Earth currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction, according to scientists | 60 Minutes 

We treat the earth as if we had somewhere else to go.

I think it would be foolish of us to always presume that we could always just create another world after trashing the one we started out with.

_"If earth dies, humans die"_ _"If humans die, the earth survives"_

The earth isn't in any trouble we are. The earth will heal and be better than it is now.

I work in the USA in the restaurant business, 99% of all restaurant recyclables go right in the landfill, along with 50% of the food served. This is not sustainable. Wildlife has zero chance with humans gobbling everything up daily. It's sad to see a child drink water out of a plastic cup that gets thrown away 5 min later.

"1,500 private jets have flown in here to hear David Attenborough speak about how we're wrecking the planet." ~Rutger Bregman at Davos.

We used to protest against the big companies doing damage to the earth, now a majority of the people don’t care either, they trash, graffiti, destroy everything that is beautiful. It’s heartbreaking, “You never know what you’ve lost, till its gone”

i feel like crying. when we realized we f’d up, it will be too late 😢

He's so right - Earth is going to be just fine for billions of years; it is ourselves that we are endangering.

No wonder so many good hearted people are depressed

Pretty much comes down to our way of life in the last hundred years kills everything around it. Cars, plastics, light, noise and it’s always expanding

"So long, and thanks for all the fish."

All I can say is, if we leave it up to the politicians, we're doomed.

Growing up in the Northwest Georgia area in the 1960s, our home had many shade trees surrounding it: oak, walnut, cedar, and hickory. One thing that remained a constant in our day to day life was the many varied bird species whose songs we heard from sunrise to sunset. After my retirement I recently moved back home to help care for our elderly mother. The trees were still there, but the birds and their beautiful songs were almost nonexistent; greatly diminished. I listened over the summer nights for the chirping of the crickets I so vividly remembered from my youth. In both instances, the silence has been deafening.

Damn made a big mistake being born in the 2000's and not the fifties

Another truth is: we have a LOT of degraded land in Nevada, California, Texas, New Mexico, etc. We need to start ACTIVE re-greening campaigns to replenish our dwindling water reserves, protect wildlife, and our future food supplies. Industrial farming is no longer the solution

Just like the story the old man tells in the film, Apocalypto… And a Man sat alone, drenched deep in sadness. And all the animals drew near to him and said, "We do not like to see you so sad. Ask us for whatever you wish and you shall have it." The Man said, "I want to have good sight." The vulture replied, "You shall have mine." The Man said, "I want to be strong." The jaguar said, "You shall be strong like me." Then the Man said, "I long to know the secrets of the earth." The serpent replied, "I will show them to you." And so it went with all the animals. And when the Man had all the gifts that they could give, he left. Then the owl said to the other animals, "Now the Man knows much, he'll be able to do many things. Suddenly I am afraid." The deer said, "The Man has all that he needs. Now his sadness will stop." But the owl replied, "No. I saw a hole in the Man, deep like a hunger he will never fill. It is what makes him sad and what makes him want. He will go on taking and taking, until one day the World will say, 'I am no more and I have nothing left to give.'"

This was an excellent segment

When was the original air date of this story??? And why isn't it mentioned in the video or the synopsis?

Well this was a big eye opener to me. What they are saying makes sense. Thank you 60 minutes for broadcasting this. 😢

Nearly everyone who watches this will go on consuming and procreating just as they always have. Nearly all of them hope that others will make the sacrifices to save humanity. And they know that equation won't work. It is a good time to be old.

As a child of the 80s, I've had memories of hundreds of caterpillars in our yard, butterflies and bees that could be seen daily in the summer and the sun was a nice warm gentle orange color. Now I hardly see any of the insects of my youth and the sun is almost white and burns skin much more easily. Something is very wrong.

Please list places to donate to save forests, species, jungles

glad someone is finally addressing this!

