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Include: Stuart Pimm stated "the current rate of species extinction is about 100 times the natural rate". [1] relating to Effect of climate change on plant biodiversity. 209.26.222.162 ( talk) 18:57, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
The article reads:
The source quoted is the text "Are we now living in the Anthropocene?". As far as I can see, the authors only state that humans didn't cause the climate changes thousands of years ago, they don't say that these climate changes caused the extinctions or that humans didn't cause them. Most of the text is about the present and near future, but here's what they say about extinctons:
I don't see support for the claim "it is more likely abrupt climate change played a much higher role in the extinction of larger mammals". Ssscienccce ( talk) 19:02, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
The article states: "The ecosystems encountered by the first Americans had not been exposed to human interaction and were far less resilient to man made changes than the ecosystems encountered by industrial era humans, those environments seasoned as they were, having been exposed to over 10,000 years of human interaction." The scientific literature may not support this claim so it needs to have a reliable source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.159.62.2 ( talk) 18:41, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
The article says "North and South America[edit source | editbeta] There was a debate as to the extent to which the disappearance of megafauna at the end of the last glacial period can be attributed to human activities, directly, by hunting, or indirectly, by decimation of prey populations. Recent discoveries at Monte Verde in South America, and at Meadowcroft Rock Shelter in Pennsylvania have effectively ended the "clovis first" position of American Archaeology and pushed the arrival of humans in the Americas back many thousands of years. This coupled with a more complete fossil record of the extinct animals has weakened the correlation between human occupation and mega-fauna extinction in the Americas. However around the world there is often a very strong correlation between human arrival and megafauna extinction, an example being Wrangel Island in Siberia, where the extinction of Mammoths (approximately 2000 BC) coincided directly with the arrival of humans. Furthermore, the success of mega-fauna in surviving previous more severe periods of climate change suggest natural events were not entirely to blame."
This may be original research and so it requires support. Please add this support.
The article reads:
"Other, related human causes of the extinction event include deforestation, hunting, pollution,[28] the introduction in various regions of non-native species, and the widespread transmission of infectious diseases."
There is little doubt that some of this commentary is considerably more appropriate to the modern era, but how is this relevant to the Holocene extinction? There is increasing evidence that the Holocene Extinction event was caused by a cosmic/comet impact. The black matte layer, the "nuclear glass", the Greenland ice cores all point to massive natural calamity. The entire section regarding human causes seems like it is the present day being pressed onto 12,000 years ago. Human populations, at that time, were less than wolly mammoths. Any of these comments about impact on environment for the Holocene Extinction would be better appropriated to many different mammals then homo sapien.
This whole section needs to have the socio-political commentary removed. There is *no* citations that support any of these statements to be included and/or attributed to the Holocene Extinction event. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:587:101:1205:397B:DE92:A14D:A9BD ( talk) 03:12, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
A small handful of microbiologists in my social circle cringe whenever they hear these sorts of statements, because - according to my friends - they almost never include microbial species, and in terms of sheer number they say microbial species are more than half the total. NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 00:42, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
There are two articlles on the same topic. Quaternary extinction event — Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.159.62.2 ( talk) 19:47, 27 August 2013 (UTC) Actually, these are not the same event. The quaternary was earlier, before the beginning of human-created climate change, and may be related to the end of the last ice age. [1] 2601:640:4001:266C:B482:6BB5:EE4B:F86F ( talk) 16:02, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
This is an incredibly confused and confusing article in need of a drastic rewrite. It presents rival arguments claiming anthropogenic extinctions at different rates at different places. It does not present the recent findings of the disappearance of large predators in Africa over the last 2 million years, not the disappearance of megafauna in Australia, or the North American findings of the association between Clovis assemblage and US Megafaunal disappearance. It makes no reference to the Richard Leakey Book "The Sixth Extinction" nor the work of Tim Flannery. I suggest a complete re-write. 49.196.2.188 ( talk) 06:40, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
Regarding these diffs [1], [2] I think that the paper is too primary and doesn't carry much weight as it's currently presented. It certainly does not justify removing apparently contradictory information that is sourced to Cambridge University Press and the New York Times. Mongabay.com is a blog owned by Rhett Butler, as mentioned here [3] which I don't believe meets reliable source standards at all because it's selfpub. Hit counts have nothing to do with reliability. Geogene ( talk) 16:47, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
second, if MOngabay is not acceptable, fine, but Birdwatch UK is certainly acceptable. So, the issue is mute. third, Why does Mongabay spend more time on the article from Science Advances? Its simple. Stanford university, where Erlich works, wrote a professional press release in their promotions department. They are promoting STANFORD FACULTY. Then, they tossed the news release on a system like PRWeb with instructions to writers that they could use the press release as written and stick their name on it. In fact, if you do a cursory search of the news articles on this topic, you will see that 90% of them, including one on cnn's website are not even edited. They just post the same press release. In the case of Mongabay, the news release was rewritten to a large degree, but includes most of the same material. then, the the Mongabay author must have known about Mccallum's paper, which was all over twitter per Altmetrics, and added taht information in. However, there was no press release from McCallum of which I am aware because he is not at Stanford. This is easily observed if you just coast the web, not that I was expecting you to do this. BirdWatch UK covered McCallum's paper before the Stanford press release happened, and had already released it, as can be seen on the link I provided to you. They did not cover teh Science Advances article, as they did not yet receive the news release. Did you see the CNN tweet from Azeda Ansari in regard to the his article? While at it, do Tweets count as citations? The reason I ask is taht each one is logged into the Library of Congress, or at least they were if that has not changed. I would not think that is a legit citation though! BTW, I saw a comment about promotions and links. I don't know what link you are referring too. First, I have not had a conversation with you about promotions as far as I am aware. Second, I don't even know what link you are referring too. The only links I had were links to the news articles in the references or similar kinds of things, at least I don't recall anything else. Finally, I just looked at the Mongabay Wikipedia page again, it is under "BUSINESS MODEL." Where, this is written, "Mongabay.com is independent and unaffiliated with any organization. The site has been used as an information source by CNN, CBS, the Discovery Channel, NBC, UPI, Yahoo!, and other such outlets." I know I have seen Mongabay quoted in National papers and such, but as you say, Wikipedia has their own standards. They are odd, sure don't follow the standards I worked under while writing for Encyclopedia Britanica, but hey, its the rules. So, can I put the citation back up then? It is not contrary to what is written, is in fact accurate, and was even recognized by David Wake (of the National Academy of Sciences) on his website Amphibiaweb, where they did a short blurb about it. I don't think they did a blurb about the Science Advances article, even though one of the authors was from his own department! I found thought the paper should be mentioned because it is important in this regard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.6.91.52 ( talk) 04:05, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
