Denying that we may be experiencing the start of the Sixth Mass Extinction paves the way for it to happen
Résumé
Arguing that we are not currently experiencing a Sixth Mass Extinction, or at least playing down its possibility, gives support to those who would happily allow it to happen. Wiens and Saban [1], in a critique of the notion t hat w e are a lready enmeshed in the Sixth Mass Extinction, cited a number of publications that have appeared over the last decade or more, including one of our own [2]. However, in that paper, we were careful not to state t hat w e a re w itnessing the S ixth Mass Extinction, since, as Wiens and Saban [1] emphasized, we are not near the traditional, admittedly overly simplistic, though perhaps usefully heuristic, threshold for the definition of a mass extinction: 75% of all species going extinct in a short timeframe [3]. We also acknowledge that comparisons with background extinction rates are complicated, and that the current wave of extinctions is largely non-marine, while the previous mass extinctions have been largely marine, notwithstanding the demise of the giant dinosaurs. But we did, however, posit that at the current rate of extinction, as estimated by ourselves and others, whom we cited, and across diverse major taxa, we may well be headed in the direction of a new mass extinction event.
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