Exam 1 Review-Mass Extinction A Dying World

Exam 1 Review
MASS EXTINCTION
A DYING WORLD
1. More than a quarter of the Earth’s animals and
plants could disappear forever over the next 50
years, victims of global warming, man’s destruction
of the world’s wildlife habitats and illegal animal
trading.
2. This terrible warning of mass extinction was

based on research in Europe, Central and South
America, South Africa and Australia. In South
Africa, for example, a third of the 300 plant species
analyzed will probably die out, including the
national flower, the king protea. Half the 24 species
of butterfly studied in Australia are expected to
become extinct.
3. This mass extinction would not be unique. In

fact, our planet has experienced five extinctions in
its 4.5 billion year history. In the last extinction, 65
million years ago, a meteorite impact provoked the
disappearance of the dinosaur. This, however,
would be the first extinction caused by another life
form on Earth – man.
Survival of Mankind
4. Ironically, the consequences of this sixth

extinction could, in the opinion of many experts, be
so dramatic that they threaten man’s own survival.
Biological diversity (‘biodiversity’) is the “web” of
life on the planet”, in the words of a recent CNN
report. Biodiversity includes the oceans, the
forests, animals and plants – indeed, all life on
Earth. Man depends on this biodiversity, on
nature: we rely on other species for our food, for
medicines, for shelter and for clean air and water.
While microbes generate soil fertility, for example, insects pollinate flowers, plants and trees. Einstein is said
to have commented once: “If bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years
of life left.” Yet we have a population explosion and industry and agriculture are consuming natural habitats,
while contamination is poisoning the food chain and changing the climate. Man may be altering nature’s
balance, with potentially irreversible consequences.
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5. Scientists have identified around 1.5 million species. They believed there are still 5 to 15 million
unidentified species on the planet. Janet Abramovitz, of the Worldwatch Institute, said recently: “We are
losing, in essence, pages and volumes from nature’s library, before we’ve even had the chance to know the titles
of these books, much less to know their content and their importance.”
Species in Danger
6. Equally sadly, we do know the numbers and titles of many of the ‘books’ which could soon disappear. A
2002 United Nations report named 11,046 animal and plant species at risk of extinction, including 1,130
mammals, 1,183 birds and 5,611 plants (Global Environment Outlook – 3 Report of the UN Environment
Program). According to the US journal Science (2014), there has been a decline in 70 per cent of butterfly
species, 28 per cent of plant species and 54 per cent of bird species in the last 20 years.
7. Many endangered species are very well-known: the chimpanzee, tiger, humpback whale, giant panda,
mountain gorilla, orangutan, rhinoceros, Asian elephant, cheetah and snow leopard. Others, however, are less
familiar such as the oceanic white tip shark, which has fallen in numbers by 99 per cent since the 1950s, and
the oldest seed plants on Earth, cycads, which have existed for 300 million years.
Hot spots
8. Scientists have identified a number of global ‘hot spots’, such as the forests of Indonesia and Madagascar,
critical in terms of the disappearance of animal and plant species. These 25 hot spots cover less than two per
cent of the Earth’s surface but they shelter nearly two-thirds of all plant and animal species – most of them in
forests. Man’s existence depends on these forests: they clean the air and water, conserve and enrich the soil,
and regulate our climate, absorbing carbon dioxide, much of it produced by the burning of fossil fuels.
9. Yet man is destroying these forests at an
incredible speed, clearing the land for palm oil and
soya production and cocoa and rubber
plantations, and the seas like a giant toilet for our
refuse and chemical waste, and partly from
overfishing. Commercial-scale fishing by factory
ships has taken hundreds of millions of tons of
wildlife from the sea in recent years. Cod has now
disappeared from the North Atlantic. In a global
study in May 2003, CNN concluded that 90 per
cent of all large fish – such as sharks, swordfish,
tuna and marlin – had vanished from the oceans
in the past 50 years. Equally worrying, deep sea
trawling is destroying cold water coral reefs,
fundamental to marine life. Complex ecosystems
are becoming deserts overnight.
10. Reefs and other wildlife habitats are all being

devastated by global warming. It has been warned
that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef could lose 95 per cent of rising ocean temperatures. In the Arctic, forests are
replacing tundra, the normal habitat for millions of geese.
11. As if all this were not enough, man is also helping animal and plant species to destroy themselves. In the
1950s, the voracious Nile perch was introduced into Africa’s Lake Victoria for commercial fishing purposes. By
1990, more than 200 species of fish had disappeared. The ‘crazy ant’ (so-called because of its frenetic

behavior), one of the world’s most famous alien, invasive species, has stowed away on ships sailing all over the
world for years. The ants killed three million crabs in just 18 months on Christmas Island alone.
Man’s Future
12. The outlook for our planet is frightening. Nature, however, may have the last laugh. A secret Pentagon
report warned that global warming could soon cause massive disruption of the world’s food and water
supplies. The Pentagon spoke of droughts, famine and flooding on a biblical scale, mass immigrations and
widespread rioting, and even nuclear wars. Perhaps our days are numbered. Perhaps man will not exist long
enough to see the terrible consequences of this selfish, destructive exploitation of the world and its resources.
Even more ironically, perhaps we will, millions of years from now, end up forming the fossil fuels for future life
forms on our own planet.
Taken from: Gleeson, C. (2014). Mass Extinction A dying World. Speak Up Magazine. RBA revistas. De Agostini-Rizzoli
SRL.


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Exam 1 Review

2. This terrible warning of mass extinction was

3. This mass extinction would not be unique. In

4. Ironically, the consequences of this sixth

Universidad de los Andes | Vigilada Mineducación

10. Reefs and other wildlife habitats are all being

Universidad de los Andes | Vigilada Mineducación

Universidad de los Andes | Vigilada Mineducación

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