@ Indricotherium: You have tagged the article for merging with the Quaternary extinction event. That would make for a very large article. However, you have offered no rationale for your proposal. Can you please explain why you think Holocene (or Anthropocene) extinctions should be viewed as a seamless continuation of the earlier Quaternary (or Pleistocene) extinctions, rather than as the rise of a separate wave of extinctions driven by different causes? I would have thought a better case exists for renaming the article "Anthropocene extinction". -- Epipelagic ( talk) 01:23, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Should the title of this article be "Anthropogenic extinction"? See preceding discussion. -- Epipelagic ( talk) 03:34, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
search term | scholar | books | news |
---|---|---|---|
Holocene extinction | 833 | 1300 | 490 |
Anthropocene extinction | 63 | 445 | 333 |
Anthropogenic extinction | 628 | 905 | 11 |
Sixth extinction | 2380 | 8830 | 3040 |
There seems to be a glaring omission in this article as it lacks any discussion of megafauna extinction in Europe and Asia. True, the extinction of species in the Americas and Australia was more dramatic and, true, mankind coexisted with megafauna in Eurasia for thousands of years as they did in Africa. But it is also certainly true that many species -- mammoth, etc.-- became extinct in Eurasia early in the Holocene -- and that humans probably contributed to that. It seems unbalanced not to include a discussion about Eurasia in the article. Smallchief ( talk 20:55, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
I have a suggestion to differentiate Quaternary extinction event and Holocene Extinction- namely, the fact that the anthropogenic extinctions ≠ holocene extinctions. At least in the listing of extinctions, we should only include extinctions after 8,000 BCE, at the end of the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary, to properly account for the fact that this extinction is divergent from the Quaternary extinction event, with the end of the Late Glacial Maximum. The Quaternary extinction event, although also enveloping the Holocene as well as the Pleistocene, refers to the rather nebulous confluence of climate, human impact and various other stimuli, which although culminated in the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary circa 11,000 BCE-9,000 BCE, was also spread throughout a 60,000 year period, of which climate changes made extinct many of the species on those lists. However, the Holocene extinction covers mostly the stragglers of the last extinction and the nouvelle extinctions taken by the Neolithic revolution, human expansion and climate moderation typical of the Holocene BCE, after which further human colonisation, population growth and ecological modification lead to the extinctions from 3500 BCE (start of recorded history, the Bronze Age) to today.
The Holocene extinctions have a far more anthropogenic focus, perpetuated by a different mode of human interaction with the environment, and although (to me) humans had a decisive impact upon the extinction of megafauna during the Late Pleistocene (200,000 BCE-9,700 BCE), this impact was both different in nature, and diluted/compounded with various other factors. This is why, although these articles are closely intertwined, there should be a separation with the overall scope of either one. Thus, I believe, in regards to the formatting of this article, we should shift 'Prehistoric extinctions' to 'Post Pleistocene/Holocene Boundary (8,000 BCE-3500 BCE)' ( Preboreal, Boreal, former Atlantic, with mentions of QEE victims between 9,700 BCE-8,000 BCE and beyond during the Quaternary Extinction Event inside the introduction to each region); 'Into the Common Era (3500 BCE-1500 CE)' ( Atlantic, Subboreal, Subatlantic); and 'Recent Extinctions - 1500 CE beyond' ( Subatlantic). In the PP/HB (8,000 BCE-3500 BCE), we should remove Australia, and condense it to Australasia and Oceania- 60,000-40,000 BP is far beyond the scope of this article- then add Africa and Eurasia to the lists. The key is to only list extinctions after the range of the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary.
Of course, some overlap is needed with the Quaternary extinction event, with a comprehensive list inclusive of precise extinction dates, however to do so, we must ensure we do not clone the lists, as having worked extensively on them, there are an incredibly wide range of figures for extinction dates, although some species deserve to be on both lists, with the QEE having a more extensive scope into the Holocene due to extirpations and a megafaunal focus rather than one of anthropological impact. After this work, we should transplant the information blocs pertaining the late Pleistocene extinctions into QEE. To mediate the readers who are specifically looking for the full lists of extinct megafauna present in the other article, we should heavily link the QEE article. Moreover, these lists should be substantiated to the same extent as the QEE article. I am planning to commence this work myself relatively soon, though I believe some verbal acknowledgement and input from committed editors of this article is needed before I perform this overhaul. I look forward to this reformation. SuperTah ( talk) 10:52, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
@ Wolfdog: Recently, someone added a clarification tag to a paragraph you added to this article. Can you add a reference that verifies this claim, specifically? Jarble ( talk) 19:39, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
I am wondering how the sentence "for example, in Wrangel Island in Siberia the extinction of dwarf woolly mammoths (approximately 2000 BCE)[60] did not coincide with the arrival of humans" is deduced from the article that is used as citation. In the cited article, no such claim is made. Furthermore, in the Wikipedia article on Wrangel island, it is postulated that the extinction actually does coincide with human arrival (both of them being dated around 1700BC). 84.87.204.78 ( talk) 20:19, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
The Holocene extinction event will begin probably in 389,400 years beacuse the Wolf-Rayet star WR 104 would explode in a supernova. It will be suggested that it may produce a gamma ray burst that could pose a threat to life on Earth should its poles be aligned 12° or lower towards Earth. The star's axis of rotation has yet to be determined with certainty. A new epoch will begin in 1,589,400 years but, it is no sure that the human species will extinct because it will have colonised 6 million planets. The OmegaYnoss ★ ( disscusion • Contribs) 21:43, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
The simple fact is, is that there have been numerous "extinction events" that are worse than this one which aren't counted in the "big five" such as the Jurassic-Creteceous, the Eocene-Oligocene, etc. In fact every single geological "epoch" or "stage" has had a pretty nasty biological collapse when it ends. That's why the fossil record is divided that way.
While anthropogenic ecosystem collapses during the Quarternary are real enough, none of them have to do with man-made climate change or CO2 emissions. This doesn't mean that Trump denialism is correct and that censorship of government scientific data is justified, it's not. If you're going to have an article with this title, fine. But get the facts right. 7%, which is bad enough, isn't 80%. It's alleged. Arglebargle79 ( talk) 14:57, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
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The abovenamed is listed as a source in section one of the article. The listed authors are "William J. Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Thomas M. Newsome, Mauro Galetti, Mohammed Alamgir, Eileen Crist, Mahmoud I. Mahmoud, William F. Laurance, [and] 15,364 scientist signatories from 184 countries". I edited the number to 15,372 being the sum of eight named authors plus the 15,364 signatories. This was reverted, because it was presumed that the "stated number [15,364] in the given source" was the total number of scientists who made the statement. I have added the reference to the eight authors (all of whom are scientists) as prose. Te Karere ( talk) 00:37, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
Without disagreeing with the basic premise (Over fishing caused a collapse in cod population) this doesn't seem to be what the graph is saying. The graph is only half the story at best.
The graph plots fish landed, not fish population. Hypothetically we could have stopped landing fish for any number of reasons. That the population had collapsed being just one. Could we add a word of explanation about why cod landed is an acceptable analogue for a collapsing cod population? Or even better find a graph that correlates cod landed with cod population.