Where I grew up near Heidelberg, Germany, you were not allowed to swim in the river due to chemical pollution and many birds and mammals were nearly extinct, due to overuse of soil and too much chemical furtilizer. It is much better now due to several things : the farmers were forced by law to leave half a meter of soil as a fringe around their fields, plant hedges and trees as windbreaks and strongly reduce the nitrogen content and weed and insect sprays. The result is that wildflowers, bees, many old plants came back, as well as pheasants, storks and many birds like the green woodpecker and some we thought extrinct. The farmers, one was a classmate, were pleasantly surprised that the soil quality got much better due to changes, simply by mixing cultures and the above. Just saying that there are things humans can do to reverse some of the damage.

When I was in elementary, our school playground used to be full of bees, butterflies, and other insects during recess and we all used to play with the butterflies as kids. By middle school, they were all gone. The playground was just empty grass.

"Pollution" as in, "Run-off waste from industrial copper mines in Alaskan small waterways", that is what happened to the salmon. The copper dust affects their neural systems.

I used to see and hear bumblebees in my yard every spring without fail. The past several years, I haven't seen any. It's scary how rapid the decline is occuring

"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.....They took all the trees and put 'em in a tree museum And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them." - Joni Mitchell

The seals were just chilling the other day in the Sacramento river munching on fish all day having a good ole time😂

All the bugs on your windshield are gone. Anyone notice? What are the birds supposed to eat? Much less birds as well.

I live in southern Minnesota and it’s all corn and soy fields. I go for walks and I feel sad bc nothing feels wild. It’s so hard to find. It’s like living in a simulation.

Animals all came out of hiding when everyone was in COVID lockdown. Deer, fox, coyote, turkeys, bald eagles, hawks, and pheasant were all in our suburban area. They were rarely seen before or after.

It was Ed Wilson who first theorized this many decades ago in Diversity of Life. Great book, and hopefuly 60 minutes gives him credit.

Still clearly remember those days in 80s 90s, listen to insects singing while falling asleep, mantis lay eggs on window frame and next year you have hundreds of little ones...

Watching this and realizing it doesn't matter how bad it is we will never change our ways is a level of disgusting I can't measure.

"Growth Mania" is such a perfect way to put it. I've worked for corporations who literally expect double market growth YOY for ever. It's absolutely insane and not even possible.

It's so frustrating that people are not responding in a strong enough way to the threats we are facing with our rapidly warming planet. Instead, people are harping on the border, hairstyles and closing drag shows, as if those things are so much more dire. From what I've seen, reacting to the warming climate is about 100 years too late, anyway.

Truly sad . We need to work together now

"The planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas" -George Carlin

"Humanity is very busily sitting on a limb that we're sawing off." Good way of putting it!

People: Damn nature! You scary! Nature: you’re killing me 👀

I know you already know but *"There's indeed no planet B"* .

That dude is in absolute great shape for 90 years old

I remember as a kid in the 90s when our teacher would ask us to get few tadpoles to demonstrate the life cycle of a frog, it was such a easy task, just walk to puddle of stagnant water n dip our container to catch a few... now my child has the same task but we are unable to find any tadpoles anywhere 😢

This makes me feel like we need to have less kids though I saw a thing on that already happening. Somehow we need to fight for preserving the wildlife and reminding our kids of natures beauty. I visited Lake Mead (Nevada) a couple years ago and it broke my heart. This year I went to an island of Alaska (Ironically named Unalaska derived from the language of the natives) and it looked other worldly pulling into the harbor. It is bleak in some ways but beautiful. Raspberries everywhere and blueberries in higher elevations as well as bald eagles making their real beautiful calls. Half my guys said it was boring since there are like only a few stores and restaurants. But those who hiked loved it. We need to do what we can and actually open our eyes or these places will be gone.

The narrator (who does a good job) notes that "the World Wildlife Federation says that the abundance of wildlife in Latin America has fallen by 94% since the 1970s - but it is also in Latin America that we found the possibility of hope" (7:53-8:03). Hard to see how a 94% devastation can augur hope! At that amount of loss the ecosystem has already been changed forever, I would think.

