And no, not on little green rocket ships. The plants aren’t going anywhere ... they’re just going.
When we think about extinction, we usually think about animals. Something furry. Something cute. Something with big brown eyes whose plight touches us... as we drive past in our SUVs.
But it’s not just polar bears and rhinos in the crosshairs of the big human-generated extinction event. Our greenery is also getting less diverse.
The planet's vegetation—from grasslands to deserts to tropical rainforests—is being hit hard by human activity. And deforestation, pollution, agriculture, and climate change are all playing a role.
Climate change hits plants hard with changes in growing season, conditions, and rainfall. It also brings diseases and parasites, such as allowing insects to spread into high altitudes. And plants have one big disadvantage when it comes to dealing with rapid climate change: they can’t run away. Relocation may be difficult for an elk, but it’s impossible for an elm tree.
"We are already seeing extinctions," [University of Hawaii scientist Hope Jahren] says. "We're already seeing the balance of who can thrive and who can't thrive in…the plant world radically shifted. In a lot of ways, I think that train has passed."
Given enough time, plants can alter their range, a fact that’s reflected in the relative diversity of forests in North America and Europe. In Europe, where the Alps acted as a barrier during the last Ice Age, whole groups of plants went extinct. In North America, plants were able to shift their habits to the south as the chill slowly came on. That’s why the Appalachians hold the most diverse mixed hardwood forests on the planet.
But human-caused climate change isn’t slow. We’re setting new monthly records by the month. Without the time for generations to come and go, plants everywhere are trapped against a barrier of time.
According to a new report, 20 percent of the world’s plant species are at risk of extinction. That represents a huge loss—not just of biodiversity, but of resources, of potential medicines, of potential food. They may not have sad eyes, but we’re still going to miss them when they’re gone.