I'm being picky I know. Sorry.
185.47.106.84 ( talk) 16:38, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
??? That statement makes less sense than the sentence that it presumably modifies which seems reasonably readable -- 142.254.1.239 ( talk) 10:20, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
Like with any taxonomy, there will always be lumpers and splitters. Isn't there plenty of evidence to suggest that the #6 is not universally accepted?
e.g. Here's a bunch of random sources that say it's the 7th: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=%22seventh+mass+extinction%22+%2B+pleistocene&btnG=
2604:2000:1103:845C:8130:BA9E:383A:9856 ( talk) 05:42, 31 January 2019 (UTC)R.E.D.
The second and third paragraphs are completely unsourced. And all of the sources for the fourth paragraph are just tacked on the very end of the paragraph. In particular, the fourth paragraph quotes the term "super predator", but whoever wrote it completely forgot to indicate who they were quoting. The term never appears in any of the sources cited for this paragraph. I'm unqualified to confidently verify these claims, or provide sources, but hopefully someone who is qualified will check this issue out. Jebadiah Sweepstakes ( talk) 01:01, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
I'm not a scientist, But I've lived in Hawaii for 50 years. IMHO, the loss of Hawaii species of plants and animals is due more to the introduction of feral animals Like rats and pigs than human activity? Couldn't find this discussed in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.91.51.58 ( talk) 18:50, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
I would like to prevent a revert war by employing Revert and Discuss and starting the discussion.
Please note the flags at the beginning of this section about the entire article being controversial.
If this article is about a ongoing, global, epoch-relevant extinction caused by human activity, then it must be seriously curated.
My changes (highlighting the theoretical nature of some of the assertions, and also softening the superlatives "unprecedented global superpredator" - with no support for "unprecedented" and no definition for "superpredator" - yeesh) are completely consistent with an encyclopedic tone. ( WP:ENC).
I also completely deleted the reference to amphibian population decrease, because the doubts (about this being human caused) introduced more than ten years ago by two scholarly papers have been confirmed by a third one (in Science, no less) in 2018. The number of authors on these papers represent a substantial fraction of the entire knowledgeable community when it comes to this phenomena, and the knee-jerk alarmists who were happy to simply assert human causation as the cause of an eco-disaster (and it is one!) have been authoritatively proven wrong. Since this article is officially about "ongoing, global, epoch-relevant extinction caused by human activity", those references and the related text would ideally have been removed last year. (Or two years ago, now, it being 2020)
Perhaps we can agree that the tone of this article is somewhat alarmist?
I am really, really no kind of expert on this topic, and I know it. My changes were not meant to insert opinion, but rather soften the authority of assertions and claims that were more lightly underpinned.
Riventree ( talk) 21:14, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
I refactored Riventree's poorly threaded comment, without changing the text, to help show who is talking and replying to whom and to what. The first paragraph below starting "you are entirely correct" was originally interjected after CJ Griffin's 2nd paragraph above. The following paragraphs from Riventree's comment have not been touched, so my edit here puts her entire response together, per [{WP:THREAD]]
NewsAndEventsGuy (
talk) 21:22, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
Please add some short information on this paper to the article and/or possibly other relevant article/s (like e.g. Human overpopulation or Overconsumption etc). It's currently featured in 2020 in science (September) like so:
After investigating how mammalian extinction rates have changed over the past 126,000 years, scientists report that mainly (about 96% prediction accuracy) human population size and/or specific human activities, not climate change, cause global mammal extinctions and predict a near future "rate escalation of unprecedented magnitude". [1] [2]
(I also added it to 2020 in the environment and environmental sciences.) I added it to this article to section #Climate change like so:
Studies find that human population size and/or specific human activities, not climate change, caused rapidly rising global mammal extinction rates during the past 126,000 years [3] [4] and currently. [5]
but my recent adjustment/correction of my addition was undone by User:Elmidae. Hence I have removed it so it can be discussed first or be added by other editors.
I found that, while section "#Human activity" makes it somewhat clear what the main drivers of it are / are not section "#Climate change" does not.
Please add it in an adequate way or suggest a text to include here. Thank you.
-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 09:49, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
References
The overarching driver of species extinction is human population growth and increasing per capita consumption.
To provide a basis to compare the historical anthropogenic effects with the ongoing biodiversity crisis, we predicted future diversity losses under [...]and is mainly about / investigating the past 126k years, and not the most recent times and what readers would think of as "currently" happening. These projections of the paper and similar content may make it suitable for one but definitely not the only reference for the prior text. Please check whether the current text is adequate and matches what the study is about. I think it may be almost appropriate now that there are additional refs, but imo probably isn't yet; key parts of the current text are
have beenand
during the Anthropocene. -- Prototyperspective ( talk) 15:01, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
Studies find that human population size and/or specific human activities, not climate change, caused rapidly rising global mammal extinction rates during the past 126,000 years. According to Tobias Andermann, lead author an October 2020 study published in Science Advances, "these extinctions did not happen continuously and at constant pace. Instead, bursts of extinctions are detected across different continents at times when humans first reached them. More recently, the magnitude of human driven extinctions has picked up the pace again, this time on a global scale."
More recentlyand
againand
this timeparts as the past 126,000 years seems to have included this "more recent" period (or not?) and "again" and "this time" implies that were pause in between (was there?). Furthermore "this time" implies that the relevant prior extinctions weren't also caused on the global scale in some form (certainly not in the same form as now) which also seems to be inaccurate. Imo it would probably still be good to include as it's a quote but maybe we should inform (more) about the study's contents instead or in addition due to these possibly inaccurate impressions readers might get from this. -- Prototyperspective ( talk) 09:31, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
Hello, I worked on this article several years ago under a different account, which I have since forgotten the password for. I notice that althought this is a well developed and referenced article, some sections appear to be like an WP:ESSAY arguing for a particular point of view, that may not directly link to the topic of the article (the sixth extinction). It's particularly important that any citations link to the sixth extinction, as to avoid WP:OR. This is particularly the case in the "Defaunation" section, and in particular sections that talk more broadly about impacts of the meat industry, plastic pollution and other related Human impact on the environment topics. As such, as I have added a maintenance tag. We want to avoid WP:DUPLICATION of articles on related topics. I welcome any discussion or suggestions, and think this could be a great article if a few of these sections are edited for wording/conciseness. Arcahaeoindris ( talk) 13:12, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
I think the overall structure of this article needs work in my opinion. What is the rationale behind the heading being "defaunation"? The Holocene extinction is not just an extinction of animals, it is also an extinction of plants, fungi and other organisms. At the moment it seems like the article is more split by modern era vs. prehistory. Could these be better main headings, instead of "Influences" and "Defaunation"? Or do some of the subheadings of "Defaunation" need to be moved to "Influences"? Just thinking out loud here. Any suggestions on how this article's structure can be more logical? Arcahaeoindris ( talk) 20:23, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
Suggesting to merge Quaternary extinction into here. As has been suggested on talk pages for both articles, they duplicate each other's scope, and Quaternary extinction is just a long list that is not encyclopaedic. Relevant body of text from Quaternary could be merged into here, and long redundant lists of species either be moved to list pages or deleted. Welcome thoughts Arcahaeoindris ( talk) 16:29, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
@ C.J. Griffin: Greetings! I just wanted to consider what this revert called a book "promoting what amounts to denialism". Thomas does not deny that humans are causing extinctions due to habitat loss, climate change, and introduction of invasive species. He even advocates for conservation measures to save endangered species like tigers and elephants and coral reefs. Perhaps the title gave the wrong impression, but it is meant to convey that different species are thriving and going extinct at the same time. Thomas does write against the popular opinion that we should restore nature to exactly how it was before human intervention. I found it enlightening that as he points out, many species introduced to different continents by humans are actually co-existing successfully with native species, that humans create species as well as destroy them, and that previous mass extinctions have also resulted in later periods of high diversification. And he makes an important point that "before human intervention" is a fuzzy and perhaps unattainable ideal, given that long-term variations in climate and ecosystem context have meant that the state of nature has always been in flux. (For example, the forests of the northeastern United States have only existed since the end of the last glacial period, on the order of tens of thousands of years.) Perhaps where he is most controversial is where he argues maybe some species should be allowed to go extinct, specifically those that are "always going to be in Accident and Emergency" because they are not well-adapted to the sort of new normal of the world, so conservation efforts can be focused on species with long-term viability. His favorite example seems to be flightless birds, which seem hopelessly vulnerable to ground predators compared to closely related bird species.
