Humans Might Cause the Next PETM Extinction

There was a time when the cause of life was altered, killing millions of species. This period isn’t far, going back to about 61 million years ago during the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) event and this happened as a result of a surge in carbon emissions, and gross temperature rose by 6 degrees Celsius.

With weather being at an extreme point, numerous amount of species went into extinction and the vast amount of species that went into extinction were triggered by an increase amount of greenhouse gasses but in all of the extinction that happened, humans weren't part of the organisms that disappeared and this was because we never existed at this time but now we are here on earth, would we survive another event of such and what are the possibility that we will not be the cause of another of such event?

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As at the time of writing, there are about 16,300 to 1 million species that are at the risk of extinction and this means that about 1 in 8.7 species will not be in existence in a few decades from now as there are about 8.7 million known species currently on earth. If we decide to look at quite big animals, then about 40% of amphibians are at risk, 33% of sharks, 10% of insects, and 20% of mammals are at risk of going into extinction.

It looks like we humans are increasing in population but we seem to be the possible cause for another PETM event. Our population has tripled within the last century and since our earth is surrounded by water about 15% of humans lives within 10 kilometers of the coast, and about 40% live within 100km from the coasts. As at 2018 only 13% of the world's oceans are free from human activity which means that about 87% of the ocean has been damaged by human impact.

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Due to human generated carbon dioxide emission, surface water is now more acidic compared to before the industrial revolution and this has led to the death of many lifeforms in the ocean. As at 2022, 62% of aquatic animals harvested were from the ocean and this is not sustainable for humans and are bad signs that a lot of things are going wrong with our climate but that's not all as the average sea level has risen up to 8–9 inches (21–24 centimeters) and In 2023, global average sea level reached a new level of 101.4 mm (3.99 inches) which was above the 1993 levels.

Just as we are altering the ocean so are we doing the same with land with land creation increase since the industrial revolution. In Nigeria, states like Lagos create more lands by sand filling and around the world new roads are created as major infrastructure and this is affecting the climate. Looking into agriculture, we have cultivated majority of the lands we have for agri purposes destroying forests that play an important in saving a lot of species.

Talking about food, it isn't like we have so much to eat as majority of our food comes from rice, corn, and wheat. Not forgetting that over 500 animals that were breed for agriculture and food purposes throughout history are extinct and about 17% of the livestock breeds we have face extinction.

We cannot talk about human effects on a possible Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) event 2.0 and not mention the waste that we pour into oceans as we add about 400 million toxic waste into water body annually. Other activities of humans have led to an increase in green house gas emissions which can be the major cause of a lot of species going into extinction.

The species of organisms that went into extinction during the PETM event was solely as a result of carbon and climate change and about 1 million species were lost but today, humans are doing a lot of damage to the ecosystem that we fear for another possible event as now we have disease, pollution, and land use. If this event doesn't happen at once, our activities are still leading to the extinction of a lot of organisms.

^REFERENCE

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