With industrialized agriculture scientists ring the alarm bells when the earth enters the "sixth extinction period"

Due to industrialization and human economic activity that occurred over the past 100 years, the environment of the earth is considered to be in a process of extremely rapid change. In the history of the earth, five large organisms everMass extinctionThere has been an established theory that what happened is that there are scientists who sound a warning that the current human activity will continue as it is, the earth will face "the sixth mass extinction".

Industrial farming is driving the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth, says leading academic | The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/mass-extinction-life-on-earth-farming-industrial-agriculture-professor-raj-patel-a7914616.html

Professor Raj Patel of the University of Texas at Austin has a strong sense of crisis over the industrialization of agriculture that mankind is doing around the world. In industrialized agriculture, cultivation of grain such as oil palm and bean to collect oil is carried out by cutting construction jungle, carving forests, clearing up the forests. The big environmental change that occurs here is the loss of diversification. In the forest and the jungle there are plenty of plants and many creatures live in it. However, by completely removing all the plants, adding a large amount of agricultural chemicals and fertilizers to make soil where only specific crops grow efficiently, the diversity that the original forest had had was completely lost I will excuse you.

In order to ring alarm bells on modernized agriculture and livestock, an organization founded in 1967 by British farmers "Compassion in World Farming"and,World Nature Conservation Fund(WWF) held in London in October 2017 "Extinction and Livestock Conference"Is supposed to be held in the midst of this environment and life crisis.

There are various opinions, but the earth is now in a new geological age "Human being"Anthropocene (Anthropocene) is thought to be entering. This classification method divides the history of the earth by fossils to be excavated from the strata of each age, such as "Cretaceous" and "Mesozoic", and its classification is set for each major change of the earth.


Although the beginning of the Human New World does not have clear points, in one theory about 8000 years ago when mankind started agriculture, and in another theory, the beginning of the 18th century when the industrial revolution began is regarded as the beginning . Mr. Patel said, "Footprints that global agriculture has done for large-scale agriculture are very large, industrialization of agriculture clearly causes deforestation and leads to single varieties production, which means The point is that there is a loss of seeds ", pointed out that modern industrialization adversely affects the global environment.

Also, it is said that changes in the environment are occurring not only in the land but also in the ocean. In the Gulf of Mexico there is a zone called the "dead zone" where the oxygen concentration in the sea is extremely low and most living creatures can not live. This was not caused by any accident, it is believed that the fertilizer sprayed on agricultural land in the United States was washed away by rainwater, it reached the ocean by going down the Mississippi River, it turned into an environment where living things could not live It is said that there is. Mr. Patel tells us that these events "To realize industrialization, we have to put a burden on something else", and that the global environment is affected by the economic activities of humanity I point out.

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In the large-scale agriculture that is done in Brazil, we are remodeling the soil in the fields that cultivate the vast jungle and grow beans. As a result, it is said that there is a "green desert" that the environment where only the beans grow is built, the other plants are completely eliminated, and there are few animals living there. As Mr. Patel says "mass extinction means that diversity is lost", this land says that the rich ecosystem that had been lost is completely lost. And the beans produced there become livestock fertilizer, eventually being consumed by human beings is made. In many parts of the world, elephants and Jaguars are chased after living in order to raise oil palms, catching a large amount of small fish such as anchovy and processed into a feed for cultured fish. In addition, there are also survey results showing that the population of penguins living in South Africa has decreased more than 70% compared to 2004.


In this way, a tremendous change on the global scale is progressing without consciousness of people, but Mr. Patel asked what to do in order to stop this, "It is necessary to think on a large scale "I answer. Actually, we can not help but say that the influence of individuals on this problem is small, but thinking that society will change gradually as each one advances a change in consciousness, such as encouraging the government through elections It is important that it is important. Mr. Patel points out that the idea of ​​"I am fine as being a vegetarian" is incorrect. Although Mr. Patel himself is vegetarian, for example, even if you eat tofu, beans of that raw material may have come from Brazil, perhaps, it is difficult to completely deny that you are connected somewhere I will talk. Mr. Patel also alarms that people's economic activity, and thus capitalism itself, is about to cause environmental destruction and mass extinction of the earth.

Apparently this problem seems difficult to find an effective solution, Mr. Patel says, "Mankind needs to find a way of life not dependent on material wealth."