In short, the book presents some factual context about the Holocene Extinction ignored by many treatments (including looking carefully at how many species have actually gone extinct), and some well-informed opinions that I think deserve inclusion for the sake of neutrality, even if I don't personally agree with all of them. The book is certainly not trying to provide excuses for doing nothing, or arguing that extinction is never a bad thing. -- Beland ( talk) 20:16, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
We consider that the Sixth Mass Extinction has probably started and present arguments to counter those who would deny this. We will probably not convince those who consider this episode part of the natural evolution of life on Earth and therefore that it is acceptable to just let it happen, that is, that they are wrong. Nor will we convince those who think that it is too late to stop it and that we should therefore embrace it, that is, that they also are wrong. However, we hope that we will at least give pause to those who by denying or downplaying it play into the hands of those who advocate doing nothing about it, or those who, accepting it, advocate that we should do our best to manipulate biodiversity primarily if not solely for human, essentially economic, benefit. This latter view has been expressed to a greater or lesser extent by some prominent conservationists (Kareiva & Marvier, 2007, 2012; Kareiva, Lalasz & Marvier, 2011; Thomas, 2017) and has become a key feature of the ‘New Conservation’ or ‘Neoliberal Conservation’, although the paradigm has been strongly criticised, for example by Büscher et al. (2012), Soulé (2013) and Rolston (2018).
I removed a paragraph about biomass loss based on a Guardian article, but was reverted. I then tried to rewrite the paragraph, but someone re-removed the paragraph. I obviously support removing the paragraph wholesale, but I'll paste my hopefully more accurate rewrite here, in case the paragraph is reinstated later.
Most recently, insect populations have experienced rapid surprising declines. Insects have declined at an annual rate of 2.5% over the last 25–30 years. The most severe effects may include Puerto Rico, where insect ground fall has declined by 98% in the previous 35 years. Butterflies and moths are experiencing some of the most severe effect. Widespread butterfly populations have declined by 58% on farmland in England. More than 40% of insect species are declining. Germany is experiencing a 75% decline in total insect biomass. Agriculture is believed to be the most significant contributor to the change. [1]
Ornilnas ( talk) 15:42, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
The term pollinator decline) is in the "History" section and not the following "Recent extinctions" section. Maybe that should be moved down. -- Elmidae ( talk · contribs) 07:27, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
Most recently, insect populations have experienced rapid surprising declines. Insects have declined at an annual rate of 2.5% over the last 25–30 years. The most severe effects may include Puerto Rico, where insect ground fall has declined by 98% in the previous 35 years. Butterflies and moths are experiencing some of the most severe effect. Widespread butterfly populations have declined by 58% on farmland in England. More than 40% of insect species are threatened with extinction. Germany is experiencing a 75% decline in total insect biomass. Agriculture is believed to be the most significant contributor to the change. [1] [2]
The current lede states that climate change may have been a driving factor in the megafaunal extinctions, especially at the end of the Pleistocene
. This is presumably backed by the Climate change section in the body, which states that The climate change theory has suggested that a change in climate near the end of the late Pleistocene stressed the megafauna to the point of extinction.
[3]
[4]
. However, I can't find this claim in the sources. The first ("Are we now living in the Anthropocene") mentions megafauna once, but doesn't link their decline to Pleistocene climate change. The other is paywalled, and not even on SciHub. The abstract does indeed discuss late Pleistocene climate changes and its effect on mammal populations, but I don't get the feeling that they conclude climate change led to mass extinction. Can anyone with accesss to the paper confirm that it supports the current statement? If not, I think we need to change the current wording, or get different sources. We have to be extra careful with claims that are referenced in the lede.
