture in the air could show signs of reduced rainfall across much of South America, leading to water shortages in many large cities, ironically because, As a result, the farmland developed in the forest is also dry.
Food production in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay will be significantly affected.
For the Holocene, the Amazon rainforest ’ s best environmental service is absorbing more than 100 billion tons of carbon.
Forest wildfires that occur in each new dry season release large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, while the reduced capacity of forest photosynthesis means less carbon is absorbed by the region each year.
The extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will undoubtedly accelerate the rate of global warming.
On the other side of the globe, the Arctic Sea is expected to experience its first completely ice-free summer in the 2030s, making the Arctic open water.
Even if the sea ice that has been in the safe haven for many years, the thick ice layer freezes over and over again, it cannot avoid warming and may start to disappear.
The seaweed forests that lie beneath the ice fall to the ocean floor, affecting the entire Arctic food chain.
As the Earth's ice layer decreases, the white area will gradually shrink each year, which means that the solar energy reflected back into space will also decrease, and the pace of global warming will accelerate again.
The Arctic began to lose its ability to cool the Earth.
The 1950s
Forest wildfires and melting ice over the next three decades will dramatically increase carbon emissions in the atmosphere.
As always, the surface of the sea absorbs too much carbon, and carbon dioxide will form carbonic acid after it is dissolved in the water, first at the shallow beach, then into the ocean circulation, and finally throughout the water body.
By the 2050s, the entire ocean could reach enough acid levels to cause a catastrophic decline.
Coral reefs are the most abundant of all marine ecosystems and are particularly vulnerable to acidification.
Due to years of coral bleaching, rising ocean acidity makes it harder for coral reefs to repair their calcium carbonate structure.
In this era of warmer air and intense storms, coral reefs may collapse as a result.
It is predicted that 90% of the world ’ s coral reefs will be destroyed within a few years.
The oceans are also vulnerable to acidification.
Various plankton species at the bottom of the food chain also have calcium carbonate shells. An increasingly acidified ocean will inhibit its flourishing, and fish populations throughout the food chain will suffer from it, and the harvest of oysters and mussels will begin to decline.
The rest of commercial fishing and fish farming may begin to come to an end in the 1950s, with the lives of more than half a billion people directly affected, and some source of protein that humans have been consuming will disappear from our diets.
The 1980s
By the 1980s, global food production on land may be in crisis.
In the cool and affluent regions of the world, intensive agriculture has used too much fertilizer for a century, resulting in depletion of land forces, no vitality and no harvest; while in warm and poor regions, global warming will cause temperature rise, monsoon, storm and dry season changes, making farming doomed to failure.
Millions of tons of topsoil lost around the world could enter rivers, bringing flooding to downstream towns.
If current levels of pesticide use remain high, habitat loss continues, and pollinator diseases such as bees continue to spread, the disappearance of insect species will affect three-quarters of our food crops by the 1980s.
Harvests of nuts, fruits, vegetables, and oilseeds will be greatly affected if you can ’ t rely on the diligent pollination of insects.
At some stage, the condition may worsen while another disease is endemic.
We just learned that there is a link between the emergence of new viruses and the survival of the planet, with an estimated 1.7 million potentially human viruses hiding in mammalian and bird populations.
The more we cut down forests, expand farmland, and illegally trade wildlife to destroy nature, the more likely we are to cause another outbreak of infectious diseases.
2100s
The 20th century could set off a massive global humanitarian crisis, which would be the largest forced migration in history.
In the 21st century, coastal cities around the world are expected to face a sea level rise of 0.9 meters due to the slow melting of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica and the increasing warming of the oceans.
Over five decades, more than a billion of the 500 coastal cities may have been affected by storm surges, but by the 20th century, sea levels will rise enough to inundate ports and flood hinterlands.
Ports in Rotterdam, Ho Chi Minh City, Miami and other countries will not be able to withstand flooding, so they cannot take risks and become uninhabitable.
Those who were displaced had to move inland.
But there is a more serious problem.
If all of the above had happened, the Earth would be 4 degrees warmer by 2010 than it is today.
More than a quarter of the population may live in places where the average temperature exceeds 29 degrees Celsius, and today only the Sahara Desert can reach this daily high temperature.
It is impossible to farm in these areas, and a billion rural people may be forced to find a better way out.
Areas where the global climate is still milder will be under enormous pressure from population migration, where borders between countries will inevitably disappear, and conflicts may erupt around the world.
In this context, the arrival of the sixth great extinction will become overwhelming.
(Excerpt from Living on Our Planet)
【 Introduction 】
Netflix documentary of the same name
Forest fires, Arctic ice melting, torrential rain, floods, high temperatures to jump electric connection...
Is the Sixth Great Extinction Coming?
The human mind!
A 100-year-old man who wants to save young people ’ s lives tomorrow.
This is the planet we live on, and we can only protect our future on our own.
★ British National Treasure Nature Science Moderator, Historian, Witness of Earth History
★ Awarded the Order of the Lord by the Queen of England
★ IMDb top ten films, four of which are his works
Breaking the Guinness World Record with 4 Hours of IG Tracking Millions
★ Twice winner of the Emmy Award for Best Narrator
He traveled to 39 countries and photographed 650 species.
There are dozens of animals and plants all over the world named after him.
“I ’ m 95 years old, I ’ ve been making nature documentaries for over 60 years, and I ’ ve been witnessing the change of the planet all my life.
Having witnessed the decline of the earth from its beauty to its present day, and watching the oceans, wastelands, rainforests, and glaciers disappear and destroy their habitats, I will surely feel guilty if I choose to ignore them. "
After 2020, we will experience the following:
By 2030, the Amazon rainforest will be 75% less able to produce water and absorb carbon dioxide, and the Arctic Sea will have its first ice-free summer.
In 2040, the permafrost of the North melts, releasing 1,400 trillion tons of carbon dioxide and accelerating climate change.
By 2050, the oceans will absorb too much carbon leading to acidification, serious ecological damage, and reduced fish populations.
In 2080, the world is plunged into a food crisis due to overuse, exhaustion of land and failure of farming.
By 2100, the Earth's temperature had risen by 4 degrees, most areas were uninhabitable, national borders had disappeared, and wars had broken out.
The sixth great extinction is coming.
This book is the life story of David Attenborough and tells how we committed this terrible disaster, our present predicament, and our vision for the future.
But we ’ re lucky if we act now, make changes, and fix everything.
Live on our planet and make it better.
There is still time and a last chance to restore this beautiful world.
The book will teach you to take action, and what the earth needs is your will.
【 About the Author 】
by David Attenborough
In 1985, he was awarded a knighthood by the Queen of England for his contribution to the filming of natural and historical documentaries. In 2020, he was selected as one of the “Top 100 People in the UK ”.
Born in 1926, he is a natural science broadcaster and historian.
In collaboration with the BBC Natural History Unit, he has written nine comprehensive documentary films on animals and plants on Earth, four of which are ranked in the top 10 of IMBD. He won the Emmy Award for Best Interpreter in 2018 and 2019, and produced Living on Our Planet in 2020, documenting his life ’ s testimony to the Earth and his future. Attention.
> Johnny.
by Jonnie Hughes
A science writer and documentary director, he produces science and natural history films for the BBC, Discovery, National Geographic and Netflix, and has been involved in the BAFTA award-winning BBC series The Hunt and Emmy Award-winning Our Planet.
【 Translator 's Profile 】
＞ CHEN Si-wah
Graduated from the Department of Applied English at Ming Chuan University, he is interested in reading and writing, and is now a freelance translator.
# Earth # 22nd Century # Sea Level Rise # Rainforest # Extinction

