Biological Annihilation ...

A farmer walked through a burned area of Amazon rainforest near Porto Velho, Brazil, last year. Credit...Carl De Souza/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images 

A farmer, lets think about this, farming in the Amazon. Makes no sense does it, especially when realizing the soil is really poor, that the ground only provides the structural foundation for the most diverse environment on earth to flourish, thus necessitating said farmer to move on, quickly, as the ground cannot sustain the growing of crops for more than two years. In moving on, the delicate infrastructure of the jungle is "hopefully" not destroyed as nature does have a way to come back if she is allowed to do so.

Well, man is not allowing this to happen as biological annihilation is happening 24/7, driven by greed, pollution, global warming and environmental degradation, as seen by the nightmare residing at the top of the page.

We are in the midst of a mass extinction, many scientists have warned — this one driven not by a catastrophic natural event, but by humans. The unnatural loss of biodiversity is accelerating, and if it continues, the planet will lose vast ecosystems and the necessities they provide, including fresh water, pollination, and pest and disease control.

On Monday, there was more bad news: We are racing faster and closer toward the point of collapse than scientists previously thought, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The extinction rate among terrestrial vertebrate species is significantly higher than prior estimates, and the critical window for preventing mass losses will close much sooner than formerly assumed — in 10 to 15 years.

Forest elephants in Ivindo National Park in Gabon last year.Credit...Amaury Hauchard/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The law of unforeseen consequences rules.

Many who are aware may simply feel the loss is not consequential. “People say, ‘What the hell of a difference does it make to me?’” Dr. Ehrlich said.

But often the role of a particular plant or animal in an ecosystem has become apparent only after the species in question is gone.

Passenger pigeons, for example, once numbered in the billions. Their voracious appetite for seeds limited population growth of other seed-eating species, including white-footed mice — the natural reservoir for the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.

After the passenger pigeon’s extinction, white-footed mice populations exploded, and the risks to human health increased. The impacts of the passenger pigeon’s extinction, researchers wrote in Science, “are still being felt a century after the last passenger pigeon died.

”We are running out of time ...