Ornilnas (
talk) 03:12, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
References
"from 1.5 thousand species to 40 thousand species"? "from 1.5 species to 40 thousand species"? Is 40'000 a misprint or a notation I'm ignorant of? Jackaroodave ( talk) 10:42, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
As a an atmospheric carbon dioxide increase to 2200 PPM is inevitable at this point, which most multicellular life cannot adapt to, can we change the name to match the severity? MerscratianAce ( talk) 02:49, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
I have reverted the contributions from this account twice as I see them as poorly written with redundancies such as "The Holocene extinction, otherwise referred to as the sixth mass extinction or Anthropocene extinction, is the sixth mass extinction event..." in the lead sentence and increased and unnecessary bloat with the number of paragraphs ballooning from 4 to 7. Not only that but many of the new citations are poorly formatted with numerous errors indicated by red text, inappropriate spacing between citations and even the names of the authors misspelled on occasion (see citation 30 for example). There might be some good material here, but given the shoddiness of these contributions by a new and inexperienced user I feel the more concise status quo version is superior to the current version and should be restored until the issues I raised can be fixed by the user seeking to include them.-- C.J. Griffin ( talk) 13:54, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm unimpressed the edits DTA329374 has made to the lead, and I think they should be reverted. I think the old version from 25 October is a lot better. I think the "mass extinction" statement/claim needs more clarification and context than just stating baldly in wikivoice in the opening sentence. Also it says that the Anthropocene is "widely accepted" which in my view is a weasel word. The Anthropocene remains informal and unrecognised by the International Commission on Stratigraphy. (Full disclosure: I don't like and am strongly biased against the anthropocene concept, as I feel it ignores the human impact on the planet prior to 1950). Hemiauchenia ( talk) 21:05, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Include: Stuart Pimm stated "the current rate of species extinction is about 100 times the natural rate". [1] relating to Effect of climate change on plant biodiversity. 209.26.222.162 ( talk) 18:57, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
The article reads:
The source quoted is the text "Are we now living in the Anthropocene?". As far as I can see, the authors only state that humans didn't cause the climate changes thousands of years ago, they don't say that these climate changes caused the extinctions or that humans didn't cause them. Most of the text is about the present and near future, but here's what they say about extinctons:
I don't see support for the claim "it is more likely abrupt climate change played a much higher role in the extinction of larger mammals". Ssscienccce ( talk) 19:02, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
The article states: "The ecosystems encountered by the first Americans had not been exposed to human interaction and were far less resilient to man made changes than the ecosystems encountered by industrial era humans, those environments seasoned as they were, having been exposed to over 10,000 years of human interaction." The scientific literature may not support this claim so it needs to have a reliable source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.159.62.2 ( talk) 18:41, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
The article says "North and South America[edit source | editbeta] There was a debate as to the extent to which the disappearance of megafauna at the end of the last glacial period can be attributed to human activities, directly, by hunting, or indirectly, by decimation of prey populations. Recent discoveries at Monte Verde in South America, and at Meadowcroft Rock Shelter in Pennsylvania have effectively ended the "clovis first" position of American Archaeology and pushed the arrival of humans in the Americas back many thousands of years. This coupled with a more complete fossil record of the extinct animals has weakened the correlation between human occupation and mega-fauna extinction in the Americas. However around the world there is often a very strong correlation between human arrival and megafauna extinction, an example being Wrangel Island in Siberia, where the extinction of Mammoths (approximately 2000 BC) coincided directly with the arrival of humans. Furthermore, the success of mega-fauna in surviving previous more severe periods of climate change suggest natural events were not entirely to blame."
This may be original research and so it requires support. Please add this support.
The article reads:
"Other, related human causes of the extinction event include deforestation, hunting, pollution,[28] the introduction in various regions of non-native species, and the widespread transmission of infectious diseases."
There is little doubt that some of this commentary is considerably more appropriate to the modern era, but how is this relevant to the Holocene extinction? There is increasing evidence that the Holocene Extinction event was caused by a cosmic/comet impact. The black matte layer, the "nuclear glass", the Greenland ice cores all point to massive natural calamity. The entire section regarding human causes seems like it is the present day being pressed onto 12,000 years ago. Human populations, at that time, were less than wolly mammoths. Any of these comments about impact on environment for the Holocene Extinction would be better appropriated to many different mammals then homo sapien.
This whole section needs to have the socio-political commentary removed. There is *no* citations that support any of these statements to be included and/or attributed to the Holocene Extinction event. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:587:101:1205:397B:DE92:A14D:A9BD ( talk) 03:12, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
A small handful of microbiologists in my social circle cringe whenever they hear these sorts of statements, because - according to my friends - they almost never include microbial species, and in terms of sheer number they say microbial species are more than half the total. NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 00:42, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
There are two articlles on the same topic. Quaternary extinction event — Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.159.62.2 ( talk) 19:47, 27 August 2013 (UTC) Actually, these are not the same event. The quaternary was earlier, before the beginning of human-created climate change, and may be related to the end of the last ice age. [1] 2601:640:4001:266C:B482:6BB5:EE4B:F86F ( talk) 16:02, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
This is an incredibly confused and confusing article in need of a drastic rewrite. It presents rival arguments claiming anthropogenic extinctions at different rates at different places. It does not present the recent findings of the disappearance of large predators in Africa over the last 2 million years, not the disappearance of megafauna in Australia, or the North American findings of the association between Clovis assemblage and US Megafaunal disappearance. It makes no reference to the Richard Leakey Book "The Sixth Extinction" nor the work of Tim Flannery. I suggest a complete re-write. 49.196.2.188 ( talk) 06:40, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
Regarding these diffs [1], [2] I think that the paper is too primary and doesn't carry much weight as it's currently presented. It certainly does not justify removing apparently contradictory information that is sourced to Cambridge University Press and the New York Times. Mongabay.com is a blog owned by Rhett Butler, as mentioned here [3] which I don't believe meets reliable source standards at all because it's selfpub. Hit counts have nothing to do with reliability. Geogene ( talk) 16:47, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
second, if MOngabay is not acceptable, fine, but Birdwatch UK is certainly acceptable. So, the issue is mute. third, Why does Mongabay spend more time on the article from Science Advances? Its simple. Stanford university, where Erlich works, wrote a professional press release in their promotions department. They are promoting STANFORD FACULTY. Then, they tossed the news release on a system like PRWeb with instructions to writers that they could use the press release as written and stick their name on it. In fact, if you do a cursory search of the news articles on this topic, you will see that 90% of them, including one on cnn's website are not even edited. They just post the same press release. In the case of Mongabay, the news release was rewritten to a large degree, but includes most of the same material. then, the the Mongabay author must have known about Mccallum's paper, which was all over twitter per Altmetrics, and added taht information in. However, there was no press release from McCallum of which I am aware because he is not at Stanford. This is easily observed if you just coast the web, not that I was expecting you to do this. BirdWatch UK covered McCallum's paper before the Stanford press release happened, and had already released it, as can be seen on the link I provided to you. They did not cover teh Science Advances article, as they did not yet receive the news release. Did you see the CNN tweet from Azeda Ansari in regard to the his article? While at it, do Tweets count as citations? The reason I ask is taht each one is logged into the Library of Congress, or at least they were if that has not changed. I would not think that is a legit citation though! BTW, I saw a comment about promotions and links. I don't know what link you are referring too. First, I have not had a conversation with you about promotions as far as I am aware. Second, I don't even know what link you are referring too. The only links I had were links to the news articles in the references or similar kinds of things, at least I don't recall anything else. Finally, I just looked at the Mongabay Wikipedia page again, it is under "BUSINESS MODEL." Where, this is written, "Mongabay.com is independent and unaffiliated with any organization. The site has been used as an information source by CNN, CBS, the Discovery Channel, NBC, UPI, Yahoo!, and other such outlets." I know I have seen Mongabay quoted in National papers and such, but as you say, Wikipedia has their own standards. They are odd, sure don't follow the standards I worked under while writing for Encyclopedia Britanica, but hey, its the rules. So, can I put the citation back up then? It is not contrary to what is written, is in fact accurate, and was even recognized by David Wake (of the National Academy of Sciences) on his website Amphibiaweb, where they did a short blurb about it. I don't think they did a blurb about the Science Advances article, even though one of the authors was from his own department! I found thought the paper should be mentioned because it is important in this regard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.6.91.52 ( talk) 04:05, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
