🚀 go-pugleaf

There has been recent discussion as to the rate of extinction of species.
Some sources said that the rate was only a few dozen a century.  While
that may have been true in the past, the rate has increased dramatically
this century.

According to Gaia: An Atlas of Planet Management (edited by Dr. Norman
Meyers, 1984), the annual rate of extinction was less than 1 before
1900.  In 1950 it grew to 6/yr.  In 1975 it was 400/yr.  The projection
for 1990 was 10,000/yr. and the forecast for 2000 was 50,000/yr!!!!

They say "Current estimats suggest that we are losing one species a day
from the 5-10 million species thought to exist.  By the time human
populations reach some sort of ecological equilibrium with their
one-Earth habitat, at least a quarter of all species could have
disappeared."  (p. 155)

This is getting off the topic of the newsgroup, but it illustrates that
we don't need to wait for a one-in-a-million-years asteroid in order
to destroy life on earth.

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| Jim Larson			|	"What?  You mean behind the rabbit?"  |
| larsonjs@thor.acc.stolaf.edu	|	    -Monty Python and the Holy Grail  |
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