Nats final exam

Human Impact on the Environment ● There are many ways to measure human impact on the environment, the reduction of green space, the amount of pollution, the extinction of species ● Species extinction is a rough measure at best, without details it is not possible to know if an extinction is due to our activities or something else environmental ● In the case of recent extinctions, it is often easier to find the proximate causes of extinction, the removal of habitat, the introduction of predators, etc. ○ Often connected with human activity ○ Difficult to pinpoint cause ■ Disease, climate ■ Easier to determine with recently extinct species -- lots of data ● In the case of ancient extinctions, there can only be assumptions based on evidence ● Still, the evidence for extinction, even if the causes are uncertain, is quite strong ○ Can be esoteric ○ Big picture/trend -- can recreate ○ Inroad to determining causality