One million species face extinction, U.N. panel says. And humans will suffer as a result

Up to 1 million plant and animal species are on the verge of extinction, with devastating implications for human survival, according to a United Nations report released Monday.

Moe Flannery of the California Academy of Sciences inspected
a dead grey whale in Tiburon, Calif., last month – one of seven
whales that have washed up on the shores of the San Francisco
Bay and along the coast in recent weeks. 

The report’s findings underscore the conclusions of numerous scientific studies that say human activity is wreaking havoc on the wild kingdom, threatening the existence of everything from giant whales to small flowers and insects that are almost impossible to see with the naked eye.

But the global report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services goes a step further than previous studies by linking the loss of species to humans and analyzing its effect on food and water security, farming and economies.

Read the story from The Washington Post by Darryl Fears - “One million species face extinction, U.N. panel says. And humans will suffer as a result.”