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Article Summary and/or Excerpt:
The article discusses how the climate crisis and the threat of a sixth mass extinction, also known as “biological annihilation” or “bugpocalypse,” are closely linked and cannot be separated. The executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Elizabeth Mrema, states that climate change is a primary driver of biodiversity loss and that biodiversity is also part of the solution to the climate crisis. The article also highlights the importance of understanding the “Anthropocene” era, which is the significant increase in human population and overconsumption that has led to an imbalance with the rest of the natural world. The article also mentions the COP15 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which includes commitments to halt human-induced extinctions, protect 30% of the world’s land, sea, and fresh waterways by 2030, and provide $200 billion a year to fund commitments. However, there is skepticism that these commitments will be fulfilled, as similar commitments were made in the past and not fully achieved.
The article concludes that global warming and biodiversity loss are two sides of the same coin, and that supporting evidence of a mass extinction could take some time as it is defined as 75% of species disappearing over a geologically short time. It also states that the difference with the Anthropocene is that the mass extinction threatens to occur over decades, not millennia, and that since humans are the primary direct cause, it could end up exterminating us rather than driving the rest of the natural world to mortal danger. It argues that for the sake of our own survival, we must make peace with nature as soon as possible.