I live in Jackson Hole Wy. Next to Yellowstone. The billionaires and multi millionaires have taken over this place. Once they get here, they start or join animal habitat protection “non profits”… then tell others how they can’t live there or close to them because of “animal habitat”. Meanwhile they build huge “rustic” structures and tear up the habitat to put in modern manicured landscaping. Tell the locals where they can and can’t hunt, even though hunters know the area and populations and how to control it and keep a healthy strong population. They also only hunt for food usually. No matter what, all the animal is harvested for food. They also have the biggest, most expensive SUVs and maybe have 1 child, 2 at the most.. that’s taken care of by a Mexican nanny. Some only stay at these huge estates 1 month of the year at most. Their monthly electric bill is more than most peoples rent, and that’s them not even living there full time. The waste and tremendous amount of wealth, arrogance , and all while pointing fingers at others is sickening to watch.

People tend to only show concern when major events or personal circumstances affect them. As humans, we often prioritize our own interests and fail to extend the same level of care and concern to others. This raises the question: why is it so hard to care for others? Perhaps it's because there's no monetary reward for doing so. However, if we want to make the world a better place, we need to start caring more. Though it may be challenging, it's important to start taking action now. After all, if we don't start now, when will we?

I have been fighting this war since 1968, I am now 70 years old. My heart breaks when I look back at what a beautiful place this planet was. Now I feel so sorry for the young people today and what they are going to experience. Young people get your face out of social media and use that time to save your future

I was 3 in 1970. Gen X has watched it happen. I remember standing on the banks of the Rogue River when I was 8 yo and I would see not only salmon but steelhead longer than I was tall. Now it's not like that. Hasnt been for years. Rarely see steelhead. Salmon not as plenty. 😢

😢 someone told me once, that the earth is like a giant dog and we (humans) are the fleas and every now and then that dog will shake off the fleas but there will always be a few that survive. We are at the cusp of a giant shake and hopefully people who are smart enough to feel the tremors are preparing.

It's not as if the scientists have been telling us this for the past 20 years. The world we were born into has passed into legend.

This is truly depressing… the worst part is most governments have made things so much harder, and could not care less about changing out planet for the better, that everything they do makes the world more distracted to what is REALLY important. Our way of life.. one person can’t change the world but all of us standing up will.

The easiest argument not brought up by this featured episode is the decline bee polinization. Which is vital for agriculture. No bioma for bees to thrive , no polinization. Thus famine takes place. Coursework in schools need to train pupils in understanding biology and echology, hidrology, nutrition. At the elementary level , or at least until high school.

I came to this video because last year 2023 in the month of June I had a dream of a man who appeared to me and told me that the scientist are saying that by the year 2025 we will have a decline of our society. After I woke up from this dream I freaked out. I wonder about it so much that I decided to look for information about it online. That’s why I’m here listening and watching these videos.

I have been a practical conservationist all my life. I have kept honey bees for nearly 30 years. They tell an interesting story. I have seen the destruction of habitat, the damage from unfettered use of pesticides, the over fishing by both native and commercial fishing operations to name a few issues over the many decades of my life. I'm also pragmatic. The earth has experienced 5 prior mass extinctions. I haven't heard anyone talk about the negative effects of those 5 events. After all, if they had not occurred we wouldn't even be here. We are only concerned about the one happening now. Why? Some will say because we need to protect the helpless species as though we were smart enough to do that which we have categorically demonstrated we are not. If we are honest, the real reason we are concerned about it is because it is a threat to US individually. The earth has recovered with a massive explosion of new life after each extinctions so we can't logically say that it is that we are concerned about wiping out life permanently. Time will resolve any problems we create and new life will flourish again just as it has every other time. So it's really all about us and our selfishness. The earth doesn't need our help. We need the earths help and we need to take care of it if we want to continue. In 600 years nobody is going to give a flip about you or what you did or didn't do. You won't even be remembered. In 60,000 years the earth will be rather different than what it is now regardless of what you do or we do as a species. In a million years our species, if we don't wipe ourselves out, will not be recognizable or bear any resemblance to what we are now. So lets be honest and admit that any concern we have is really about us. Maybe then we can quit blaming everyone else and look at our own lives and see how each of us make decisions every day that are the real source of the problem. How much water do I use? How much energy do I waste? What foods do I eat? What housing do I consume? What do I throw away that could be recycled? Why do I have to fly in a jet 3000 miles to find a place to have fun? If your answer is because everyone else does it and my contribution is too minor to count, then YOU are the problem.

