"If there is something that can be done to save the only place we call home, shouldn't we do everything we can to act on that?" What can we do? Spotted eagle rays swimming in the Atlantic Ocean.Īnd even though post-2300 will be when any such mass extinction could occur, per the paper, Penn offers a poignant perspective: In other words, we might be seeing history repeat itself.Īs with the end-Permian calamity, marine species could lose their habitats, suffer from oxygen deprivation, be forced to migrate to places they aren't acquainted with – and therefore can't survive in – and undergo many other grim scenarios. ![]() It's rather jarring to realize that our blue planet is exhibiting environmental conditions akin to the time prior to one of the world's most devastating events. "And so, we wanted to know the implications for extinction risks in the modern ocean." "Similar environmental changes are occurring today as a result of human greenhouse gas emissions," he said. In fact, Penn's previous research, on what's known as the end-Permian mass extinction, was the motivating factor for his new efforts. ![]() That includes the most recent one, which wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, and, most notably, the Great Dying that happened in Earth's Permian era. In essence, the team's new study says that if humanity's current rate of greenhouse gas emissions continues as is, we'd see about 4 to 5 degrees Celsius of warming by the year 2100.īy 2300, we'd see upward of 10 degrees Celsius, and that's when, Penn says, we'd see extinctions on par with the "Big Five" mass extinctions in Earth's history. "However," Penn adds, "it is not too late to enact the rapid and aggressive greenhouse gas reductions needed to avoid such outcomes." A grim, post-2300 Earth
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