Scientists believe life on earth is going through its sixth major mass extinction. The cause? Not a massive asteroid, not an enormous flood. But us — humans.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, 99 percent of the species threatened today have fallen victim to habitat loss, the introduction of invasive species into foreign habitats, and of course, climate change. All of which are, you guessed it, human-driven phenomena.

Before humans, mass extinctions were triggered by volcanic activity, changes in ocean water composition, continental drifts, and climate change — all of which arose due to natural environmental shifts.

So, if mass extinctions are a result of natural events, why are we putting the blame on humans this time around? What exactly are the human activities driving species to die-out? And are we really going through the sixth mass extinction?

There are many reasons why scientists believe humans are contributing to the rapid loss of biodiversity on Earth, but in this video, we will focus on four:

- Climate Change
- Habitat Destruction
- Hunting by humans (more specifically poaching and overfishing)
- And the disruption of ecosystems through the introduction of foreign species

You’re watching Explore Mode and in this episode, we are going to dive into the human activities that are destroying biodiversity on Earth, causing what some scientists call the Holocene extinction.

01:59 How climate change affects Earth / The effects of climate change on animal extinction
02:59 Human driven habitat destruction / How humans are destroying natural habitats
03:57 Palm oil production / Why is palm oil bad for the environment?
05:19 Poaching and overfishing
07:01 Invasive species
08:45 The extinction of the Dodo / Dodo extinction

Music:
Movement Proposition, Dangerous, Kumasi Groove Plus Flugelhorn and Silver Flame
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...

Action and Adventure by Shane Ivers - httpswww.silvermansound.com

Sources:
https://news.brown.edu/articles/2014/...
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/p...
https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontol...
https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/en...
https://www.iucnredlist.org/
https://theconversation.com/climate-e...
http://www.poachingfacts.com/poaching...
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/an...
https://www.worldwildlife.org/species...
https://www.worldwildlife.org/species...
https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues...
https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/8-thin...
https://www.rainforestconcern.org/for...
https://www.worldwildlife.org/species...
https://portals.iucn.org/library/site...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...
https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resou...
https://wwf.panda.org/our_work/wildli...

Produced by Sofia K.
Edited by Amanda Lee