"As with coral reefs, the loss of a species can lead to the collapse of an entire ecosystem."

Title:

Content: UN report: Disasters everywhere are more interconnected than people think | Technology | DW | 12.09.2021
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Science and technology environment
UN report: Disasters everywhere are more interconnected than people think
Whether it is a climate crisis, an ecological crisis, a natural disaster, or a plague pandemic, the interconnectedness of these disasters is often beyond our imagination.
A recent report by the United Nations University attests to this view.
Locust infestation in Kenya
The cold snap of Texas, the locust disaster in East Africa, the extinction of the Yangtze River sturgeon -- this is an ancient fish from the Cretaceous period of the dinosaur era in China, known as the "living fossil in the Yangtze River", but because of the impact of human activities completely disappeared.
Despite the fact that borders and oceans are separated and that individual species or entire ecosystems and communities may be affected, the common denominator of disasters is beyond recognition and planning to date.
This is the key finding of a report published by the United Nations University on 8 September.
Scientists have confirmed that over the past two years, several of the most serious disasters have sprung up, interacting with each other and aggravating the situation, in many cases being fueled by the same human behaviour.
According to Zita Sebesvari, a senior scientist at the United Nations University and one of the lead authors of the report, “People often feel distant when they learn about disasters from news reports.
However, even disasters thousands of kilometres apart are often interrelated. "
As the planet warms and tropical cyclones become stronger, the COVID-19 pandemic adds to the devastation
Recurrent crises
According to the United Nations University report, the analysis shows that the root causes of most disasters are the following three: burning fossil fuels, poor risk management, and too little consideration of environmental factors in decision-making.
According to the report, a large number of disasters are related to extreme weather.
In Vietnam, nine different storms, heavy rainfall and floods occurred in just two months, causing severe damage nationwide.
A tropical cyclone caused by climate change made landfall in Bangladesh, forcing people to shelter in the new crown.
Jack O'Connor, another senior UNU scientist and another lead author of the report, said that disasters "interacted": if emergency shelters were used to protect people from extreme weather while sheltering coronavirus patients, fewer people could or wanted to use them because they were more vulnerable to the virus.
As soon as the hurricane hits, it will damage hospitals and disrupt the supply lines needed to treat patients.
He noted that the authorities had not taken the pandemic into account when considering the hurricane response, “but that ’ s something we have to start doing. ”
In July, floods hit Central Europe, and early evacuations could have saved many lives.
Extreme weather is becoming more frequent.
A week before the release of the UNU report, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) also published an analysis showing that climate-related disasters have occurred almost every day in the world over the past 50 years — from hurricanes to droughts, causing an average of 115 deaths and $202 million (170 million euros) in property damage every day.
However, mainly due to advances in forecasting and early warning systems, the number of deaths due to extreme weather has declined overall, despite the warming of the planet as a result of human burning of fossil fuels.
Improved forecasting and early warning systems have made it possible for Governments to evacuate people safely in advance of extreme weather events, reducing the death toll from devastating storms and floods.
At the same time, however, the number of displaced persons increased.
It is unclear whether this tie-up will continue as the planet warms and more disasters pile up.
According to a landmark report released in August by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), human impacts may have increased the incidence of “complex extreme events ” since the 1950s.
For example, heatwaves and droughts are occurring more frequently and simultaneously throughout the world; in some areas, there is a similar trend in heavy rain and storms or fires.
According to the IPCC, if the Earth were 4 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial average, the frequency of heatwaves in the past 50 years would increase by 38 times.
The Earth is currently warming by 1.1 degrees Celsius.
Despite the commitment of world leaders to limit warming to an ideal 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, their current policies are likely to double that.
The ecological crisis and the climate crisis
The UNU report highlights three examples of ecological hazards closely related to climate change as illustrative.
As of last year, about 25 percent of Australia's Great Barrier Reef has been severely bleached.
If global warming is 1.5 degrees Celsius, coral reefs will be reduced by 70 to 90 percent; if global warming is 2 degrees Celsius, all the world's coral reefs will disappear.
However, Professor O ’ Connor said that while climate change was a major factor, the loss of coral reefs could also be linked to factors such as pollution and overfishing.
He trained as a marine scientist and surveyed coral reefs in situ before and after bleaching.
"It used to be like 'Undersea Mobilization'... full of color and life," O'Connor said, referring to the famous Pixar cartoon depicting fish, and now, "you see a coral reef bleached by rising ocean temperatures."
All the colors are gone and everything is white.
Not only that, but it's like a graveyard: all the animals have moved away. "
In the Amazon rainforest, large swathes of forest have been burned to meet the global demand for meat, to be levelled out for livestock, or to grow soybeans for fodder.
As a result, carbon uptake in forests and polluting the atmosphere is reduced.
According to some studies, deforestation and global warming will accelerate the rate of forest death until the tipping point, from where the Amazon will become dry savannah.
Epidemic lockdown increases difficulty for firefighters fighting fires in Amazon rainforest
In China, the Yangtze River sturgeon became extinct last year after decades of overfishing, pollution and the construction of several dams that cut off its life in the upstream spawning grounds.
As with coral reefs, the loss of a species can lead to the collapse of an entire ecosystem.
How to balance
Based on its findings, the report highlights how policymakers can fake a number of “win-win solutions ”, such as reducing emissions or designing more natural infrastructure to prevent disasters.
The authors point out that in the Amazon and the Yangtze, people forcibly change their natural features in order to use economic resources, often without regard to environmental costs.
The report also points to the costs of ignoring the links between disasters and implementing wishful thinking solutions that make other extremes worse: for example, dams that generate clean electricity and provide alternatives to fossil fuels have led to the demise of the Chinese paddlefish.
In some cases, the trade-offs may outweigh the gains and losses; in some cases, targeted policies may offset the losses.
"We can't have any more short-sighted behaviours that end up hurting us... we have to do better," O'Connor said.
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DW.COM