@ Indricotherium: You have tagged the article for merging with the Quaternary extinction event. That would make for a very large article. However, you have offered no rationale for your proposal. Can you please explain why you think Holocene (or Anthropocene) extinctions should be viewed as a seamless continuation of the earlier Quaternary (or Pleistocene) extinctions, rather than as the rise of a separate wave of extinctions driven by different causes? I would have thought a better case exists for renaming the article "Anthropocene extinction". -- Epipelagic ( talk) 01:23, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Should the title of this article be "Anthropogenic extinction"? See preceding discussion. -- Epipelagic ( talk) 03:34, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
search term | scholar | books | news |
---|---|---|---|
Holocene extinction | 833 | 1300 | 490 |
Anthropocene extinction | 63 | 445 | 333 |
Anthropogenic extinction | 628 | 905 | 11 |
Sixth extinction | 2380 | 8830 | 3040 |
There seems to be a glaring omission in this article as it lacks any discussion of megafauna extinction in Europe and Asia. True, the extinction of species in the Americas and Australia was more dramatic and, true, mankind coexisted with megafauna in Eurasia for thousands of years as they did in Africa. But it is also certainly true that many species -- mammoth, etc.-- became extinct in Eurasia early in the Holocene -- and that humans probably contributed to that. It seems unbalanced not to include a discussion about Eurasia in the article. Smallchief ( talk 20:55, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
I have a suggestion to differentiate Quaternary extinction event and Holocene Extinction- namely, the fact that the anthropogenic extinctions ≠ holocene extinctions. At least in the listing of extinctions, we should only include extinctions after 8,000 BCE, at the end of the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary, to properly account for the fact that this extinction is divergent from the Quaternary extinction event, with the end of the Late Glacial Maximum. The Quaternary extinction event, although also enveloping the Holocene as well as the Pleistocene, refers to the rather nebulous confluence of climate, human impact and various other stimuli, which although culminated in the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary circa 11,000 BCE-9,000 BCE, was also spread throughout a 60,000 year period, of which climate changes made extinct many of the species on those lists. However, the Holocene extinction covers mostly the stragglers of the last extinction and the nouvelle extinctions taken by the Neolithic revolution, human expansion and climate moderation typical of the Holocene BCE, after which further human colonisation, population growth and ecological modification lead to the extinctions from 3500 BCE (start of recorded history, the Bronze Age) to today.
The Holocene extinctions have a far more anthropogenic focus, perpetuated by a different mode of human interaction with the environment, and although (to me) humans had a decisive impact upon the extinction of megafauna during the Late Pleistocene (200,000 BCE-9,700 BCE), this impact was both different in nature, and diluted/compounded with various other factors. This is why, although these articles are closely intertwined, there should be a separation with the overall scope of either one. Thus, I believe, in regards to the formatting of this article, we should shift 'Prehistoric extinctions' to 'Post Pleistocene/Holocene Boundary (8,000 BCE-3500 BCE)' ( Preboreal, Boreal, former Atlantic, with mentions of QEE victims between 9,700 BCE-8,000 BCE and beyond during the Quaternary Extinction Event inside the introduction to each region); 'Into the Common Era (3500 BCE-1500 CE)' ( Atlantic, Subboreal, Subatlantic); and 'Recent Extinctions - 1500 CE beyond' ( Subatlantic). In the PP/HB (8,000 BCE-3500 BCE), we should remove Australia, and condense it to Australasia and Oceania- 60,000-40,000 BP is far beyond the scope of this article- then add Africa and Eurasia to the lists. The key is to only list extinctions after the range of the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary.
Of course, some overlap is needed with the Quaternary extinction event, with a comprehensive list inclusive of precise extinction dates, however to do so, we must ensure we do not clone the lists, as having worked extensively on them, there are an incredibly wide range of figures for extinction dates, although some species deserve to be on both lists, with the QEE having a more extensive scope into the Holocene due to extirpations and a megafaunal focus rather than one of anthropological impact. After this work, we should transplant the information blocs pertaining the late Pleistocene extinctions into QEE. To mediate the readers who are specifically looking for the full lists of extinct megafauna present in the other article, we should heavily link the QEE article. Moreover, these lists should be substantiated to the same extent as the QEE article. I am planning to commence this work myself relatively soon, though I believe some verbal acknowledgement and input from committed editors of this article is needed before I perform this overhaul. I look forward to this reformation. SuperTah ( talk) 10:52, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
@ Wolfdog: Recently, someone added a clarification tag to a paragraph you added to this article. Can you add a reference that verifies this claim, specifically? Jarble ( talk) 19:39, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
I am wondering how the sentence "for example, in Wrangel Island in Siberia the extinction of dwarf woolly mammoths (approximately 2000 BCE)[60] did not coincide with the arrival of humans" is deduced from the article that is used as citation. In the cited article, no such claim is made. Furthermore, in the Wikipedia article on Wrangel island, it is postulated that the extinction actually does coincide with human arrival (both of them being dated around 1700BC). 84.87.204.78 ( talk) 20:19, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
The Holocene extinction event will begin probably in 389,400 years beacuse the Wolf-Rayet star WR 104 would explode in a supernova. It will be suggested that it may produce a gamma ray burst that could pose a threat to life on Earth should its poles be aligned 12° or lower towards Earth. The star's axis of rotation has yet to be determined with certainty. A new epoch will begin in 1,589,400 years but, it is no sure that the human species will extinct because it will have colonised 6 million planets. The OmegaYnoss ★ ( disscusion • Contribs) 21:43, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
The simple fact is, is that there have been numerous "extinction events" that are worse than this one which aren't counted in the "big five" such as the Jurassic-Creteceous, the Eocene-Oligocene, etc. In fact every single geological "epoch" or "stage" has had a pretty nasty biological collapse when it ends. That's why the fossil record is divided that way.
While anthropogenic ecosystem collapses during the Quarternary are real enough, none of them have to do with man-made climate change or CO2 emissions. This doesn't mean that Trump denialism is correct and that censorship of government scientific data is justified, it's not. If you're going to have an article with this title, fine. But get the facts right. 7%, which is bad enough, isn't 80%. It's alleged. Arglebargle79 ( talk) 14:57, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
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The abovenamed is listed as a source in section one of the article. The listed authors are "William J. Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Thomas M. Newsome, Mauro Galetti, Mohammed Alamgir, Eileen Crist, Mahmoud I. Mahmoud, William F. Laurance, [and] 15,364 scientist signatories from 184 countries". I edited the number to 15,372 being the sum of eight named authors plus the 15,364 signatories. This was reverted, because it was presumed that the "stated number [15,364] in the given source" was the total number of scientists who made the statement. I have added the reference to the eight authors (all of whom are scientists) as prose. Te Karere ( talk) 00:37, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
Without disagreeing with the basic premise (Over fishing caused a collapse in cod population) this doesn't seem to be what the graph is saying. The graph is only half the story at best.
The graph plots fish landed, not fish population. Hypothetically we could have stopped landing fish for any number of reasons. That the population had collapsed being just one. Could we add a word of explanation about why cod landed is an acceptable analogue for a collapsing cod population? Or even better find a graph that correlates cod landed with cod population.
