Submitted by stk29187 on October 12, 2008

• Category: Social Issues
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Sixth Extinction

Currently, there are about 30,000 species that go extinct annually (Eldredge, 2001) and there has been 6 extinctions documented. The first five extinctions have been physical causes, including climate change, plate tectonics and impacts of extraterrestrial masses. The current extinction is the only one which has a biotic cause, humans.
Humans have caused extinction through the “transformation of landscape, over-exploitation of species, pollution, and the introduction of alien species” (Eldredge, 2001). This extinction has occurred in two huge phases. “The first being when the first modern humans began to disperse to different parts of the world about 100,000...

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