Extinctions

Previous episodes of mass extinctions were driven by natural disasters such as asteroids, but this one is driven by humans.

Invasive species are capable of causing extinctions of native plants and animals, reducing biodiversity, competing with native organisms for limited resources, and altering habitats. This can result in huge economic impacts and fundamental disruptions of coastal and Great Lakes ecosystems.

Asteroids over ten kilometers wide could cause dinosaur-level mass extinctions and would be bad for the stock market.

The global temperature then increased about five degrees Celsius, causing profound changes in the planet’s ecology, including mass extinctions.

It is during this period that Earth suffered one of the largest mass extinctions in history, losing 50 percent of its animal families, 95 percent of all marine species, many species of trees, and the trilobites.