“Oh my God!” Sylvia screeched as she pushed herself away from her computer screen. “This is absolutely terrible!” She put her fingers to her mouth as if to emphasise her own feeling of disgust.

Dave, who did not move from his armchair, called out, “What is it, dear?”

“The sixth period of mass extinction has begun.”

“Oh.” He turned the page of his newspaper and just continued reading.

“Are you really just going to sit there? Maybe you did not hear me. The sixth period of mass extinction has begun.”

“I heard you fine.”

“Well?”

“What exactly did you want me to do about it?”

“I… well… I am not really sure. I guess I was just hoping for more of a reaction. I mean, this could mean the end for all of us.”

“You are just overreacting, Sylvia.” Dave set down his newspaper on the coffee table in front of him so that he could turn and regard his wife. “The amount of times that we have had the end of our world predicted has just started getting a bit silly. Animals are going to die out, maybe they evolve or maybe they don’t. There is always going to be a degree of natural loss, so I don’t see that we really have anything to worry about.”

“The report says that it is all our fault.” Sylvia laced her fingers together in an effort to stop herself waving them about as she spoke. “Humans have killed all these species, and we’ve probably signed up own death warrant in doing so.”

“What makes you think that?”

“The article says so.”

“It is scaremongering, and nothing more than that. We have evolved as a species, and if others cannot keep up with our evolution process then now going to drop by the wayside. Who knows, they may even have become a new species that we just don’t know about at this moment in time.”

“But the bees… We need them in order to survive, but we are killing them with pesticides.”

Dave shrugged. “They simply have not evolved in the same way that we have. It could be in the future that we evolved to no longer need them. Let’s face it, live without getting stung is always going to be better.”

“Maybe.”

“Feel better?”

Sylvia glanced at her screen, and then back towards Dave. “Weirdly, yes, I do.”

“Just remember that this is a natural process, because science has told us and even has a name for the whole thing. There is no blame really, and there is nothing that can be done to alter what is going to happen.”

“I guess that you are right,” Sylvia conceded as she scooted back towards the computer. She closed the page containing the article and went back to checking her Facebook.

Dave picked up his newspaper and settled back into his chair. It was going to be a while before he got a cup of tea.