How Have Humans Taken The Biosphere For Granted?

For over millions and millions of years, evolution has shaped the society we reside in today. From the oxygen we breathe in, to the plants that grow from the ground, this is all evolution in front of the naked eye going unnoticed, but to what extent have we humans taken the biosphere for granted? Within the past 500 years, humans alone had caused the extinction of approximately 1000 species, but this was not by hunting the organisms (IUCN, 2009). Since the burning of fossil fuels about 200 years ago, scientists had recorded that the carbon dioxide levels within the earth’s atmosphere has risen at an alarming rate, a rate at which species all around the planet are suffering from. If environmental factors change in an ecosystem, then the species will begin to extinct because the

Yes. Over the past 70 years, scientists have recorded data about the global temperature rising by approximately 1.08 degrees Fahrenheit, not specific to certain regions of the biosphere such as the poles (The Gale Encyclopedia of Science, 2014). With the temperature of the earth rising every year in different parts of the biosphere, some scientists are predicting that over the next 50 years to come, many extant species will be driven to extinction because a large majority of the organisms within the ecosystem will not be able to survive and adapt to the changing climate (Nature, 2004). A great portion of life on earth depends on fruits and vegetables for nutrition, especially herbivores, which rely on plants for their daily food. The changing climate of the biosphere is having a slow but a great risk upon the planet’s “life-givers”. The plants are not able to sustain the immense heat wavelengths from the sun, which results in decreasing plants, and if there are fewer plants to consume, then organisms that rely on them for their daily bread suffer the fear of extinction (Environmental Health Perspectives,