Latest news with #massExtinction
ABC News
6 days ago
- General
- ABC News
NT elders fear Aboriginal languages are being lost, as communities band together to help save them
Three years ago, the United Nations issued a dire warning: Australia was one of dozens of countries facing a mass extinction event. But it wasn't flora or fauna that was at risk of being lost — it was languages. A previous UN forum had found 40 per cent of the estimated 6,700 languages around the world were in danger of disappearing — most of them Indigenous. In the three years since, dozens of Australian Indigenous communities have fought back against that decline, working with archives and the knowledge of elders to revitalise their native languages. In northern Australia, the effort last month brought together more than 50 Indigenous leaders from over 30 languages groups for a forum on protecting languages. The leaders developed a list of recommendations across a broad range of areas, including education and employment, to be finalised and presented to stakeholders in late August. For Rarrtjiwuy Herdman — one of the organisers of the Top End Langauges Forum — language preservation has been a lifelong passion. She has been working to keep her native language of Dhaŋu alive, a Yolŋu language from north-east Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. Ms Herdman said time was running out for some languages, with the passing of more Aboriginal clan elders in recent years. "I've sadly only recently lost another family member, a speaker of Dhaŋu, a mentor and a father to me," she said. The Yolŋu woman said in order to keep clan languages alive, they needed to be spoken at work, in the community and in schools. "There's an assumption that all of our languages are equally being support[ed] across the Top End area," Ms Herdman said. "Some of our languages are being supported in schools [and] in community … but a few of our languages are actually endangered." While Ms Herdman is worried about languages becoming "extinct", she is also afraid the younger generation is becoming lost without their language. "The sense of responsibility to continue our languages is something that our elders and leaders are worried about, and particularly for our clan languages," she said. In 2022, the United Nations launched the International Decade of Languages global action plan, in response to the thousands of international Indigenous languages it said were disappearing at "alarming rates". At the time, a research paper led by the Australian National University found Australia had one of the worst records in the world for language loss. According to a 2019 survey by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), out of 250 Indigenous Australian languages that were active prior to colonisation, only 12 were still being actively acquired by children. The report also showed that more than half of Indigenous Australian languages still in use were only being spoken by elders. Three years on from the launch of the global action plan, AIATSIS Centre for Australian Languages director Lauren Reed said Australia was in a better position. She said the Australian government had since "seen the real need to turn the tide on language loss" and set up a national policy partnership to address the issue. "There are signs of hope that have been growing since the beginning of [2022]," she said. Ms Reed said many Indigenous language speakers needed to feel their language was "relevant" to the Western world, including seeing it used in mainstream and social media. She said she liked to think of out-of-use languages as "sleeping" rather than "extinct". Renfred Manmurulu, a speaker at the forum, presented about his South Goulburn Island language, Mawng. Mr Manmurulu said in many traditional practices, such as Mawng songlines, culture was inseparable from language. "It's a window of who you are and where you're from," he said. Mr Manmurulu said he had noticed many in the younger generations choosing to speak the "dominant" Indigenous language dialect of their region over other, "endangered" dialects spoken in smaller communities. "If you don't use the language — if you, say, use the universal language English more often than your own language — well then, that's the ending of the language," he said. He said he hoped young people could come up with new ways of using technology to make their dialects more widespread.
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
The ‘Great Dying' wiped out 90% of life, then came 5 million years of lethal heat. New fossils explain why
Around 252 million years ago, life on Earth suffered its most catastrophic blow to date: a mass extinction event known as the 'Great Dying' that wiped out around 90% of life. What followed has long puzzled scientists. The planet became lethally hot and remained so for 5 million years. A team of international researchers say they have now figured out why using a vast trove of fossils — and it all revolves around tropical forests. Their findings, published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications, may help solve a mystery, but they also spell out a dire warning for the future as humans continue to heat up the planet by burning fossil fuels. The Great Dying was the worst of the five mass extinction events that have punctuated Earth's history, and it marked the end of the Permian geological period. It has been attributed to a period of volcanic activity in a region known as the Siberian Traps, which released huge amounts of carbon and other planet-heating gases into the atmosphere, causing intense global warming. Enormous numbers of marine and land-based plants and animals died, ecosystems collapsed and oceans acidified. What has been less clear, however, is why it got so hot and why 'super greenhouse' conditions persisted for so long, even after volcanic activity ceased. 'The level of warming is far beyond any other event,' said Zhen Xu, a study author and a research fellow at the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds. Some theories revolve around the ocean and the idea that extreme heat wiped out carbon-absorbing plankton, or changed the ocean's chemical composition to make it less effective at storing carbon. But scientists from the University of Leeds in England and the China University of Geosciences thought the answer may lie in a climate tipping point: the collapse of tropical forests. The Great Dying extinction event is unique 'because it's the only one in which the plants all die off,' said Benjamin Mills, a study author and a professor of Earth system evolution at the University of Leeds. To test the theory, they used an archive of fossil data in China that has been put together over decades by three generations of Chinese geologists. They analyzed the fossils and rock formations to get clues about climate conditions in the past, allowing them to reconstruct maps of plants and trees living on each part of the planet before, during and after the extinction event. 