"For example, climate warming, which may be caused by humans, has become a means of political criticism."

"So the Anthropocene ‘golden nail’ is not to determine the time point of human activity on Earth, but to recognize the enormous human impact on the planet."

"The explosion in human numbers also led to a huge divergence of opinion."

Title:

Content: Population question: How many people can our planet feed?
• Zalia Gerwitt
(by Zaria Gorvett)
At this moment, the valley, which is a swampy valley at the bottom, is still calm and peaceful, with green grass and palm trees casting faint shadows on the water, and fish quietly hiding under the mangroves, where orangutans are searching for fruit with their tenacious fingers.
Then, with a bang of thunder, a sleeping giant suddenly wakes up from his sleep.
It was around 72000 BC in Sumatra, Indonesia.
This is the moment when the Toba supervolcano suddenly erupted.
It is believed to be the largest volcanic eruption on Earth in the past 100,000 years.
A series of thunderous explosions produced 9.5 trillion kilograms of volcanic ash, which rolled into the sky, forming a dark cloud that quickly spread to the atmosphere about 47 kilometers above the ground.
After the eruption of the Toba Supervolcano, a huge area of Asia was covered by a layer of 3 to 10 cm thick volcanic dust, which blocked the water source and stuck to the vegetation like cement, and even deposits from the eruption were found in East Africa, 7,300 km west of the volcano.
And most importantly, some scientists believe that this supervolcano eruption has plunged the world into a volcanic winter that has lasted for decades, almost killing us all.
As early as 1993, a team of researchers in the United States studied the human genome in order to find clues to the long history of mankind, and found a major sign left by the "population bottleneck" era in the human genome, indicating that at some point, the number of humans has shrunk sharply, and since then, all human descendants outside Africa are significantly more closely related than before.
Later research revealed that this dramatic decline in human numbers may have occurred 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, when our total human population may have been as low as 10,000, equivalent to the population of Elkhorn, a quiet small county town in Wisconsin, USA, or the number of people attending a car-free wedding in Malaysia during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
At the time, the region least affected by the bottleneck was Africa, where genetic diversity is still high to this day, and on the African continent, genetic differences between certain groups are greater than those between Africans and Europeans.
Some people think that this timing is not by chance, they think that the culprit of the rapid decline in the global population is the eruption of the Toba volcano.
This view has been hotly debated, but there can be no doubt that humanity in all regions of the world suffered a great existential catastrophe, and today most of our human species evolved from a small but hyper-tenacious group of human ancestors.
Today, 74000 years later, our species of hairless apes, once endangered by a volcanic eruption, is experiencing another big explosion, a big explosion in our human numbers.
Now we humans have climbed mountains into the sea, occupying every habitat on the planet, and we have our footprints even in the most remote corners. In 2018, scientists discovered a human plastic bag at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, a seabed 10,898 meters below sea level, and another scientific team recently discovered man-made “perpetuating chemicals ” on Mount Everest.".
Today, no part of the world is pristine, and every lake, every forest, and every gorge is more or less disturbed by human activity.
At the same time, the sheer size and intelligence of the human race have enabled us to accomplish great things beyond the reach of other animals, such as splitting the atom, sending complex equipment into space nearly 1.6 million kilometers away to observe the forming planets in distant galaxies, and creating extremely colorful art and culture, the sheer size and diversity of which is difficult to measure.
For example, we take a total of 4.1 billion photos every day, and the number of words used to communicate with each other is as high as 80 to 127 trillion.
The United Nations predicts that on November 15, 2022, there will be 8 billion people living on Earth, 800,000 times the number of survivors of the Toba disaster 74000 years ago.
Today, humans have such a large population but so little genetic diversity (outside Africa) that one researcher recently observed that it would not be surprising to find someone who looks strikingly similar to a stranger without blood ties, given that the human limited gene pool is constantly circulating and that there are about 370,000 new babies born every day.
The explosion in human numbers also led to a huge divergence of opinion.
In fact, there is an emerging school of thought that the number of humans is not enough and that the population needs to grow further. In 2018, tech billionaire Jeff Bezos predicted that in the future, the human population will reach a new decimal milestone, with 1 trillion people migrating to the solar system. Bezos announced that he is making this a reality. Targets and plans.
But others, including the BBC and the natural historian Sir David Attenborough, have called the massive expansion of our planet the “plague of the earth. ”
In this way, almost every environmental problem we face today, from climate change to biodiversity loss, from water stress to land conflicts, can be traced back to the explosion of our population over the centuries.
Back in 1994, when the global population was only 5.5 billion, a team from Stanford University in California calculated that the ideal human population size should be between 1.5 billion and 2 billion.
So far, the debate about the ideal size of the planet ’ s population has been as varied and emotional as ever, but in any case, there is not much time left for us humans to decide which is the best trend in population size.
The ancient humans began to worry about the population.
In the late 1980s, a group of archaeologists at the University of Baghdad unearthed an abandoned library in the ancient city of Sippar in central Iraq.
In the sand, dust and ancient walls, 400 pieces of clay were found, buried in this academic tomb, forgotten for more than 3,500 years, but still on the shelves that the Babylonian added to the library.
Four of the clay tablets are special and contain fragments of a mythical story from Mesopotamia.
This myth is found throughout Mesopotamia in the four clay tablets found in documents, and the account of these four tablets is the missing part of the myth, which continues to fascinate historians today.
On the clay slab is an epic poem, “Atra-hasis, ” written by an unnamed scribe in the 17th century BC, which says,“ Before 1200 years [since God created man], man has expanded the land and multiplied … ”
The legend of the Great Flood, in which civilizations were destroyed by gods and resurrected after death, has been found in cultures around the world with similar themes and different forms of ancient flood mythology. These four clay tablets record the Mesopotamian version, which may be the earliest mention of overpopulation in human history.
In Mesopotamia ’ s Flood mythology, the gods were annoyed by all the “noise ” and“ commotion ” made by humans, as well as by the “roaring of the earth like a bull ”, as they were pressured by the insatiable need for human greed.
