The Holocene extinction, otherwise referred to as the sixth mass extinction or Anthropocene extinction, is an ongoing extinction event of species during the present Holocene epoch as a result of human activity. The included extinctions span numerous families of bacteria, fungi, plants and animals, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates. With widespread degradation of highly biodiverse habitats such as coral reefs and rainforests, as well as other areas, the vast majority of these extinctions are thought to be undocumented, as the species are undiscovered at the time of their extinction, or no one has yet discovered their extinction. The current rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background extinction rates.
Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted and killed animals for meat since prehistoric times. Scientific evidence indicates that human ancestors began incorporating meat and marrow into their diets more than 2.6 million years ago. The Neolithic Revolution, also called the Agricultural Revolution, led to the domestication of animals such as chickens, sheep, rabbits, pigs, and cattle. This eventually led to their use in meat production on an industrial scale and the advent of slaughterhouses.
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of children (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" after a period of apparent absence.
Wildlife traditionally refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted for sport. Wildlife can be found in all ecosystems. Deserts, forests, rainforests, plains, grasslands, and other areas, including the most developed urban areas, all have distinct forms of wildlife. While the term in popular culture usually refers to animals that are untouched by human factors, most scientists agree that much wildlife is affected by human activities. Some wildlife threaten human safety, health, property, and quality of life. However, many wild animals, even the dangerous ones, have value to human beings. This value might be economic, educational, or emotional in nature.
Environmental degradation is the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as quality of air, water and soil; the destruction of ecosystems; habitat destruction; the extinction of wildlife; and pollution. It is defined as any change or disturbance to the environment perceived to be deleterious or undesirable.
A plant-based diet is a diet consisting mostly or entirely of plant-based foods. Plant-based diets encompass a wide range of dietary patterns that contain low amounts of animal products and high amounts of plant products such as vegetables, fruits, whole cereals, legumes, nuts and seeds. They do not need to be vegan or vegetarian but are defined in terms of low frequency of animal food consumption.
Human extinction is the hypothetical end of the human species due to either natural causes such as population decline due to sub-replacement fertility, an asteroid impact or large-scale volcanism, or anthropogenic (human) causes, also known as omnicide. For the latter, some of the many possible contributors include climate change, global nuclear annihilation, biological warfare and ecological collapse. Other scenarios center on emerging technologies, such as advanced artificial intelligence, biotechnology, or self-replicating nanobots. Scientists say there is relatively low risk of near term human extinction due to natural causes. The likelihood of human extinction through our own activities, however, is a current area of research and debate.
A national dish is a culinary dish that is strongly associated with a particular country. A dish can be considered a national dish for a variety of reasons:
The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal is a 1991 book by academic and popular science author Jared Diamond, in which the author explores concepts relating to the animal origins of human behavior. The book follows a series of articles published by Diamond, a physiologist, examining the evidence and its interpretation in earlier treatments of the related species, including cultural characteristics or features often regarded as particularly unique to humans. The book was released in the United Kingdom in 1991 by Radius under the title The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee: How Our Animal Heritage Affects the Way We Live and in the United States in 1992 by Harper Collins under the title The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal. In 2014, Diamond published an adapted version for young people with Seven Stories Press titled, The Third Chimpanzee for Young People.
Dog meat is the flesh and other edible parts derived from dogs. Historically, human consumption of dog meat has been recorded in many parts of the world. In the 21st century, dog meat is consumed in China, Nigeria, Switzerland, and Vietnam, and it is eaten or is legal to be eaten in other countries throughout the world. Some cultures view the consumption of dog meat as part of their traditional, ritualistic, or day-to-day cuisine, and other cultures consider consumption of dog meat a taboo, even where it had been consumed in the past. Opinions also vary drastically across different regions within different countries. It was estimated in 2014 that worldwide, 27 million dogs are eaten each year by humans.
Human overpopulation is the concept of a human population becoming too large to be sustained by its environment or resources in the long term. The idea is usually discussed in the context of world population, though it may also concern regions. Human population growth has increased in recent centuries due to medical advancements and improved agricultural productivity. Those concerned by this trend argue that it results in a level of resource consumption which exceeds the environment's carrying capacity, leading to population overshoot. The concept is often discussed in relation to other population concerns such as demographic push and depopulation, as well as in relation to resource depletion and the human impact on the environment.
Andrew Dalby, is an English linguist, translator and historian who has written articles and several books on a wide range of topics including food history, language, and Classical texts.
Betty Ellen Fussell is an American writer and is the author of 12 books, ranging from biography to cookbooks, food history and memoir. Over the last 50 years, her essays on food, travel and the arts have appeared in scholarly journals, popular magazines and newspapers as varied as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, Saveur, Vogue, Food & Wine, Metropolitan Home and Gastronomica. Her memoir, My Kitchen Wars, was performed in Hollywood and New York as a one-woman show by actress Dorothy Lyman. Her most recent book is Eat Live Love Die, and she is now working on How to Cook a Coyote: A Manual of Survival.
In culinary terminology, squab is a baby domestic pigeon, typically under four weeks old, or its meat. The meat is widely described as tasting like dark chicken. The term is probably of Scandinavian origin; the Swedish word skvabb means "loose, fat flesh". It formerly applied to all dove and pigeon species, such as the wood pigeon, the mourning dove, the extinct-in-the-wild socorro dove, and the now extinct passenger pigeon, and their meat. More recently, squab meat comes almost entirely from domesticated pigeons. The meat of dove and pigeon gamebirds hunted primarily for sport is rarely called squab.
In environmental science, the concept of overshoot means demand in excess of regeneration. It can apply to animal populations and people. Environmental science studies to what extent human populations through their resource consumption have risen above the sustainable use of resources. For people, "overshoot" is that portion of their demand or ecological footprint which must be eliminated to be sustainable. Excessive demand leading to overshoot is driven by both consumption and population.
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History is a 2014 non-fiction book written by Elizabeth Kolbert and published by Henry Holt and Company. The book argues that the Earth is in the midst of a modern, man-made, sixth extinction. In the book, Kolbert chronicles previous mass extinction events, and compares them to the accelerated, widespread extinctions during our present time. She also describes specific species extinguished by humans, as well as the ecologies surrounding prehistoric and near-present extinction events. The author received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for the book in 2015.
Darra Goldstein is an American author and food scholar who is the Willcox B. and Harriet M. Adsit Professor of Russian, Emerita at Williams College.
Biodiversity loss includes the worldwide extinction of different species, as well as the local reduction or loss of species in a certain habitat, resulting in a loss of biological diversity. The latter phenomenon can be temporary or permanent, depending on whether the environmental degradation that leads to the loss is reversible through ecological restoration/ecological resilience or effectively permanent. The current global extinction, has resulted in a biodiversity crisis being driven by human activities which push beyond the planetary boundaries and so far has proven irreversible.
Lenore Newman is a Canadian author and geographer. She is Associate Professor of Geography and the Environment at the University of the Fraser Valley and Director of the Food and Agriculture Institute. She holds the Canada Research Chair in Food Security and the Environment.
Gastronationalism or culinary nationalism is the use of food and its history, production, control, preparation and consumption as a way of promoting nationalism and national identity. It may involve arguments between two or more regions or countries about whether a particular dish or preparation is claimed by one of those regions or countries and has been appropriated or co-opted by the others.
