‘Sixth mass extinction’: Earth’s species disappearing at frightening rate, new study says
In the most sobering study of extinction yet, a team of Bay Area scientists says that animal species are disappearing at an accelerating rate — portending the sixth mass extinction in the 4.5-billion-year history of the Earth. “We are entering a mass extinction equivalent to what happened to the dinosaurs” unless conservation efforts are intensified, said UC Berkeley paleontologist Anthony D. Barnosky and an author of the report, which was published Friday. If the trend continues, “within two human lifetimes we are in danger of losing three of four species on Earth,” he said.