Enlil, the god of the earth and air, decided to release some calamities to constantly reduce the number of humans, so designed pestilence, famine and drought to be triggered every 1200 years.
Fortunately, on the day of this cycle disaster, another god saved humanity.
So Enlil plans a great flood... followed by the classic story of a human hero who built a ship to save humanity and life.
At the time of writing, the world's population was estimated to be between 27 and 50 million, equivalent to the number of people currently living in Cameroon or South Korea, or between 0.3 and 0.6 percent of the world's population today.
In the following millennium, scholars seemed to have had little say on population issues.
It was only in the ancient Greek era that humanity was once again thinking about population.
The philosopher Plato had some drastic views.
After the population of Athens, the Greek city-state state, doubled in size, Plato lamented, “What is left is like a skeleton that is consumed by disease; the fertile soil is washed away, leaving only the whole desolate earth. ”
Plato not only argued that the state should strictly control the population, he also concluded that the ideal urban population should not exceed 5,040, and that the establishment of colonies was a good way to reduce the overpopulation of the city-states, and he also believed that it was important to curb consumption.
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Plato ’ s masterpiece The Republic, written around 375 BC, describes two hypothetical city-states (city-states are administrative areas that resemble small states), one healthy, one “extravagant ” and one“ fanatical. ”
In the second city-state, the population was swollen and greedy, and consumption was unrestrained until its consumption “exceeded the limits of its necessities. ”
Alas, this morally depraved city-state went so far as to seize the land of its neighbors in order to satisfy its needs, which naturally turned into a war between city-states, because it could not feed its surplus and greedy population without taking additional resources from outside.
Plato here raises a question that is still hotly debated throughout the ages: Is population a problem, or is the resource consumed by the population a problem?
More than 500 years after Plato, the scale of the global population explosion became clear.
Tertullian, a theologian who lived in the Roman city of Carthage, looked like modern human observation across millennia and prophesied that the earth ’ s population had increased and that the natural environment had been destroyed.
By 200 A.D., when Tertullian made this judgment, the world's population had reached between 190 million and 256 million, roughly equivalent to the number of people currently living in Nigeria or Indonesia.
The Prophet believed that "the whole world has been on the hunt, and so many people have become a burden on the earth... because nature has been unable to sustain our human existence."
In the following 1500 years, the global population more than doubled.
Eventually, the theologian ’ s detached concern for the population turned into a real panic.
Then came Thomas Malthus.
He was an English pastor with a pessimistic bent.
In his famous book An Essay on the Principle of Population, published in 1798, he first presupposes two important observations: that one needs to eat to survive, and that one loves to make love to reproduce.
He explained that it is logical to conclude that these two simple facts will eventually lead to human needs exceeding the Earth ’ s supply.
In his book, Marsas states that "the population, if left unchecked, will multiply in geometric series, and the food that sustains human existence will only grow at arithmetic rates."
One needs only a little knowledge of the numbers to know that the power of the first rate of increase is infinitely greater than that of the second. "In other words, in a positive feedback cycle, a large population leads to a larger number of offspring, but our ability to produce food does not increase in the same accelerated way.
Such a concise statement immediately had an immediate effect, provoking intense fear in some people, and anger in others, an emotion of fear and anger that has persisted throughout society for decades.
The former believes that something must be done to stop the human population from getting out of control.
The latter argues that limiting the population is both absurd and immoral, and that every effort should be made to increase food production.
There are also a few who are particularly dissatisfied with the English Poor Laws, which came into force in Britain hundreds of years ago, because the Poor Law provides subsidies to people living in poverty to help them raise children, such as in the case of the Malthusian population, which encourages the poor to have more children and is detrimental to population control.
At the time of Malthus's publication, there were 800 million people on Earth.
Then came 1968, when Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich and his wife, Anne Ehrlich, published The Population Bomb.
The book was inspired by an experience of the academic couple in the Indian city of Delhi.
One night, as they returned to their hotel by taxi, they passed a slum and were horrified by the crowded crowd on the street.
Their account of the experience was criticized, especially when London was more than twice as populous as Delhi.
The scholarly couple wrote this book out of fear of mass starvation.
They believe that famine is coming, especially in developing countries, and even places like the United States, where people are beginning to notice the impact of population growth on the environment.
It is widely believed that much of the current anxiety about overpopulation is due to the Ellich couple ’ s book, but there are also accusations that Population Bomb is provoking unfounded panic.
Whether this book is positive or critical depends on your point of view.
Of course, there has never been a purely academic discussion about how many people the planet should have.
Demography is sometimes used to legitimize crimes such as persecution, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
In each particular case, the perpetrators are not trying to reduce the number of people as a whole, but are trying to reduce the population of a particular group, such as people of a particular social class, religion or race, but these human crimes are sometimes seen as examples of similar dangers arising from overpopulation.
The UK Poverty Act was repealed and replaced with stricter laws.
Partly this was because Marsas feared that the social class (he called it the “peasants ”) would have more orphans locked up in squalid squalid penitentiaries because they had too many children, as depicted in Charles Dickens ’ novel Oliver Twist.
Over the next century or two, eugenics continued to be disguised as a population control theory or supported by population control movements, such as the forced sterilization of ethnic minorities in the United States in the 1970s.
Population control is also used to restrict individual freedom. In the 1980s, China introduced the controversial one-child policy, which is widely seen as a violation of human sexual and reproductive rights.
The future of population will continue to be contentious.
The population control plan has been controversial in the past, and now the support and opposition are even more divided.
Today, any policy to increase or reduce population quotas or targets is almost universally condemned, with the exception of a few extremist groups.
