This break in Earth's history is marked by a mass extinction, when as many as half the species on the planet became extinct.

地球历史上的这次重大灾难以物种的大量消亡为标志；当时，地球上多达一半的物种都灭绝了。

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There is no natural foresight, no mechanism for warning that present selfish gains are leading to species extinction - and indeed, 99 per cent of all species that have ever lived are extinct.

没有自然的深谋远虑，没有什么机制会警告当前的自私收益将导致物种灭绝——事实上，99%曾经存在的物种现在都已经灭绝了。

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Of the 388 mammal species found in Australia, 78 are listed as vulnerable, endangered or extinct in the wild while nearly 14% of amphibians, 5% of reptiles and 6% of birds are at risk of extinction.

在澳大利亚发现的388种哺乳动物中，78种被列为易危、濒危或野外绝灭，而近14%的两栖动物、5%的爬行动物及6%的鸟类则濒临灭绝。

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In Britain, where better records have been kept, more than half the native bumblebee species either have become extinct or are facing extinction in the next few decades.

NEWYORKER: Stung

Besides bringing new species to the textbooks - and relegating them immediately to the "extinct" category - the study sheds new light on the extinction event, widely thought to have been caused by an enormous asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 65.5 million years ago.

BBC: Obama-named lizard was wiped out with the dinosaurs

That made it the most valuable charity auction to support conservation projects, which is important, because as DiCaprio mentioned in his opening speech, less than 2% of philanthropic dollars globally support conservation projects, despite the fact that 140, 000 animal and plant species are becoming extinct every year, which is 10, 000 times the historic extinction rate.

FORBES: Leonardo DiCaprio's Charity Auction Raises $38M To Fund Global Conservation