That is the bad news at the center of a new study by a group of scientists including Paul Ehrlich, the Bing Professor of Population Studies in biology and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Ehrlich and his co-authors call for fast action to conserve threatened species, populations and habitat, but warn that the window of opportunity is rapidly closing…
Although most well known for his positions on human population, Ehrlich has done extensive work on extinctions going back to his 1981 book, Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearance of Species. He has long tied his work on coevolution, on racial, gender and economic justice, and on nuclear winter with the issue of wildlife populations and species loss…
The new study, published in the journal Science Advances, shows that even with extremely conservative estimates, species are disappearing up to about 100 times faster than the normal rate between mass extinctions, known as the background rate.
“If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover, and our species itself would likely disappear early on,” said lead author Gerardo Ceballos of the Universidad Autónoma de México…
Focusing on vertebrates, the group for which the most reliable modern and fossil data exist, the researchers asked whether even the lowest estimates of the difference between background and contemporary extinction rates still justify the conclusion that people are precipitating “a global spasm of biodiversity loss.” The answer: a definitive yes.
“We emphasize that our calculations very likely underestimate the severity of the extinction crisis, because our aim was to place a realistic lower bound on humanity’s impact on biodiversity,” the researchers write.
To history’s steady drumbeat, a human population growing in numbers, per capita consumption and economic inequity has altered or destroyed natural habitats. The long list of impacts includes:
Land clearing for farming, logging and settlement
Introduction of invasive species
Carbon emissions that drive climate change and ocean acidification
Toxins that alter and poison ecosystems
Now, the specter of extinction hangs over about 41 percent of all amphibian species and 26 percent of all mammals, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which maintains an authoritative list of threatened and extinct species.
“There are examples of species all over the world that are essentially the walking dead,” Ehrlich said.
Look around you, folks. Most of us are urban if not urbane. We struggle each day back-and-forth through invisible vapors, still detectible with our olfactory sense. Friends in Midland, Texas, call the petrochemicals in the air “the smell of money”. I call it the smell of death because most birds are already gone, dead or dying, fleeing the chemistry of an Earth’s crust riddled by as many holes as the battlefield remains of a Mafia shootout.
Do you wonder why only the rich and super-rich afford themselves menus of fish and fowl comparatively as expensive as Ferraris. Taste guided not only by wealth; but, scarcity, assumes the death of species as an opportunity for increased profit. When vendors of toys and bling achieve greater wealth themselves – we know the prophets of doom have every right to stand and ring their little bell outsides the doors of our homes, before the grand entrances of government halls.
Eideard 
Why are seabirds abandoning their ancestral nesting grounds in the Gulf of California? http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-06/uoc–was062415.php
“First report of all the world’s plants finds 1 in 5 species facing extinction” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/05/10/first-report-of-all-the-worlds-plants-finds-one-in-five-species-facing-extinction/ “As many as one in five plants may be at risk of extinction, the scientists say, due to invasive species, disease and changing landscapes. It is tougher to pin down climate change’s potential impacts, given the gradual rate of change and the slow reproductive systems of plants. …“For most of the major groups of plants we’re talking about, it takes at least 10, 20, 30 years before the next generation starts to produce flowers and pollen,” Willis said to Agence France-Presse. But by 2050, the Kew report notes that species-specific environmental models indicate some plant species, particularly slow-to-react trees, are on “borrowed time.” http://assets.kew.org/files/State%20of%20the%20Worlds%20Plants%20report%202016_0.pdf?_ga=1.226778269.125046154.1462870550
“Plants are going extinct up to 350 times faster than the historical norm” https://phys.org/news/2019-08-extinct-faster-historical-norm.html In May a United Nations report warned 1 million species are threatened by extinction and that the rate of species extinctions is accelerating. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/ Some studies suggest as much as half of the earth’s estimated 390,000 plant species may disappear within the remainder of this century. https://phys.org/news/2019-08-extinctions-south-africa.html
Twice as many plants have gone extinct than birds, mammals, and amphibians combined. One reason for that is the total exceeds that of well-studied animals is that there are simply more kinds of plants. Looking at percentages, the situation is worse for mammals and birds; an estimated 5% of those species have gone extinct, compared with 0.2% of plants. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/06/twice-many-plants-have-gone-extinct-birds-mammals-and-amphibians-combined
The researchers emphasize that biodiversity loss and climate change are the biggest threats confronting humanity: “Along with habitat destruction, the effects of climate change are expected to be particularly severe on those plants not capable of dispersing their seeds over long distances,” they also conclude that current estimates of plant extinctions are, without a doubt, gross underestimates.
“Mathematics predicts a sixth mass extinction : By 2100, oceans may hold enough carbon to launch mass extermination of species in future millennia” (Massachusetts Institute of Technology press release 9/20/17) https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-09/miot-mpa091817.php
“Death has come knocking a last time for the splendid ivory-billed woodpecker and 22 more birds, fish and other species: The US government is declaring them extinct.
It is a rare move for wildlife officials to give up hope on a plant or animal, but government scientists say they have exhausted efforts to find these 23. And they warn climate change, on top of other pressures, could make such disappearances more common as a warming planet adds to the dangers facing imperiled plants and wildlife.” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/29/us-to-declare-23-types-of-birds-fish-and-other-species-extinct
“Around the globe, some 902 species have been documented as extinct. The actual number is thought to be much higher because some are never formally identified, and many scientists warn the earth is in an “extinction crisis” with flora and fauna now disappearing at 1,000 times the historical rate.”
“Strong evidence shows Sixth Mass Extinction of global biodiversity in progress
A comprehensive assessment of evidence of this ongoing extinction event was published recently in the journal Biological Reviews by biologists from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France.” https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/940163
“The Sixth Mass Extinction: fact, fiction or speculation?” (Biological Review, Cambridge Philosophical Society 1/10/22) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/brv.12816
7AM MST, tomorrow morning, 17th