These measures to encourage population control are considered to lead to coercion or other atrocities and are at high risk.
But beyond that, there is little consensus on other aspects of population issues.
At the other end of the population debate, some see low fertility in some areas as a crisis.
A demographer who is so worried about a drop in the UK ’ s local birth rate has suggested a tax on childless adults.
As of 2019, the UK has an average of 1.65 children per woman, which is below the generational replacement level, i.e. the average fertility rate of 2.075 needed to maintain the same population size, but the UK population is still growing due to the addition of immigrants from other countries.
The opposite view is that reducing and ultimately halting global population growth is not only very controllable and desirable, but can be achieved by completely voluntary means, such as providing contraceptives and contraceptives to those who are willing to use them, and educating women.
Proponents of this view argue that slowing population growth in this way not only benefits the planet, but also improves the quality of life of people in the poorest countries around the world.
Population Matters, a UK-based charity, is one NGO that believes in such a solution.
The organization is committed to achieving sustainable growth in the global population.
They argue for addressing the pressures of consumerism, especially in developed countries, on the planet, while emphasizing the role that population size must play in this regard.
To this end, they urge people to take personal responsibility for the environmental crisis while eliminating global poverty and inequality through debt relief and overseas aid.
Robin Maynard, director of Population Matters, said: “We are saddened by any form of population control or coercion, and restrictions on reproductive choice.
Therefore, our job is to focus on the population, give people the right to choose, and act in accordance with human rights. Let people choose for themselves and make decisions that are good for the planet, and this is the most effective way to deal with the population.
""
On the other hand, some argue that shifting the focus of attention away from adjusting the size of the world ’ s population to human behavior, no matter how moderate or indirect this adjustment may be, will help improve the planet ’ s environment.
Supporters of this view argue that the amount of resources consumed by each individual has more or less an impact on our collective human influence.
They also point out that resource consumption is significantly high in rich countries with low birth rates.
Reducing our personal need for the planet can reduce our carbon footprint without stifling economic growth in poor countries
The West's intention to reduce population growth in the underdeveloped parts of the world has been criticized as racist, as the overall population density in Europe and North America is actually higher than in the underdeveloped parts of the world.
Finally, for this long-standing demographic problem, there is a fatalistic “solution ”, listen to it and do nothing to control it.
This view is based on the fact that the global population has been in a highly unstable dynamic, with a significant increase in population, but then a decline.
People from every point of view are likely to get the results they want, though not forever.
Estimates of future global population growth trends vary, but are expected to reach a “population peak ” around 2070 or 2080, when the global population will be between 9.4 billion and 10.4 billion.
This is likely to be a slow growth process, and if it reaches 10.4 billion, the United Nations is expected to maintain this level for up to 20 years, with the final population expected to decline.
A recent book, “Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline, ” offers us a picture of the world ’ s future that is quite different from what we usually expect.
The authors of this book anticipate that humanity will face new challenges and opportunities brought about by the global population decline.
Population issues are too controversial and uncertain, and we may find it difficult to start thinking about how to deal with them.
Here are a few key aspects of how the size of the planet ’ s population could affect our future lives: the environment, the economy, and our collective well-being.
Environmental challenges
The BBC documentary “Indian Ocean with Simon Reeve ” has a scene like this: we see the camera with a shaking hand-held lens, shuttling through the dense forests of Madagascar.
All of a sudden, a blurry white thing popped out and disappeared across the lens into the distance.
This is a lemur, a shy and haunted monkey with long limbs, pale fur and dark complexion, like a lanky teddy bear.
After this scene, Simon Riff quickly gives the audience a surprising hint about the expedition ’ s lucky discovery: it ’ s not a wilderness forest at all, but the Berenty Reserve in southern Madagascar, a small forest surrounded by commercial plantations on all sides and one of the few remaining homes for the rare animal lemurs.
Speaking at the reserve visitor centre, Simon Rieff said that according to credible information he had obtained, almost all photographers photographing wildlife in the reserve went deep into the forest and set their equipment where the lemurs were most numerous, trying to avoid shooting any buildings.
Viewers may think they peek into an uncharted wilderness world, but you can argue that what the audience actually sees is through a carefully curated illusion of pristine nature.
The BBC documentary highlights the "wilderness myth" deliberately created by humans.
If the spectacular beauty of the natural world presented in the lens completely excludes humans and their footprints from the lens, or downplays the ubiquitous nature of humans, suggesting that there are still large unexplored virgin lands on Earth outside of human activities, this misconception is the “wilderness myth ”.
Satellite imagery is a particularly powerful tool for crushing wilderness myths, because from a bird ’ s eye view from high above, it can be found that the lands of many countries have been completely occupied by humans.
For example, the land that lemurs live in, when you look at it, you can see that the farmland is connected to the sky, and there are roads and rows of buildings between them.
Due to large-scale engineering or forest development, in just a few decades, the landscape of some areas has become completely unrecognizable.
The dramatic changes in Earth's ecology due to human behavior are supported by some startling data.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, 38% of the earth ’ s land is developed for human and livestock production of food and other crops, such as fuel crops, with a total area of up to 5 billion hectares.
Although our modern ancestors lived in the world of raptor beasts, living alongside mammoths, giant wombats and 450-kilogram elephant birds, today only humans are the dominant species in the entire vast land vertebrate population, from geckos to lemurs.
By weight, humans now make up 32% of terrestrial vertebrates, while wild terrestrial vertebrates make up only 1% of the total.
The rest are livestock raised by humans.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), an NGO that protects wildlife, found that between 1970 and 2020, wildlife numbers fell by two-thirds, while the global human population more than doubled during that period.
