Rise of the Extinction Deniers

This Scientific American article discusses the rise of the Extinction Deniers. Just like climate deniers, they’re out to obfuscate and debase the scientists and conservationists trying to save the world—and maybe get rid of a few pesky species in the process.

Extinction’s not a problem, right?

That’s actually a point made quite a bit lately by a group of “extinction deniers”—people who use the relatively low number of confirmed extinctions to say there’s no such thing as an extinction crisis. These industry shills came out of the woodwork in the wake of the recent Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services report that predicts the world faces up to one million extinctions in the coming decades due to human activity.

We saw this misinformation most strongly on May 22 during testimony about the IPBES report for the House Committee on Natural Resources, when two “experts” invited to speak by Republican members of the committee spread messages of extinction denial.

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