Humans will go extinct if plant life not secured

Washington: The continued destruction of the plant life on Earth has put humans in jeopardy, a study says. According to researchers from University of Georgia, unless humans slow the destruction of Earth's declining supply of plant life, the civilization may become completely unsustainable.

Scientists estimate that the Earth contained approximately 1,000 billion tonnes of carbon in living biomass 2,000 years ago. Since that time, humans have reduced that amount by almost half. It is estimated that just over 10 per cent of that biomass was destroyed in just the last century.

The vast majority of losses come from deforestation, hastened by the advent of large-scale mechanised farming and the need to feed a rapidly growing population. As more biomass is destroyed, the planet has less stored energy, which it needs to maintain Earth's complex food webs and biogeochemical balances.

If human beings do not become extinct, and biomass drops below sustainable thresholds, the population will decline drastically. People will be forced to return to life as hunter-gatherers or simple horticulturalists, according to the paper.