I've lived in Washington all my life. Everyone is cutting down all the forested land for housing complexes and concrete. The only forest left is the National Park. I used to hear packs of coyotes, not anymore. I used to see dozens of deer, not anymore. My brother would fish salmon for us, and now they are sick. 100,000 people moved here just last year. Washington will not be Evergreen anymore. It kills to see. My family has lived here for 4 generations. We have never seen it this bad. The trees I grew up looking at, a beautiful treeline, is now completely mowed down. Now high winds affect our house. We live on a ridge, no trees, no shelter. I used to swim in the river.. until they started putting poop waste where we swim. Yellow bubbly foam in the water. The water smells like death.

I like how the major polluters won't sign anything and won't help at all.

We just lost a species of hand fish, which had a very limited geographic range, like in Australia

Everyone is afraid of the same thing, losing our place to live, but few of us are doing much about it. People having too many kids, people wanting new things all the time, multiples of the same thing. We are knowing this to ourself. Greed is the root of evil.

I've been living in the Ecuadorian Amazon for 6 years. When I arrived the sounds of frogs at night were amazing. 6 short years later, I might hear a frog or two. Some of the frogs were so unusual and loud, but I haven't heard them again in two years. They have completely dissapeared from the soundscape. Nobody here even notices the silence until you point it out to them.

3:51 Yep so let’s push for cars that requires six times more minerals. SOUND THE ALARM. LOL.

I can remember as a kid hearing the bullfrogs. Walking in the river and catching black Mullet by my hands Chinook salmon use to run up the river in the fall and when I went out in the boat into the backwaters fish would swirl everywhere go back to this place today it's quiet no-bull frog noises no more salmon no more black mullet no more fish swirling in the Backwater inlets we pay $25 for a fishing license and there's no stalking programs but lots of invasive species that robbed our native fish of their eggs they lay. zebra mussels that made the river so clear causing small fry to not make it even to a fingerling garbage all over in the rivers and these things are facts I didn't forget that all them things were there oh yeah I know things are changing for sure and not a lot of stuff is being done about it. Watching this happen my whole life is one of the saddest things for sure.

I've lived in my current home in the northeast US for around 50 years. In that time, I've seen 90% of bird species disappear, wildlife which used to be plentiful is now rarely seen, and although I grown plants which usually attract bees, few ever show up anymore. Half the trees have been cut down in the area because people don't want to deal with falling leaves and pine cones, and wetlands are slowly being destroyed (illegally). Small forests in the area have disappeared, and houses are being built in their place. There's no political will to face this kind of situation, and try to reverse it. People, in general, just don't care, or bury their heads in the sand, thinking that we will somehow magically survive the coming crises. I've been discussing population explosion for decades hoping that people will take it seriously, and what I've found out is that most people are too attached to gross consumerism without any thought to the inevitable consequences of their actions. At this point, I'm convinced that the only solution will be that nature will take care the problem, and we'll see more disease and famine, leading to another deadly world war... and that time may not be as far away as we think.

I have noticed there are not a lot of birds sitting on wires at traffic lights or squirrels running in the road.

1968 is when this guy said the earth would end in 2000 due to over population and polar ice caps melting.

It's crazy to think. Just in my 50 year lifetime, the population went from 3.5 to 8 billion people. Staggering. Especially considering after the plague in the 1300's, the estimated world population was only 500 million.

At 90 years old that man has a better cognitive than I do at 25 lol

We as human beings can at least try to figure out how to keep our planet safe and clean.

Imagine if all people would get along, No Wars, Pollution Control and helping each other the world would be a beautiful place. It’s sad seeing this. I do my best to fund and support animals

I remember as a kid there was so many “lightening bugs”. I haven’t seen them in over 15 years seriously. Edit: From Va if anyone is curious.

People only do something just before they see it’s too late. Then, it’s too late. But, we have all been WARNED so many many times 😮

As a fly fisherman I can tell you that the hatch is off. The hatch is off because the bloom of botanicals is off. This results in poor spawn of salmon. Leave the salmon alone for 25 years.

