The Participatory Condition in the Digital AgeThe Participatory Condition in the Digital Age edited by Darin Barney, Gabriella Coleman, Christine Ross, Jonathan Sterne and Tamar Tembeck. The University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN, U.S.A., 2016. 352 pp., illus., 33 b/w. Trade, $94.50; pape... (original) (raw)

Thinking about the Biodiversity Loss in This Changing World

Geosciences

Extinction of species has been a recurrent phenomenon in the history of our planet, but it was generally outweighed in the course of quite a long geological time by the appearance of new species, except, especially, for the five geologically short times when the so-called “Big Five” mass extinctions occurred. Could the current decline in biodiversity be considered as a signal of an ongoing, human-driven sixth mass extinction? This note briefly examines some issues related to: (i) The hypothesized current extinction rate and the magnitude of contemporary global biodiversity loss; (ii) the challenges of comparing them to the background extinction rate and the magnitude of the past Big Five mass extinction events; (iii) briefly considering the effects of the main anthropogenic stressors on ecosystems, including the risk of the emergence of pandemic diseases. A comparison between the Pleistocene fauna dynamics with the present defaunation process and the cascading effects of recent anth...

Politics of Extinction

This work explores the issues of biodiversity loss on two levels. On one level, it examines the internal environment of science. When scientists from different disciplines assess the extent of biodiversity crisis, their personal values, professional attachments and philosophical stances are responsible for the multiple research outcomes. This chaos of competing conversations would leave politicians in an uneasy role of having contradictory scientific advice. Yet, this is not the case. Although many scientists recognise a high degree of uncertainty associated with predicting global extinction risks, one fraction of the scientific community is more successful in pushing through its research at the expense of others. Thus, the second level of the thesis analyses the interface between science and policy-making.

Species Extinction

https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Northeast-India/Wouters-Subba/p/book/9780367725662

A critical evaluation of the species extinction by human influence

2022

Currently, biodiversity conservation is an indispensable work in many countries. In biodiversity conservation, species extinction is one hot research topic. This paper started with the extinction theory and literature analysis, then it examined the main reasons for the species extinction (climate change, habitat loss and fragmentation, introduced species, chains of extinction, infectious disease, overexploitation, and pollution). This paper can enhance people’s understanding of species extinction and the importance of biodiversity conservation.