For years, countless scientists have vocalized that climate change will destroy our planet. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, global warming will eventually make Earth completely uninhabitable due to extreme weather patterns, an inability to produce food, and an impaired atmosphere.

However, a recent study by Stanford University discovered that the threat of a dead planet is coming much faster than people assumed. The Stanford scientists reported in January that civilization will end in no more than a few decades.

Two Stanford scientists appeared on the Columbia Broadcasting System’s (CBS) show 60 Minutes on Jan. 1. They covered the global mass extinction crisis, which describes a decrease in the world’s biodiversity due to climate change and human activity.

Biologist Paul Ehrlich, the President of Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology, was one scientist on the television program. Ehrlich talked about how human activity fuels climate change when we emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The gases then trap heat from the sun in Earth’s atmosphere. This results in global warming, which destroys ecosystems around the world. Due to this, Ehrlich believes that humans are accelerating biodiversity’s extinction which will result in a crumbling society.

“Humanity is not sustainable. To maintain our lifestyles… for the entire planet, you’d need five more Earths. Not clear where they’re going to come from. [In terms of] the resources that would be required, the systems that support our lives, the biodiversity that we’re wiping out—humanity is, very busily, sitting on a limb that we’re sawing off. I was alarmed. I am still alarmed. All of my colleagues are alarmed,” Ehrlich said.

In addition to Ehrlich, Stanford biologist Anthony Barnosky also had thoughts about humanity contributing to a loss of ecosystem diversity. Barnosky told CBS that current extinction rates are going 100 times faster than rates in Earth’s four-billion-year history. He added that while Earth typically survives mass extinction occurrences, the life on the planet gets wiped out.

“The data is rock solid. I don't think you'll find a scientist that will say we're not in an extinction crisis. There are five times in Earth's history where we had mass extinctions. Now we're witnessing what a lot of people are calling the sixth mass extinction where the same thing could happen on our watch. I would say it is too much to say that we're killing the planet, because the planet's going to be fine. What we're doing is we're killing our way of life,” Barnosky said.

While the scientists mainly talked about the risk of global mass extinction, they also talked about ways to prevent this crisis. The Stanford scientists understand that humans consume too many resources to meet necessary sustainability goals and reverse climate change. So, they recommend that we start utilizing more sustainable resources such as renewable energy and compostable paper. 

Ultimately, the scientists warned that civilization will collapse unless we combat climate change and preserve our environment’s biodiversity. They recommended taking action to be more sustainable and conscious of our human activity in order to prevent a future global mass extinction. Otherwise, Ehrlich and Barnosky are certain that society will be wiped off the face of the Earth in the next few decades.

Biologist Paul Ehrlich on 60 Minutes. Photo courtesy of CBS.