'Nobody's ever made maps like these before,' Mills told CNN. The results confirmed their hypothesis, showing that the loss of vegetation during the mass extinction event significantly reduced the planet's ability to store carbon, meaning very high levels remained in the atmosphere. Forests are a vital climate buffer as they suck up and store planet-heating carbon. They also play a crucial role in 'silicate weathering,' a chemical process involving rocks and rainwater — a key way of removing carbon from the atmosphere. Tree and plant roots help this process by breaking up rock and allowing fresh water and air to reach it. Once the forests die, 'you're changing the carbon cycle,' Mills said, referring to the way carbon moves around the Earth, between the atmosphere, land, oceans and living organisms. Michael Benton, a professor of paleontology at the University of Bristol, who was not involved in the study, said the research shows 'the absence of forests really impacts the regular oxygen-carbon cycles and suppresses carbon burial and so high levels of CO2 remain in the atmosphere over prolonged periods,' he told CNN. It highlights 'a threshold effect,' he added, where the loss of forests becomes 'irreversible on ecological time scales.' Global politics currently revolve around the idea that if carbon dioxide levels can be controlled, damage can be reversed. 'But at the threshold, it then becomes hard for life to recover,' Benton said. This is a key takeaway from the study, Mills said. It shows what might happen if rapid global warming causes the planet's rainforests to collapse in the future — a tipping point scientists are very concerned about. Even if humans stop pumping out planet-heating pollution altogether, the Earth may not cool. In fact, warming could accelerate, he said. There is a sliver of hope: The rainforests that currently carpet the tropics may be more resilient to high temperatures than those that existed before the Great Dying. This is the question the scientists are tackling next. This study is still a warning, Mills said. 'There is a tipping point there. If you warm tropical forests too much, then we have a very good record of what happens. And it's extremely bad.'
CNN
02-07-2025
- Science
- CNN
The ‘Great Dying' wiped out 90% of life, then came 5 million years of lethal heat. New fossils explain why
Around 252 million years ago, life on Earth suffered its most catastrophic blow to date: a mass extinction event known as the 'Great Dying' that wiped out around 90% of life. What followed has long puzzled scientists. The planet became lethally hot and remained so for 5 million years. A team of international researchers say they have now figured out why using a vast trove of fossils — and it all revolves around tropical forests. Their findings, published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications, may help solve a mystery, but they also spell out a dire warning for the future as humans continue to heat up the planet by burning fossil fuels. The Great Dying was the worst of the five mass extinction events that have punctuated Earth's history, and it marked the end of the Permian geological period. It has been attributed to a period of volcanic activity in a region known as the Siberian Traps, which released huge amounts of carbon and other planet-heating gases into the atmosphere, causing intense global warming. Enormous numbers of marine and land-based plants and animals died, ecosystems collapsed and oceans acidified. What has been less clear, however, is why it got so hot and why 'super greenhouse' conditions persisted for so long, even after volcanic activity ceased. 'The level of warming is far beyond any other event,' said Zhen Xu, a study author and a research fellow at the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds. Some theories revolve around the ocean and the idea that extreme heat wiped out carbon-absorbing plankton, or changed the ocean's chemical composition to make it less effective at storing carbon. But scientists from the University of Leeds in England and the China University of Geosciences thought the answer may lie in a climate tipping point: the collapse of tropical forests. The Great Dying extinction event is unique 'because it's the only one in which the plants all die off,' said Benjamin Mills, a study author and a professor of Earth system evolution at the University of Leeds. To test the theory, they used an archive of fossil data in China that has been put together over decades by three generations of Chinese geologists. They analyzed the fossils and rock formations to get clues about climate conditions in the past, allowing them to reconstruct maps of plants and trees living on each part of the planet before, during and after the extinction event. 'Nobody's ever done that before,' Mills told CNN. The results confirmed their hypothesis, showing that the loss of vegetation during the mass extinction event significantly reduced the planet's ability to store carbon, meaning very high levels remained in the atmosphere. Forests are a vital climate buffer as they suck up and store planet-heating carbon. They also play a crucial role in 'silicate weathering,' a chemical process involving rocks and rainwater — a key way of removing carbon from the atmosphere. Tree and plant roots help this process by breaking up rock and allowing fresh water and air to reach it. Once the forests die, 'you're changing the carbon cycle,' Mills said, referring to the way carbon moves around the Earth, between the atmosphere, land, oceans and living organisms. Michael Benton, a professor of paleontology at the University of Bristol, who was not involved in the study, said the research shows 'the absence of forests really impacts the regular oxygen-carbon cycles and suppresses carbon burial and so high levels of CO2 remain in the atmosphere over prolonged periods,' he told CNN. It highlights 'a threshold effect,' he added, where the loss of forests becomes 'irreversible on ecological time scales.' Global politics currently revolve around the idea that if carbon dioxide levels can be controlled, damage can be reversed. 'But at the threshold, it then becomes hard for life to recover,' Benton said. This is a key takeaway from the study, Mills said. It shows what might happen if rapid global warming causes the planet's rainforests to collapse in the future — a tipping point scientists are very concerned about. Even if humans stop pumping out planet-heating pollution altogether, the Earth may not cool. In fact, warming could accelerate, he said. There is a sliver of hope: The rainforests that currently carpet the tropics may be more resilient to high temperatures than those that existed before the Great Dying. This is the question the scientists are tackling next. This study is still a warning, Mills said. 'There is a tipping point there. If you warm tropical forests too much, then we have a very good record of what happens. And it's extremely bad.'