😢 I am no scientist but I have been noticing these changes since my adult life. Everything is starting to become harder and harder for survival.

It doesn’t help when science meets technology and knows no bounds. Oh and the amount of destruction caused by wars that are just another way to cut the people numbers.

This is also not the result of individual humans…The governments and corporations are the ones constantly building and paving things

If only human arrogance could become extinct.

"We're using 175% of our resources" That statistic should make it obvious to everyone we're over-consuming everything in our world

the biggest problem in the very near future is the 5 million square miles of methane hydrates that has been kept in the arctic ice for tens of thousands of years, once there is a large enough area that the ice warms enough to let it flow freely, something somewhere is going to ignite it, and then the fun begins, the whole arctic region will be consumed by a fire that burns at about 6,000 degrees. one third of the planet will become permanently uninhabitable in just a matter of about two years, the resulting change to the weather patterns will take hundreds of years to re establish themselves, it will be about 350 years before rain ever falls again, so the starvation of millions of people will be a common problem everywhere, and to think, we did this to ourselves.

I remember this article back in the 70's

It's the lack of pollinators like Bees that I find disturbing. It's sometimes the smallest things in nature with the biggest impacts!

I live in a rural area 30 miles north of Detroit on 5 acres of land. Most noticeable to me has been the rapid decline in numbers of birds, butterflies, and other flying insects in the past 2-3 years. On my cross state drives the past few years my windshield has been almost free of insects. Very sad to be passing this on to my grandchildren.

I blame it on the rich and corporations

it’s almost like this was predicted to happen, and the profit incentives and greed of the people in power prevented any action. humanity deserves this. the earth and its other billions of species sadly do not. it’s a shame something as spectacular as humans secured this as their fate.

Not sure we have a population problem but more of a problem with living in excess. We consume more than we need and this causes an increased strain on resources.

As long as companies and individuals remain incentivized to advantage themselves over others, humanity is certain to collapse.

This isn’t because of too many people. It’s because people insist on living in concrete cities out of sync and at odds with nature

3:51 Yep so let’s push for cars that requires six times more minerals

Over in asia, its getting hotter in singapore, as reported in the news just today. we used to average about 30c or 31c in the afternoon. now its probably 35 to 36c in the hottest month. note that with 80% humidity here, the heat often feels like it is 40c indoors without the fan.

I remember it too in my hometown in Texas growing up there used to be frogs in any dense vegetation I even remember it raining more often there were tons more crickets and insects spiders etc in general. Now I never see a random frog in a yard anymore and it seems the dominant insects I see are flies and mosquitoes. Others like dragon flies, butterflies, moths spiders etc are all declining right in my front yard. I'm only 36.

I was a skidder operator doing logging. When I was working grandfather pine trees was putting off better air cleaner it was nice. When I got on a track that was fast growing pine trees made in a lab to fast grow the air was different bad not nice. I don't think those lab trees are helping. They might have been made in a lab in china. People need to know it's hurting alot and they are planting alot more of them. Thank you for your time

growing up in south Florida taking marine biology in high school, we spoke and saw how the planet is starting to show how it’s feeling!!

No one told us the apocalypse would be so expensive 😭

I live here in New Zealand. It is essentially a massive island and growing up it was absolutely magical! Like everything was explored and surprising! The main thing that made me realise the rapid biodiversity decline was the lack of colours , especially in our rock pools at the beaches. They no longer look pretty and colourful, they are mostly green life now and not much life can be seen. The same is true when diving our reefs. I’m very sad that my kids and grandkids won’t get to see and feel this biodiversity brilliance 😢 It was truly breathtaking 🌏💚✨

Ah, the beauty of pride and greed at its finest.

Yet with all of your exhausted efforts, the earth, after an estimated 7.5 billion years without your help, somehow endures. Truly amazing

One thing that jumps out to me is how we used to see lots of bees where I live-honeybees, bumblebees and wasps. Now we dont see many bees, a lot of wasps but not as many as we used to and I cant remember the last time I've actually seen a bumblebee around here.

this is scary AF

Whatever issues exist, we don't have people in place who either care or have the aptitude to solve it.