In fact, as our dominance of the planet has increased, so have many changes in the planet ’ s ecology. From primatologist Jane Goodall, known for chimpanzee research, to naturalist and television presenter Chris Packham, many prominent environmentalists have expressed their concerns. In 2013, Sir David Attenborough was interviewed by Radio Times "The smaller the population, the easier it will be to solve all the environmental problems we face, and the larger the population, the more difficult it will be to solve, and ultimately impossible to solve."
Some have decided to have fewer or no children because of concerns about the human environmental footprint, including Britain ’ s Prince Harry and wife Meghan, who announced in 2019 that they would not have more than two children for the sake of the planet.
In the same year, American singer Miley Cyrus also announced that she would not have children because the earth was “angry ”.
More and more women are joining the anti-fertility movement, calling for a “birth-strike ” unless the current climate emergency and species extinction crisis are resolved.
This anti-fertility trend was supported in 2017 by a study that calculated that in developed countries, just one fewer child would reduce one person ’ s annual carbon emissions by 58.6 tons of “carbon dioxide emissions, ” about 24 times the emissions of a car.
In 2019, a study led by Jennifer Sciubba, associate professor of international studies at Rhodes College in Tennessee, analyzed population growth levels in more than 1,000 areas across 22 European countries between 1990 and 2006 and compared these data to changes in urban land use patterns and CO2 emissions over the same period.
The research team concluded that the absolute number of people in Western Europe had a "considerable influence" on these environmental parameters, but in Eastern Europe it was not the most important factor.
While there are many other studies that support the idea that environmental degradation is caused by population growth, there are also many that argue that environmental degradation is not caused by population growth but by an increasing demand for natural resources, especially in rich countries.
In fact, many environmentalists now believe that the current problems facing humanity are mainly due to consumption, not overpopulation. From this perspective, the worry about overpopulation is unfairly shifting the blame for the deterioration of the bad situation to poorer countries.
A 2021 study found that both population growth and the use of non-renewable energy in the United States are contributing to environmental degradation.
Another study found that China ’ s economic growth and use of natural resources from 1980 to 2017 led to higher CO2 emissions.
Interestingly, other studies have found that while China ’ s use of natural resources and urbanization have increased the rate of environmental destruction, some of the damage has been offset by “human capital, ” or human knowledge and skills.
Today, it is widely believed that humans are putting unsustainable pressure on the world's limited resources, which is known as the "Earth's Ecological Overload Day" phenomenon.
The so-called Earth Ecological Overload Day refers to the fact that humans have used up all the biological resources that the earth can sustainably regenerate throughout the year, and the rest of the year is a load. The Earth Overload Day in 2010 is August 8, and the year 2022 is July 28.
Sciubba, author of “8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape our World, ” says that“ I can ’ t understand why an increase in population is beneficial to the environment, whether it ’ s because there are too many people, or because people consume too many resources, or both. ”
Perhaps one solution, she suggested, would be to see people and the environment as one, “but children, that ’ s a hard argument to make. ”
However, Shuba is keen to point out that the idea of a “population bomb ” in Ellich ’ s book that is about to destroy the planet is outdated.
“I think at that time (the time of writing this book), women in 127 countries in the world had an average of five or more children in their lifetime, ” she said.
In those times, demographic trends did seem to be growing exponentially, but Schuber argues that the demographic panic created by the book has continued into the minds of certain generations that are still alive today.
“But today there are only eight countries (with a fertility rate of more than five children), so I think it ’ s important for us to recognize that these trends have changed, ” says Shuba.
Increasing population is conducive to economic development
In 2012, the Singapore government devised an unusual way for people to celebrate national independence, spreading the important message of multiple births through a new rap song.
This short film showcases Singapore ’ s cultural and scenic attractions with colourful images, as well as encouraging young couples to have more children.
The song ’ s lyrics read: “… Let ’ s make a little man like you and me, explore your body like a night safari, I ’ m a patriotic husband, you ’ re a patriotic wife, let me come into your camp and create life … ”
Singapore released this song to encourage fertility because the government is worried about the low fertility rate.
By 2020, Singapore ’ s fertility rate will be only 1.1 children per woman.
This is an extreme example of a general downward trend in fertility in rich countries.
People in rich countries marry later and choose to have fewer children.
In Singapore, this phenomenon has led to fears that the population decline may be detrimental to the country ’ s economic development, so the Singapore government has urged citizens to have more children if they love the country.
It is a central concept in economics that the more people a country has, the more goods or services it produces and the more its citizens consume, so population growth is the best catalyst for economic growth.
This is one of the reasons why concerns about population growth in developing countries are sometimes seen as a problem.
Many developed countries already have quite high population densities, which is partly why these countries have become rich.
But now denying other countries the opportunity to become rich would be considered unfair, even racist.
However, a slowdown in population growth is not necessarily accompanied by a recession.
Take Japan, for example, whose fertility rate has fallen below replacement level in other rich countries as early as 1966, when Japan ’ s fertility rate suddenly dropped from around 2 to 1.6.
Andrew Mason, an emeritus professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Hawaii, said, “If you look at the standard of living in Japan, I don ’ t think Japan ’ s recession has reached the level that some have described. ”
They invest a lot of money in human capital, so they have fewer children, but they value education and have a very good healthcare system. ”
Mason also notes that savings and investment are also common in Japan, “so [money] capital has increased and productivity has improved. ”
If these factors are combined … I think Japan is a good case study for why Japan is not panicking [about declining birth rates]. ”
In addition to fertility factors, there are other ways for a country to develop its economy.
Often, Mason notes, the introduction of immigrants provides a new source of labor that contributes to economic development and does not add to the total human population.
But in some countries, immigration is still a controversial and highly politicized topic, so it is impossible to choose this method to slow population decline if the nationals of these countries do not have a cultural shift towards immigration.
