Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Mass extinctions on the way?
Are we headed for mass extinctions for animal, bird and plant life? According to a news report today, 10%of all bird species are set to disappear by the end of this century -- and with them the services they provide such as cleaning up carcasses and spreading seeds, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
The report says a careful study of extinction rates so far, conservation measures underway and climate and environmental change shows that at least 1,200 species of birds will be gone by 2100. And that is a conservative estimate, the team at Stanford University in California said.
In November the World Conservation Union reported that it found 12 percent of all bird species were threatened with extinction, along with nearly one-fourth of the world's mammals, a third of amphibians and 42 percent of all turtles and tortoises.
How real are these threats? A report by the Acton Institute (a US thinktank) says there is a lack of sound data, and when the claims are tested, they are found to be highly dubious.
Whichever view you take, we are called to be good stewards of the environment.There is no room for complacency, but neither should we succumb to hysteria.
Are we headed for mass extinctions for animal, bird and plant life? According to a news report today, 10%of all bird species are set to disappear by the end of this century -- and with them the services they provide such as cleaning up carcasses and spreading seeds, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
The report says a careful study of extinction rates so far, conservation measures underway and climate and environmental change shows that at least 1,200 species of birds will be gone by 2100. And that is a conservative estimate, the team at Stanford University in California said.
In November the World Conservation Union reported that it found 12 percent of all bird species were threatened with extinction, along with nearly one-fourth of the world's mammals, a third of amphibians and 42 percent of all turtles and tortoises.
How real are these threats? A report by the Acton Institute (a US thinktank) says there is a lack of sound data, and when the claims are tested, they are found to be highly dubious.
Whichever view you take, we are called to be good stewards of the environment.There is no room for complacency, but neither should we succumb to hysteria.
