 When a lot of people talk about or visualize the apocalypse or the end of the world I Believe they're thinking about it in terms of like that Hollywood perspective. That's been embedded in our minds You think about you know deep impact you think about these movies where there's like an asteroid coming And it's one single event that will lead to mass extinction and there's hysteria. There's panic And that's the way that people think about it and it's scary to think about you know Large portions of the population dying off or a lot of other species non-human species going extinct but what people feel to realize is that We're actually undergoing a mass extinction Right now currently But the reason why we don't actually Recognize that that's happening is because it's extremely subtle. It's not happening in the way that Hollywood presented it to us It's happening in a much more insidious way and a new report by the UN really Quantifies how bad this is and this report is chilling. It sent chills down the back of my spine because It's really been difficult to acknowledge the extent that humans have wreaked havoc on the planet This report does that now according to Isabelle garrison of CNN She explains that one million of the planet's eight million species are threatened with extinction by humans Scientists warn Monday in what is described as the most comprehensive assessment of global nature loss ever Their landmark report paints a bleak picture of a planet Ravaged by an ever-growing human population whose insatiable consumption is destroying the natural world The global rate of species extinction is already tens to hundreds of times higher Then it has been on average over the last 10 million years According to the intergovernmental science policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services a UN committee whose report was written by 145 experts from 50 countries So let's just pause for a moment and try to take in these numbers because whenever we start hearing These types of numbers, you know, that's extremely difficult to visualize because humans are a lot more capable of grasping small-scale events, but let's just think about this a 145 experts from 50 countries are telling us this so the implication is obviously this is not Political nobody's motivated here. This is science and And the rate of species extinction, I mean species are Pretty much always going extinct, but the rate that it's happening now Is tens to hundreds times higher than it has been on average over the last 10 million years It is difficult to conceptualize what that looks like, but let's just say the white rhino That's a species that you know extinction is happening But it's happening twice as fast if we say it's happening twice as fast We can kind of grasp that it's happening really really fast, but if we say it's happening tens to hundreds of times faster That's such an unfathomable rate that It makes it easy for people to almost just tune out Because that's so difficult to grasp But really what we can take away from this In order to you know get this more concrete Visual of what's happening is that species are dying really really fast And we're the cause We're the cause Now for some additional details more specifics We've got a jake johnson of common dreams who explains according to the report the average abundance of native species in most major Land-based habitats has fallen by at least 20 percent mostly since 1900 More than 40 percent of amphibian species almost 33 percent of Reforming corals and more than a third of all marine mammals are threatened The picture is less clear for insect species, but available evidence supports a tentative estimate of 10 percent being threatened At least 680 vertebrae species had been driven to extinction since 16th century And more than 9 percent of all domesticated breeds of mammals used for food and agriculture had become extinct By 2016 with at least 1,000 more breeds still threatened. It's devastating And a lot of people may Think about this in terms of wow. Well, this means I can no longer appreciate the beauty or the cuteness of We'll say a polar bear They'll no longer be around for me to admire for me to watch in these nature shows, but It's a lot more complex than that The way that nature works and the ecosystem works is that, you know, these species don't exist in a vacuum One species going extinct Impacts the food chain it impacts The environment and other species and ultimately That trickles up to us and impacts us directly So even if you can kind of put that out of your head and think well, this is about, you know, these animals and these amphibians Understand that this has implications Deleterious consequences for human beings as well Now there are five main drivers And as the ipb es points out these drivers include changes in land and sea use over fishing over consumption Direct exploitation of organisms climate change pollution invasive species And these are all things that are interlinked So by tackling one you can affect other ones indirectly So for example, if you tackle pollution, that's obviously going to be a net benefit for climate change, but This is really difficult. We're over consuming. We're over fishing. We're over polluting and in short We're having a devastating impact on life on the planet and in turn We're undermining our own survivability We're undermining The overall habitability of our planet and it's chilling This is one of those um articles Where I feel like i'm not a very good political commentator. I don't know what to say I don't have any answer. There's no solution. I don't know This is a wicked problem to where even if you got the brightest minds in the world together And they came up with the exact outline as to what we need to do To stop the hemorrhaging Then there's this question of political will what do we do to get governments plural governments To come together and face this crisis this planet-wide crisis And are they willing to do that? I can't do anything. I can't add to this conversation I can encourage you as an individual to take action and do things to mitigate, you know This issue I can say reduce your carbon footprint go vegan, but Even if we all individually do what we can The fact remains that this is an issue That needs to be addressed by governments human beings in and of themselves are not capable Of addressing this on an individual level. We have to address this at the government level And where to even start Is another question. This is not one of those issues where It's going to happen like climate change like we already know that climate change is happening But it's something that we can still kind of try to mitigate or at least stop the worst Of what climate change has to offer. But what this report tells us is that It's not like there's this mass extinction event that's coming It's happening right now. We are in the midst of a mass extinction event We may not be able to feel it. We can go on with our lives and watch netflix And complain about game of thrones season eight, which we all should by the way But with that being said What's happening is devastating I'm thinking about this in terms of like a couple generations from now my great niece who was born A couple of months ago what her grandchildren will have to deal with because we our generation millennials and gen z We know that the apocalypse is coming But it's just a couple generations forward who will have to lift through this and maybe it's the case that the planet survives human beings make it out of this That we don't become the victims of this current extinction event But either way Things will have to change We're not going to be able to consume at the rate that we're consuming because we live on a planet with finite resources We're not going to be able to pollute and destroy the planet because of corporate profits Things have to change if we're going to survive. The problem is that humans don't necessarily Or probably the speculative Won't have the will to take action until It's too late But I don't know I mean all that I can do as a political commentator is give you this information and allow you To do with it as you will but as long as we're Knowledgeable and we know about what's happening That's just the first step. You can't solve a problem unless you know what's happening, but understand This is chilling and It's really pretty crazy to think that we're we're living through a mass extinction