"Especially countries like Japan and South Korea, which have been very resistant to immigration, will gradually find that it will be more and more good for them," Mason said.
Similarly, the benefits of immigration to countries of introduction are highly uneven in nature, with one country bringing in immigrants for economic growth but another suffering from the loss of workers.
There is a growing realization that the global obsession with economic growth at all costs is outdated and should be abandoned altogether. “One thing that frustrates me about the overpopulation debate is that a lot of the comments are coming from the same people who say we don ’ t want too many people, but we also want to make sure that the economy keeps growing. ”
“In a world of declining populations, we really need to completely change our mindset and stop thinking that economic growth equals progress, ” she said.
A happy future.
However, demographics affect not only the earth ’ s environment and the economy of human society, but also a powerful hidden force that affects the quality of life of people around the world.
According to Alex Ezeh, a professor of global health at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, the absolute size of a country ’ s population is not the most important factor.
On the contrary, the rate of population growth or decline is the key to a country ’ s future development prospects, because it determines how quickly things change.
Ize explained that in Africa, for example, the current rate of population growth varies greatly among African countries, and whether it is good or bad depends on which region of Africa you are talking about.
"In some countries, particularly in southern Africa (one of the five major regions of Africa as defined by the United Nations), contraceptive use has increased, fertility has indeed declined, and population growth has declined, which is partly good news," he said.
In some Central African countries, population growth remains high due to high fertility rates and high life expectancy.
In some places, population growth rates are much higher than 2.5% per year, “which is quite high, ” he said.
In some countries in Central Africa, the population doubles every 20 years or so.
Even in the same region of Africa, different countries will choose different paths, with East Africa ’ s two neighbors, Burundi and Rwanda, as examples. While the former still has a higher level of growth, 5.3 children per woman, the latter growth is slowing, with Rwanda having 3.9 children per woman in 2020, compared to 4.5 in 2010.
“I think the discussion about population size and economic numbers is wrong.
If you think about a city whose population doubles every 10 years, and this is a city in Africa, which African government has the resources to improve every existing infrastructure every 10 years to keep the coverage of existing services at a normal level? ”
The explanation for this is that it is difficult to maintain the development of human capital, especially in conditions of extreme population growth, because research has found that human capital plays an important role in the well-being of urban residents, even more important than how much they earn.
Human capital is also considered to be another important predictor of a country ’ s economic growth in addition to population size.
“When economists think about it, large populations have a big impact on many different outcomes, but do you get to this huge population size in 10, 100 years, or 1,000 years later? ”
The excessive length of time that has been achieved makes it possible to create the right structures in the social infrastructure system to support such a large population size. ”
There are reliable data showing that one of the factors that reduce population growth is women ’ s access to education, as the average age of childbearing for educated women is delayed.
“Over time, the more women have access to education, the more they move out of the home, gain a foothold in society, and get a job, all of which conflict with their traditional role of having children, ” says Ize.
However, he strongly emphasized that the value of education is not based on its impact on population size.
Education is one of the 17 sustainable development programs of the United Nations.
This relates to the central idea of a modern conception about population engineering that policies should be implemented for the benefit of society, which can only be considered an additional benefit if beneficial demographic changes happen to occur.
“My view is that we don ’ t want to instrumentalize women ’ s education, we can ’ t let women go to school because we want them to have fewer children … We can ’ t minimize a lot of positive things just because we want to reduce the fertility rate, ” he says.
In fact, the combined effect on the population of policies implemented for other purposes underscores the alarming reality of population science, which is that population science ’ s predictions are often far from accurate.
Globally, the decisions made by governments in the coming decades will have a huge impact on the future population size of the planet, with the power to push humanity from a future of 10 billion to a future of 15 billion people, but it may also be the opposite trend.
“I think one thing we can be sure of is that when people say that the population of Africa will be x by year y, it ’ s not doomed. ”
If you look at the southern African region, by 2100 the population could be three to four times what it is today, but it could also be less than 50% larger than it is today.
We now have a wide range of options for making the necessary investments to achieve the rate of population growth that each country hopes to achieve.
This is the great opportunity that exists. "
The reality of continued global population growth
However, while the scale of humanity ’ s continued expansion on Earth remains to be determined by human behavior, some trajectories of population development are clear.
One of them is that the population will continue to grow over time, regardless of any possible measures taken to reduce the population.
The future of human expansion depends on a phenomenon known as “population growth inertia ”, whereby the number of young people will continue to grow as long as the population ’ s mortality and migration levels remain the same, although the fertility rate is below replacement level.
This is because demographic changes are related not only to the birth rate but also to the demographic structure, especially the total number of women of childbearing age.
All of this means that in countries with high fertility rates, the full impact of this growth will not be seen until women born in high fertility years reach reproductive age decades later.
A 2014 study found that even if major global tragedies such as deadly epidemics or catastrophic world wars occur, or every country on the planet implements a draconian one-child policy (of course, no one wants that), we humans will still grow to 10 billion people by 2100.
That is, two billion people will die in five years in the middle of this century, and the population will still grow to 8.5 billion by 2100.
The authors of the study conclude that no matter what happens, it is highly likely that there will be many, many people living on Earth, at least until the next century.
Humanity will be more important to the planet in the coming years, so finding a way to live together and protect the environment may be the greatest challenge facing our species today.
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"Call on Hong Kong people to reduce carbon dioxide emissions."