I'm being picky I know. Sorry.
185.47.106.84 ( talk) 16:38, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
??? That statement makes less sense than the sentence that it presumably modifies which seems reasonably readable -- 142.254.1.239 ( talk) 10:20, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
Like with any taxonomy, there will always be lumpers and splitters. Isn't there plenty of evidence to suggest that the #6 is not universally accepted?
e.g. Here's a bunch of random sources that say it's the 7th: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=%22seventh+mass+extinction%22+%2B+pleistocene&btnG=
2604:2000:1103:845C:8130:BA9E:383A:9856 ( talk) 05:42, 31 January 2019 (UTC)R.E.D.
The second and third paragraphs are completely unsourced. And all of the sources for the fourth paragraph are just tacked on the very end of the paragraph. In particular, the fourth paragraph quotes the term "super predator", but whoever wrote it completely forgot to indicate who they were quoting. The term never appears in any of the sources cited for this paragraph. I'm unqualified to confidently verify these claims, or provide sources, but hopefully someone who is qualified will check this issue out. Jebadiah Sweepstakes ( talk) 01:01, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
I'm not a scientist, But I've lived in Hawaii for 50 years. IMHO, the loss of Hawaii species of plants and animals is due more to the introduction of feral animals Like rats and pigs than human activity? Couldn't find this discussed in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.91.51.58 ( talk) 18:50, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
I would like to prevent a revert war by employing Revert and Discuss and starting the discussion.
Please note the flags at the beginning of this section about the entire article being controversial.
If this article is about a ongoing, global, epoch-relevant extinction caused by human activity, then it must be seriously curated.
My changes (highlighting the theoretical nature of some of the assertions, and also softening the superlatives "unprecedented global superpredator" - with no support for "unprecedented" and no definition for "superpredator" - yeesh) are completely consistent with an encyclopedic tone. ( WP:ENC).
I also completely deleted the reference to amphibian population decrease, because the doubts (about this being human caused) introduced more than ten years ago by two scholarly papers have been confirmed by a third one (in Science, no less) in 2018. The number of authors on these papers represent a substantial fraction of the entire knowledgeable community when it comes to this phenomena, and the knee-jerk alarmists who were happy to simply assert human causation as the cause of an eco-disaster (and it is one!) have been authoritatively proven wrong. Since this article is officially about "ongoing, global, epoch-relevant extinction caused by human activity", those references and the related text would ideally have been removed last year. (Or two years ago, now, it being 2020)
Perhaps we can agree that the tone of this article is somewhat alarmist?
I am really, really no kind of expert on this topic, and I know it. My changes were not meant to insert opinion, but rather soften the authority of assertions and claims that were more lightly underpinned.
Riventree ( talk) 21:14, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
I refactored Riventree's poorly threaded comment, without changing the text, to help show who is talking and replying to whom and to what. The first paragraph below starting "you are entirely correct" was originally interjected after CJ Griffin's 2nd paragraph above. The following paragraphs from Riventree's comment have not been touched, so my edit here puts her entire response together, per [{WP:THREAD]]
NewsAndEventsGuy (
talk) 21:22, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
Please add some short information on this paper to the article and/or possibly other relevant article/s (like e.g. Human overpopulation or Overconsumption etc). It's currently featured in 2020 in science (September) like so:
After investigating how mammalian extinction rates have changed over the past 126,000 years, scientists report that mainly (about 96% prediction accuracy) human population size and/or specific human activities, not climate change, cause global mammal extinctions and predict a near future "rate escalation of unprecedented magnitude". [1] [2]
(I also added it to 2020 in the environment and environmental sciences.) I added it to this article to section #Climate change like so:
Studies find that human population size and/or specific human activities, not climate change, caused rapidly rising global mammal extinction rates during the past 126,000 years [3] [4] and currently. [5]
but my recent adjustment/correction of my addition was undone by User:Elmidae. Hence I have removed it so it can be discussed first or be added by other editors.
I found that, while section "#Human activity" makes it somewhat clear what the main drivers of it are / are not section "#Climate change" does not.
Please add it in an adequate way or suggest a text to include here. Thank you.
-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 09:49, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
References
The overarching driver of species extinction is human population growth and increasing per capita consumption.
To provide a basis to compare the historical anthropogenic effects with the ongoing biodiversity crisis, we predicted future diversity losses under [...]and is mainly about / investigating the past 126k years, and not the most recent times and what readers would think of as "currently" happening. These projections of the paper and similar content may make it suitable for one but definitely not the only reference for the prior text. Please check whether the current text is adequate and matches what the study is about. I think it may be almost appropriate now that there are additional refs, but imo probably isn't yet; key parts of the current text are
have beenand
during the Anthropocene. -- Prototyperspective ( talk) 15:01, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
Studies find that human population size and/or specific human activities, not climate change, caused rapidly rising global mammal extinction rates during the past 126,000 years. According to Tobias Andermann, lead author an October 2020 study published in Science Advances, "these extinctions did not happen continuously and at constant pace. Instead, bursts of extinctions are detected across different continents at times when humans first reached them. More recently, the magnitude of human driven extinctions has picked up the pace again, this time on a global scale."
More recentlyand
againand
this timeparts as the past 126,000 years seems to have included this "more recent" period (or not?) and "again" and "this time" implies that were pause in between (was there?). Furthermore "this time" implies that the relevant prior extinctions weren't also caused on the global scale in some form (certainly not in the same form as now) which also seems to be inaccurate. Imo it would probably still be good to include as it's a quote but maybe we should inform (more) about the study's contents instead or in addition due to these possibly inaccurate impressions readers might get from this. -- Prototyperspective ( talk) 09:31, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
Hello, I worked on this article several years ago under a different account, which I have since forgotten the password for. I notice that althought this is a well developed and referenced article, some sections appear to be like an WP:ESSAY arguing for a particular point of view, that may not directly link to the topic of the article (the sixth extinction). It's particularly important that any citations link to the sixth extinction, as to avoid WP:OR. This is particularly the case in the "Defaunation" section, and in particular sections that talk more broadly about impacts of the meat industry, plastic pollution and other related Human impact on the environment topics. As such, as I have added a maintenance tag. We want to avoid WP:DUPLICATION of articles on related topics. I welcome any discussion or suggestions, and think this could be a great article if a few of these sections are edited for wording/conciseness. Arcahaeoindris ( talk) 13:12, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
I think the overall structure of this article needs work in my opinion. What is the rationale behind the heading being "defaunation"? The Holocene extinction is not just an extinction of animals, it is also an extinction of plants, fungi and other organisms. At the moment it seems like the article is more split by modern era vs. prehistory. Could these be better main headings, instead of "Influences" and "Defaunation"? Or do some of the subheadings of "Defaunation" need to be moved to "Influences"? Just thinking out loud here. Any suggestions on how this article's structure can be more logical? Arcahaeoindris ( talk) 20:23, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
Suggesting to merge Quaternary extinction into here. As has been suggested on talk pages for both articles, they duplicate each other's scope, and Quaternary extinction is just a long list that is not encyclopaedic. Relevant body of text from Quaternary could be merged into here, and long redundant lists of species either be moved to list pages or deleted. Welcome thoughts Arcahaeoindris ( talk) 16:29, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
@ C.J. Griffin: Greetings! I just wanted to consider what this revert called a book "promoting what amounts to denialism". Thomas does not deny that humans are causing extinctions due to habitat loss, climate change, and introduction of invasive species. He even advocates for conservation measures to save endangered species like tigers and elephants and coral reefs. Perhaps the title gave the wrong impression, but it is meant to convey that different species are thriving and going extinct at the same time. Thomas does write against the popular opinion that we should restore nature to exactly how it was before human intervention. I found it enlightening that as he points out, many species introduced to different continents by humans are actually co-existing successfully with native species, that humans create species as well as destroy them, and that previous mass extinctions have also resulted in later periods of high diversification. And he makes an important point that "before human intervention" is a fuzzy and perhaps unattainable ideal, given that long-term variations in climate and ecosystem context have meant that the state of nature has always been in flux. (For example, the forests of the northeastern United States have only existed since the end of the last glacial period, on the order of tens of thousands of years.) Perhaps where he is most controversial is where he argues maybe some species should be allowed to go extinct, specifically those that are "always going to be in Accident and Emergency" because they are not well-adapted to the sort of new normal of the world, so conservation efforts can be focused on species with long-term viability. His favorite example seems to be flightless birds, which seem hopelessly vulnerable to ground predators compared to closely related bird species.
