no more petting zoo's

What would happen if we had another mass extinction, the likes of which have happened several times in the history of the world, the last and most famous being the extinction of the dinosaurs. Now we don't know exactly what caused that extinction, there are several theories, but thats not the point of this so I'm not going to get into that. What I will talk about is what happens after a mass extinction. First off the dominant life forms, the top of the food chain dies, all of it. Then slowly over the next 10 million years or so life moves on and we get back to a similar level of biodiversity and truely dominant life forms. In other words if you happen to be a member of a dominant species, and if your reading this then I'll assume you are, then mass extinction is a bad thing. Mass extinction is when 50-95% of species are killed off.

When we hear of extinction, most of us think of the plight of the rhino, tiger, panda or blue whale. But these sad sagas are only small pieces of the extinction puzzle. The overall numbers are terrifying. Of the 40,168 species that the 10,000 scientists in the World Conservation Union have assessed, one in four mammals, one in eight birds, one in three amphibians, one in three conifers and other gymnosperms are at risk of extinction. The peril faced by other classes of organisms is less thoroughly analysed, but fully 40 per cent of the examined species of planet earth are in danger, including perhaps 51 per cent of reptiles, 52 per cent of insects, and 73 per cent of flowering plants.

Ok for anyone who is willfully ignorant of the interconnectedness of all living creatures the loss of even a single species (think bees) can be devastating. If you don't want to think about all those little critters that you don't really like anyway, then at least think about that last line. 73 per cent of flowering plants could be in peril.

Our technology is impressive, but we cannot survive alone on a barren planet. Although at the rate things are going we might just find out how long we can.

Think about that, the last time there was anything similar to this we need theories like a massive meteorite crashed to earth sending millions of tons of ash into the air, effectively blocking out the sun for years. The irony being their mass extinction could become the fuel for our own mass extinction. I hope people catch that, it wasn't too subtle.