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Content: [HKU research] Climate change narrows marine shallow animal habitats or causes mass extinction
Social 14: 06 2021 / 10 / 28
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Climate change has narrowed the habitats of marine shallower animals or caused mass extinction. (courtesy of Jacopo BRUNETTI)
A study by the University of Hong Kong found that social development will continue to warm the climate, will expand the range of oxygen-less areas in the ocean, narrowing the suitable habitat above shallow water habitats, forcing animals to live in high temperatures, accelerating the risk of extinction, and calling on Hong Kong people to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and reduce the possibility of large-scale species extinction.
The Faculty of Biological Sciences of the University of Hong Kong and the Swire Institute of Marine Science have used the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) event, one of the most famous extreme heat events in history, as a basis for understanding its causes and effects to help predict how the environment will change under man-made climate warming.
Applying innovative methods to assess changes in local diversity
The PETM event occurs when a large amount of carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere, causing temperatures to soar by 5 to 8 ° C, causing huge ocean chemical and biological reactions.
The team hopes the research will help scientists tackle global warming and understand how shallow ocean ecosystems work.
The team used an innovative crash-reconstruction model to quantify that at the beginning of the PETM event, large fluctuations in shallow ocean ecosystems were caused by extremely high surface water levels and a lack of oxygen in deep water, both of which are known as "least oxygenated zones", which were added up to narrow the suitably shallow habitats above the least oxygenated zones.
The lack of cool sheltered areas led to the extinction of heat-tolerant shallow sea species in the region that occupied 46.2% of the clusters prior to the PETM event.
By the end of the event, the strong resilience of shallow sea ecosystems exceeded expectations, with 50% of new species emerging in new clusters.
However, the effects of the climatic anomalies of the PETM event are irreversible, and the composition of the local biomes is ultimately changed forever.
The team used mesophyte fossils stored in an ocean sediment well as model organisms. All the fossils in the sample were selected and classified under a microscope, and then created datasets for statistical analysis.
The results show that if carbon emissions remain the same today, a similar situation is likely to occur in the foreseeable future, with significant socio-economic losses.
Tian Yunshu, a PhD student at the Swire Institute of Marine Science, said that social development will continue to warm the climate, which will expand the range of the least oxygen-containing areas in shallow water, resulting in the expansion of the least oxygen-containing areas in shallow water, which will lead to a higher risk of extinction.
Call on Hong Kong people to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Future warming will lead to serious consequences, such as mass extinctions or species loss.
Collaborating researchers include Associate Professor Shing Ming An of the Faculty of Biological Sciences and Swire Institute of Marine Science, HKU, Huai-Hsuan M HUANG of the Smithsonian Institution, Fabien L CONDAMINE of the French National Centre for Scientific Research, and Marci M ROBINSON of the US Geological Survey.
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Editor-in-Charge: Lina Chen

"According to some studies, deforestation and global warming will accelerate the rate of forest death until the tipping point, from where the Amazon will become dry savannah."

"If we continue to live the way we are, I am worried for the people who will see the next 90 years."

"As the geologist Colin Waters said: ‘If you were in 1920, your sense of nature would be, ‘ Nature is too big for small humans to change it ’."

"We need a whole new time unit to describe these changes."

**Note:** While the provided text unfortunately did not directly mention the woolly mammoth or Pleistocene terrestrial megafaunal extinctions, these extracted sentences highlight the critical environmental factors (such as sea level, climate change, and ecosystem collapse) and the growing awareness of human influence on extinctions, both past and present.

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

These are central themes in understanding the extinction of the mammoth, particularly as it relates to the role of climate change and human activity in species loss.

According to most recent research, what is the primary cause of wooly mammoth extinction?

How did climate change affect mammoth' habitat?

How did humans contribute to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What are the causes of the wooly mammoth extinction?

What aspects of climate change contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?

What environmental factors contributed to the wooly mammoth extinction?