CNN
02-07-2025
- Science
- CNN
The ‘Great Dying' wiped out 90% of life, then came 5 million years of lethal heat. New fossils explain why
Ancient creaturesFacebookTweetLink Follow Around 252 million years ago, life on Earth suffered its most catastrophic blow to date: a mass extinction event known as the 'Great Dying' that wiped out around 90% of life. What followed has long puzzled scientists. The planet became lethally hot and remained so for 5 million years. A team of international researchers say they have now figured out why using a vast trove of fossils — and it all revolves around tropical forests. Their findings, published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications, may help solve a mystery, but they also spell out a dire warning for the future as humans continue to heat up the planet by burning fossil fuels. The Great Dying was the worst of the five mass extinction events that have punctuated Earth's history, and it marked the end of the Permian geological period. It has been attributed to a period of volcanic activity in a region known as the Siberian Traps, which released huge amounts of carbon and other planet-heating gases into the atmosphere, causing intense global warming. Enormous numbers of marine and land-based plants and animals died, ecosystems collapsed and oceans acidified. What has been less clear, however, is why it got so hot and why 'super greenhouse' conditions persisted for so long, even after volcanic activity ceased. 'The level of warming is far beyond any other event,' said Zhen Xu, a study author and a research fellow at the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds. Some theories revolve around the ocean and the idea that extreme heat wiped out carbon-absorbing plankton, or changed the ocean's chemical composition to make it less effective at storing carbon. But scientists from the University of Leeds in England and the China University of Geosciences thought the answer may lie in a climate tipping point: the collapse of tropical forests. The Great Dying extinction event is unique 'because it's the only one in which the plants all die off,' said Benjamin Mills, a study author and a professor of Earth system evolution at the University of Leeds. To test the theory, they used an archive of fossil data in China that has been put together over decades by three generations of Chinese geologists. They analyzed the fossils and rock formations to get clues about climate conditions in the past, allowing them to reconstruct maps of plants and trees living on each part of the planet before, during and after the extinction event. 'Nobody's ever done that before,' Mills told CNN. The results confirmed their hypothesis, showing that the loss of vegetation during the mass extinction event significantly reduced the planet's ability to store carbon, meaning very high levels remained in the atmosphere. Forests are a vital climate buffer as they suck up and store planet-heating carbon. They also play a crucial role in 'silicate weathering,' a chemical process involving rocks and rainwater — a key way of removing carbon from the atmosphere. Tree and plant roots help this process by breaking up rock and allowing fresh water and air to reach it. Once the forests die, 'you're changing the carbon cycle,' Mills said, referring to the way carbon moves around the Earth, between the atmosphere, land, oceans and living organisms. Michael Benton, a professor of paleontology at the University of Bristol, who was not involved in the study, said the research shows 'the absence of forests really impacts the regular oxygen-carbon cycles and suppresses carbon burial and so high levels of CO2 remain in the atmosphere over prolonged periods,' he told CNN. It highlights 'a threshold effect,' he added, where the loss of forests becomes 'irreversible on ecological time scales.' Global politics currently revolve around the idea that if carbon dioxide levels can be controlled, damage can be reversed. 'But at the threshold, it then becomes hard for life to recover,' Benton said. This is a key takeaway from the study, Mills said. It shows what might happen if rapid global warming causes the planet's rainforests to collapse in the future — a tipping point scientists are very concerned about. Even if humans stop pumping out planet-heating pollution altogether, the Earth may not cool. In fact, warming could accelerate, he said. There is a sliver of hope: The rainforests that currently carpet the tropics may be more resilient to high temperatures than those that existed before the Great Dying. This is the question the scientists are tackling next. This study is still a warning, Mills said. 'There is a tipping point there. If you warm tropical forests too much, then we have a very good record of what happens. And it's extremely bad.'