In short, the book presents some factual context about the Holocene Extinction ignored by many treatments (including looking carefully at how many species have actually gone extinct), and some well-informed opinions that I think deserve inclusion for the sake of neutrality, even if I don't personally agree with all of them. The book is certainly not trying to provide excuses for doing nothing, or arguing that extinction is never a bad thing. -- Beland ( talk) 20:16, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
We consider that the Sixth Mass Extinction has probably started and present arguments to counter those who would deny this. We will probably not convince those who consider this episode part of the natural evolution of life on Earth and therefore that it is acceptable to just let it happen, that is, that they are wrong. Nor will we convince those who think that it is too late to stop it and that we should therefore embrace it, that is, that they also are wrong. However, we hope that we will at least give pause to those who by denying or downplaying it play into the hands of those who advocate doing nothing about it, or those who, accepting it, advocate that we should do our best to manipulate biodiversity primarily if not solely for human, essentially economic, benefit. This latter view has been expressed to a greater or lesser extent by some prominent conservationists (Kareiva & Marvier, 2007, 2012; Kareiva, Lalasz & Marvier, 2011; Thomas, 2017) and has become a key feature of the ‘New Conservation’ or ‘Neoliberal Conservation’, although the paradigm has been strongly criticised, for example by Büscher et al. (2012), Soulé (2013) and Rolston (2018).
I removed a paragraph about biomass loss based on a Guardian article, but was reverted. I then tried to rewrite the paragraph, but someone re-removed the paragraph. I obviously support removing the paragraph wholesale, but I'll paste my hopefully more accurate rewrite here, in case the paragraph is reinstated later.
Most recently, insect populations have experienced rapid surprising declines. Insects have declined at an annual rate of 2.5% over the last 25–30 years. The most severe effects may include Puerto Rico, where insect ground fall has declined by 98% in the previous 35 years. Butterflies and moths are experiencing some of the most severe effect. Widespread butterfly populations have declined by 58% on farmland in England. More than 40% of insect species are declining. Germany is experiencing a 75% decline in total insect biomass. Agriculture is believed to be the most significant contributor to the change. [1]
Ornilnas ( talk) 15:42, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
The term pollinator decline) is in the "History" section and not the following "Recent extinctions" section. Maybe that should be moved down. -- Elmidae ( talk · contribs) 07:27, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
Most recently, insect populations have experienced rapid surprising declines. Insects have declined at an annual rate of 2.5% over the last 25–30 years. The most severe effects may include Puerto Rico, where insect ground fall has declined by 98% in the previous 35 years. Butterflies and moths are experiencing some of the most severe effect. Widespread butterfly populations have declined by 58% on farmland in England. More than 40% of insect species are threatened with extinction. Germany is experiencing a 75% decline in total insect biomass. Agriculture is believed to be the most significant contributor to the change. [1] [2]
The current lede states that climate change may have been a driving factor in the megafaunal extinctions, especially at the end of the Pleistocene
. This is presumably backed by the Climate change section in the body, which states that The climate change theory has suggested that a change in climate near the end of the late Pleistocene stressed the megafauna to the point of extinction.
[3]
[4]
. However, I can't find this claim in the sources. The first ("Are we now living in the Anthropocene") mentions megafauna once, but doesn't link their decline to Pleistocene climate change. The other is paywalled, and not even on SciHub. The abstract does indeed discuss late Pleistocene climate changes and its effect on mammal populations, but I don't get the feeling that they conclude climate change led to mass extinction. Can anyone with accesss to the paper confirm that it supports the current statement? If not, I think we need to change the current wording, or get different sources. We have to be extra careful with claims that are referenced in the lede.
Ornilnas (
talk) 03:12, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
References
"from 1.5 thousand species to 40 thousand species"? "from 1.5 species to 40 thousand species"? Is 40'000 a misprint or a notation I'm ignorant of? Jackaroodave ( talk) 10:42, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
As a an atmospheric carbon dioxide increase to 2200 PPM is inevitable at this point, which most multicellular life cannot adapt to, can we change the name to match the severity? MerscratianAce ( talk) 02:49, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
I have reverted the contributions from this account twice as I see them as poorly written with redundancies such as "The Holocene extinction, otherwise referred to as the sixth mass extinction or Anthropocene extinction, is the sixth mass extinction event..." in the lead sentence and increased and unnecessary bloat with the number of paragraphs ballooning from 4 to 7. Not only that but many of the new citations are poorly formatted with numerous errors indicated by red text, inappropriate spacing between citations and even the names of the authors misspelled on occasion (see citation 30 for example). There might be some good material here, but given the shoddiness of these contributions by a new and inexperienced user I feel the more concise status quo version is superior to the current version and should be restored until the issues I raised can be fixed by the user seeking to include them.-- C.J. Griffin ( talk) 13:54, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm unimpressed the edits DTA329374 has made to the lead, and I think they should be reverted. I think the old version from 25 October is a lot better. I think the "mass extinction" statement/claim needs more clarification and context than just stating baldly in wikivoice in the opening sentence. Also it says that the Anthropocene is "widely accepted" which in my view is a weasel word. The Anthropocene remains informal and unrecognised by the International Commission on Stratigraphy. (Full disclosure: I don't like and am strongly biased against the anthropocene concept, as I feel it ignores the human impact on the planet prior to 1950). Hemiauchenia ( talk) 21:05, 3 December 2022 (UTC)