day! These numbers are quite striking, yet they do not even include the percentage of animals that are endangered or extinct and do not reside in the rainforest. Animals such as the Giant Panda and the Island Grey Fox are examples of such species.The extinction of numerous species has led to the sixth mass extinction in the world's history. The first five extinctions occurred during a period of 650 million years to 65 million years ago and were all marked by some sort of natural disaster or climate change. This brings us to the aforementioned sixth extinction that we are currently experiencing. It is different in many ways from the other extinctions in that it is the most rapid, it is the largest (affecting from 17,000 to 100,000 species per year), and, most importantly, human hands are driving it. Humans are the sole source for this mass extinction, and whether it is due to the hunting and habitat loss that is explained above or the fact that the earth's six billion human inhabitants are using almost 50% of the total energy available to sustain life on Earth (keeping in mind that with the exponential growth of the human population, this percentage will also rise), one thought must be brought to light. In the next thirty years, one fifth of all species will become extinct and in the next one hundred years, 50% of all species will be extinct. This is a staggering statistic and the horror of this is that one species, the human, is the cause of this mass extinction.Unfortunately, the previous material is rendered completely ineffectual to many people due to the fact that there seems to be no surface global impact on humans. This is not true. The mistreatment of animals and the destruction of their habitats are global issues because the mass extinction of the earth's species will eventually cause our own downfall. Each creature on Earth serves a specific purpose or function and, as these creatures are unable to perform these functions due t...
