{"id":416044,"date":"2025-12-04T20:56:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T19:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=416044"},"modified":"2025-12-26T02:43:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T01:43:16","slug":"remember-when-they-told-you-climate-change-was-causing-a-mass-extinction-never-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=416044","title":{"rendered":"Remember when they told you climate change was causing a \u2018mass extinction\u2019? Never mind!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Anthony Watts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the University of Arizona<\/a> and the \u201cEmily Litella er, Greta Thunberg School of Climate Attribution<\/a>\u201d comes this breath of fresh air. BTW, Willis was right<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extinction rates have slowed across many plant and animal groups, study shows<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prominent research studies have suggested that our planet is currently experiencing another mass extinction, based on extrapolating extinctions from the past 500 years into the future and the idea that extinction rates are rapidly accelerating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new study by Kristen Saban and John Wiens with the University of Arizona Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology<\/a>, however, revealed that over the last 500 years extinctions in plants, arthropods and land vertebrates peaked about 100 years ago and have declined since then. Furthermore, the researchers found that the past extinctions underlying these forecasts were mostly caused by invasive species on islands and are not the most important current threat, which is the destruction of natural habitats.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paper argues that claims of a current mass extinction may rest on shaky assumptions when projecting data from past extinctions into the future, ignoring differences in factors driving extinctions in the past, the present and the future. Published<\/a> in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, the paper is the first study to analyze rates, patterns and causes of recent extinctions across plant and animal species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For their study, Saban and Wiens analyzed rates and patterns of recent extinctions, specifically across 912 species of plants and animals that went extinct over the past 500 years. All in all, data from almost 2 million species were included in the analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe discovered that the causes of those recent extinctions were very different from the threats species are currently facing,\u201d said Wiens, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. \u201cThis makes it problematic to extrapolate these past extinction patterns into the future, because the drivers are rapidly changing, particularly with respect to habitat loss and climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Saban and Wiens, the most direct information on species losses comes from recent extinctions over the past five centuries. However, studies extrapolating these patterns into the future generally assume that recent extinctions predict current extinction risk and are homogeneous among groups, over time and among environments, the authors argue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo our surprise, past extinctions are weak and unreliable predictors of the current risk that any given group of animals or plants is facing,\u201d said lead author Saban, who recently graduated from the U of A and is currently a doctoral student at Harvard University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extinction rates varied strongly among groups, and extinctions were most frequent among mollusks, such as snails and mussels, and vertebrates, but relatively rare among plants and arthropods. Most extinctions were of species that were confined to isolated islands, like the Hawaiian Islands. On continents, most extinctions were in freshwater habitats. Island extinctions were most frequently related to invasive species, but habitat loss was the most important cause (and current threat) in continental regions. Many species appeared to go extinct on islands because of predators and competitors brought by humans, such as rats, pigs and goats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somewhat unexpectedly, the researchers found that in the last 200 years, there was no evidence for increasing extinction from climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat does not mean that climate change is not a threat,\u201d Wiens said. \u201cIt just means that past extinctions do not reflect current and future threats.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authors also considered threat levels \u2013 for example \u201cthreatened,\u201d \u201cendangered\u201d or \u201cleast concern,\u201d  \u2013 for 163,000 species as assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe current threat level provides probably our best hint of what is currently happening and might happen in the near future,\u201d Wiens said. \u201cWe found the patterns of today\u2019s threats to be different from those of past extinctions. For example, most extinct species are mollusks and vertebrates on islands that were driven extinct by invasive species, but most threatened species today are mainland species facing habitat destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saban said she doesn\u2019t want the study \u201cto be taken as giving people a carte blanche\u201d to suggest that human activity does not present a significant and urgent threat to many species. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBiodiversity loss is a huge problem right now, and I think we have not yet seen the kinds of effects that it might have,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it\u2019s important that we talk about it with accuracy, that our science is rigorous in how we\u2019re able to detail these losses and prevent future ones.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contrary to many studies, the rates at which species are going extinct are not rapidly accelerating, the study found. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe show that extinction rates are not getting faster towards the present, as many people claim, but instead peaked many decades ago,\u201d Wiens said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For some groups, such as arthropods and plants and land vertebrates, extinction rates have actually declined over the last 100 years, notably since the early 1900s, he added. One of the reasons for declining extinction rates \u201cis many people are working hard to keep species from going extinct. And we have evidence from other studies that investing money in conservation actually works.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Saban, the study was born out of a motivation to take a step back from doomsday scenarios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re saying that what is happening right now is like an asteroid hitting Earth, then the problem becomes insurmountable,\u201d she said. \u201cBy looking at the data in this way, we hope that our study helps inform our overall understanding of biodiversity loss and how we can come up with better ways to address it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the\u00a0University of Arizona\u00a0and the \u201cEmily Litella er,\u00a0Greta Thunberg School of Climate Attribution\u201d comes this breath of fresh air. BTW, Willis\u00a0was right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":416047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9jbGltYXRlLXNjaWVuY2UucHJlc3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMjVcLzEyXC8wQVFOREpUT0VraXVPR3JNczczS2Rqc1o3QjNBWTkySEhzUWFXY2RQZzI2NllXSzFSWDNLaU0tdWROMHFmWndtd1Z3NzYxdDJzUTczR0FKMzVQa3RLclp0eGNNMjVsZHRYZUl2UlFPR2RYN0dNWW02cXNoQ25CRU1WaFozYUFyeGQtMS5qcGVnP2ZpdD03MjMlMkM1NTEmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJSZW1lbWJlciB3aGVuIHRoZXkgdG9sZCB5b3UgY2xpbWF0ZSBjaGFuZ2Ugd2FzIGNhdXNpbmcgYSBcdTIwMThtYXNzIGV4dGluY3Rpb25cdTIwMTk_IE5ldmVyIG1pbmQhIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE1NTgxMjQ0OX0.grvzP-h4x9Q5pwO-j8UK46obvERlEFp3g4FTMaDP8bsMQ"},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818056,691819743,691840001,691825292,691840000],"class_list":{"0":"post-416044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-climate-propaganda","10":"tag-extinction-rates","11":"tag-mass-extinction","12":"tag-plant-and-animal-species","14":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0AQNDJTOEkiuOGrMs73KdjsZ7B3AY92HHsQaWcdPg266YWK1RX3KiM-udN0qfZwmwVw761t2sQ73GAJ35PktKrZtxcM25ldtXeIvRQOGdX7GMYm6qshCnBEMVhZ3aArxd-1.jpeg?fit=1224%2C934&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1Keo","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":418519,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=418519","url_meta":{"origin":416044,"position":0},"title":"All 30 Extinction Rebellion Members Stage Mass Climate Protest in London","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"24\/12\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"OK maybe they have more than 30 members. 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