Is Humanity Doomed? Science Says We Are In Middle Of A 'Mass Extinction Event'

Is the threat of a mass extinction event on Earth looming large? Scientists have found a key signifier of impending doom for all civilisation on Earth.

Based on algae and bacterial bloom patterns in water bodies, scientists are convinced that a serious extinction event is about to hit us. Changes in the algal and bacterial make-up of water bodies points to an ongoing ecological disaster.

What the signs say

These changes are akin to what happened when the last mass extinction event happened 251 million years ago, known as the "Great Dying". At this time, 90 per cent of all species on Earth disappeared, marking the biggest loss of life on the planet.

According to researchers from the Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, toxic algae and bacteria that are now growing in our lakes and rivers mirror the characteristics of the blooms that existed in the Great Dying period.

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Current changes in freshwater bodies is linked to a range of human activities including deforestation, loss of soil, and emission of greenhouse gases. In the study published in Nature Communications, scientists said that algal and bacterial blooms are linked to mass extinction events, calling this correlation a "disconcerting signal" for environmental changes in the future.

It appears that we're actually in the middle of a mass extinction event... this one caused entirely by human actions.

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What do microbial blooms do?

Microbial blooms do not simply kill the life in freshwater bodies, but also delay the potential recovery of these ecosystems by millions of years, the team claimed. To reach this conclusion, the scientists analysed fossil records near Sydney, Australia that were buried before, during and after the Great Dying period.

Most of the extinction events during that time were due to volcanic eruptions that drove global temperatures up and emitted greenhouse gases. Not much later, wildfires, droughts and other extreme climate events became common. The same pattern is currently forming on contemporary Earth.

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This led to loss of forests. Owing to this, soil and nutrients that once nourished the forest land seeped into nearby lakes and rivers, causing microbial and algal blooms to glow. Due to higher temperatures, such blooms would have been already been thriving in those freshwater bodies.

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Microbes are important for maintaining the health of any freshwater ecosystem. But in excess, they turn our sources of water into toxic soup that kills all life. While the Great Dying blooms flourished without human help, the current blooms are a direct product of human action that has contaminated ecosystems. Even then, the key characteristics of blooms from the Great Dying and the ones found now are nearly identical.

By the year 2100, with increasing temperatures, more blooms are expected to grow in our freshwater bodies. By that point, the mass extinction event would be peaking, signs of which have started to appear now.

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