Nobel Prize winning Dutch chemist, Paul Crutzen popularised the term ‘Anthropocene’ (The Age of Humans) that represent this human dominated geological epoch. His argument was based on the facts, 18 years ago, that human activity has has transformed between a third and a half of the land surface area of …
The Great Auk – Extinct 1844
The Great Auk was eighty centimetres tall, weighed around five kilos and looked like a large penguin. They spent most of their lives at sea but returned to land to nest. The great auk was a flightless bird and a fantastic swimmer and lived in the northern hemisphere. This bird ranged from Norway to …
The Sixth Mass Extinction
A study published nearly two years ago warned that “This current ‘biological annihilation’ underlines the seriousness for humanity of Earth’s ongoing sixth mass extinction”. This was a study by Gerardo Ceballos, Paul Ehrlich and Rodolfo Dirzo called ‘Biological annihilation via the ongoing …
Northern White Rhinoceros – Extinct 2018
It is estimated that 8,000 rhinoceros have been killed by humans in the last 10 years alone. There are 21,000 rhinoceros left in the world today. The evolutionary history of rhinoceros goes back 50 million years. The white rhinoceros is said to be descended from Ceratotherium praecox that lived around …
The Safe Zone
The 2018 WWF Living Planet Report on the State of the Earth explains how in recent decades we have developed a clearer scientific picture of the complex links between climate, animal and plant life, the land and water habitats and importantly how this sustains human life. Observation and geological evidence have been used to build […]
Catastrophic Disruption of Nature
We are beginning to appreciate that everything in nature is connected and interdependent. We are able to understand some of the mechanics of nature and can now see, for the first time in human history, the unintended consequences of our actions. Human activity has caused catastrophic disruption to the …
Insect Biodiversity Apocalypse
Biodiversity of insects is threatened worldwide.Here,we present a comprehensive review of 73 historical reports of insect declines from across the globe, and systematically assess the underlying drivers. Our work reveals dramatic rates of decline that may lead to the extinction of …
The Not-So-Living Planet
Humans exist because of Nature and everything we have, everything we are comes from Nature. Nature is important for our mental and spiritual health and wellbeing, our food supply, our wealth, our science and security. And yet political and business decisions, as well many of our personal decisions, are …
The End of Civilisation
The recently published World Wildlife Fund 2018 Living Planet Report reveals that we have killed 60% of all wildlife in the last 40 years. I would remind readers that as recently as 200,000 years ago we would have considered our ancestors wildlife by any of today’s definitions. We have come to be by the same …
EXTINCTION – Mammals on Death Row
Mankind is driving a mass extinction that could obliterate large swathes of life on Earth for millions of years, scientists have warned in a new study. The US National Academy of Sciences has published a report in its journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), on the 15 October called “Mammals …