Winter is Coming – Part Two :: The Sixth Extinction Event

In the previous blog, we have discussed how disastrous future we have, through the destruction of environment and how actually a long, freezing and terrible winter will come because of the same. If you haven’t read it, please go through this link below and read it.

Winter is Coming – Part 1

Now, coming for the subject matter of this part of the blog series, we need to understand what actually is an extinction event..?

Did you ever notice you’re seeing less sparows than you used to see in childhood…? I’m sure you are aware of extinction of sparows because of massive radio and micro waves of mobile communication technology. An extinction event is a long term event of destruction of many living beings. Earth has witnessed 5 extinction events in the 4.5 billion years of history. But the sixth one, which is ongoing, is the only one, caused by human activities…!!

Scientifically known as Anthropocene Extinction, this extinction event may turn out to be a horrible disaster. Let me give you some facts to make a sense : In the last 40 years, we have lost 50% of the ocean living species. Yes, they’re extinct forever.

So horrible isn’t it…? Okay, be ready for even worse : We are about to run out of some important food grain species in a matter of 100 years.

How the hell is this even possible…?? Come on, this is a long story. We’ll discuss here in brief.

All the living beings are jointly known as an ecology. They depend on each other. Thus they form an ecological cycle. Sheep eat the grass and the wolves eat the sheep. Whenever there’s an irregularity in the cycle, this cycle breaks. Such continuous breaks eventually lead to extinction of one or more living beings. For example : Because of massive soil pollution, there isn’t enough food for the sheep. So if the sheep are being unfed, they’ll eventually vanish. So what about the wolves then…? If the sheep aren’t there, they’ll starve to death….and thus, their numbers will decrease untill it becomes zero.

This was a small example just to explain exactly how, because of human’s loot of resources, many species are being extinct. No need to explain how pollution kills them.

This is a steady process, though it has a pace of 100 to 1000 times faster than that of previous extinction events.

Due to massive deforestation, many species of trees are already on the edge of extinction…many became extinct till we got to know…! Many wild animals are nearly gone, many are starving to death.

Soil and water pollution leads to bad nutrition of crops and increasing infertility of soil. Massive use of chemical fertilizers are yet another reason for the same.

Underground water level is the key to hold the dust. We are drilling billions of cusecs of water everyday through borewells. That has consequences of increasing desertification and dust conquering over the air. This dust polluted air then corrupts the crops in the fields. Lower level of underground water makes the farms infertile for the crops. No need to explain that underground water level is the most important source of water for today and future, which we are losing.

List of some living beings that may extinct within century.

1)Food Grains such as Wheat, Maize and Oats.

2) Coffee, Chocolate, Bananas Peanuts, Wine Grapes, Strawberries and Soybeans.

3) Wild animals such as Elephants, Leopards, Tigers, Lions and Gorillaz.

4) Ocean creatures such as Sea Turtles, Blue Whales, Many Edible Fish etc.

5) Birds such as Bengal Florican, Cuckoo, Eagle, Owl, Sand Piper, Siberian Crane, Vultures, Ducks, Turtle Doves, Grey Parrots and Sparrows.

All these living beings are going to extinct because of following basic reasons.

1) Massive deforestation has led a great disaster to their ecology.

2) Increasing human population makes their resources scarce. Humanity loots their resources, right from lands to skies.

3) All kinds of pollution leads to poisonous nourishment of these species.

It’s not just for them my friends. When extinction happens, it happens for all. Humanity’s large part will suffer if we don’t act to stop the extinction of living beings. Just imagine if 70% of the world’s source of food grain is wheat and if it goes extinct…what is left to eat will also be finished in no time. We may starve to death.

One thing we as a human need to be cleared that, the world isn’t just ours. Every living being has equal right over its resources. Though humanity has a dominance over global resources, we atleast have some gratitude and sympathy for those who are starving because of us.

In the next part, we’ll be discussing other severe issues of climatic change such as floods, droughts etc.

Warm Regards,

Dnyanesh Make “The DPM”

Email ID :- dpm8055@gmail.com

Kindly share this blog. Everyone needs to know this. The next part of this blog will be released soon.