Scientist says that humans are almost certainly going extinct
Our days on Earth may be numbered. In fact, by the end of this century, the global population could start its inevitable decline, paleontologist and Nature editor Henry Gee argued in a new opinion piece for Scientific American – and he’s not shy about using the word “extinction.”
“I suspect that the human population is set not just for shrinkage but collapse – and soon,” he wrote.
Gee points to lack of genetic variation, falling birth rates, pollution, and stress caused by living in overcrowded cities as a recipe for disaster.
“The most insidious threat to humankind is something called ‘extinction debt. There comes a time in the progress of any species, even ones that seem to be thriving, when extinction will be inevitable, no matter what they might do to avert it,” Gee explained.
“The species most at risk are those that dominate particular habitat patches at the expense of others, who tend to migrate elsewhere, and are therefore spread more thinly. Humans occupy more or less the whole planet, and with our sequestration of a large wedge of the productivity of this planetwide habitat patch, we are dominant within it,” Gee posited.
