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Study: Sixth Extinction Event Is Underway
garyisabusyguy writes: We've heard proposals in the past that a new extinction event is underway. However, a new study takes into consideration many other factors that may be tilting the data, and still comes to the inevitable conclusion that we have triggered a large die-off, and that we may become victims of it as well.
From the paper's abstract: "Even under our assumptions, which would tend to minimize evidence of an incipient mass extinction, the average rate of vertebrate species loss over the last century is up to 114 times higher than the background rate. Under the 2 E/MSY background rate, the number of species that have gone extinct in the last century would have taken, depending on the vertebrate taxon, between 800 and 10,000 years to disappear. These estimates reveal an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity over the last few centuries, indicating that a sixth mass extinction is already under way."
The authors suggest that rapid work to avert the worst of the die-off is still possible. The question may really be whether we can get past paid trolls, FUD, and finger pointing in order to act wisely in a timely manner.
From the paper's abstract: "Even under our assumptions, which would tend to minimize evidence of an incipient mass extinction, the average rate of vertebrate species loss over the last century is up to 114 times higher than the background rate. Under the 2 E/MSY background rate, the number of species that have gone extinct in the last century would have taken, depending on the vertebrate taxon, between 800 and 10,000 years to disappear. These estimates reveal an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity over the last few centuries, indicating that a sixth mass extinction is already under way."
The authors suggest that rapid work to avert the worst of the die-off is still possible. The question may really be whether we can get past paid trolls, FUD, and finger pointing in order to act wisely in a timely manner.
Funny you should mention FUD in the summary, considering the entire premise is a textbook demonstration.
We can have an intelligent and productive movement towards a clean, ecologically healthy world without the fear mongering bullshit.
And between the pecuniary interests, the people who cannot imagine anything beyond 3 months, and the folks who actually want the world to end, via either religion outcome, or just wanting to see the world burn - I suspect we're going to drive the bus off that extinction cliff while singing happy days are here again.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Most of the earth's species offer nothing other than potential diversity in case of another type of disaster. If most of earth's animal species die off, as long as the food chain is preserved for the plants/animals that directly benefit us, then most people will not care.
Personally, I would like to see some data on what exactly is "dying off". For example, if it's a random type of tree frog in the amazon because of logging, that's one thing. If it's something that will cause the massive collapse of society because I can't get a steak... That's another thing entirely.
Anyway.. Adapt, or die.
Is this the same Paul Ehrlich who became famous for predicting that overpopulation would kill off humanity long before we would see the 21st Century? Of course environmentalists, in bestowing upon us their latest set of apocalyptic "predictions" would pick someone who has been spectacularly wrong so often in the past.
I've been trying to trigger the extinction of scorpions out of my desert mountain yard for four years now. These things won't go anyway and they love the hot weather.
Lets say that we'll probably survive eating bugs.
Served just fine nearing on 20 years, slowly pushed to extinction by the rise of soulless, repulsive Dice Holdings now known as DHI.
The question may really be whether we can get past paid trolls, FUD, and finger pointing in order to act wisely in a timely manner
In other words, "the question is whether we can get past people who don't agree instantly with me. We just need to put aside our differences and agree with me. "
No environmental issue is a concern for humanity anymore. The rich survive, we all die. Nothing short of a planet killer would be an impact for humans as a species.
Flowers By Irene
So, last time I checked (a couple of days back, when this first appeared in the news), "background extinction rate" is a great deal of SWAG (Scientific Wild-Ass Guess).
We don't know the total number of species alive now or at any particular time in the past. We never have, and it's likely we never will (until that number is 1). Which makes any estimate of the rate of extinction now or in the past more guess than science.
Without an accurate guesstimate of number of species at any given time, "background extinction rate" is an even less accurate guesstimate.
And with the denominator of (current extinction rate/background extinction rate) a guesstimate, the number produced (114 in this case) is another guesstimate (we don't even know the number of species going extinct now, much less the average number - what we know is the number of species that we notice going extinct).
So, I'm less than excited by this particular prediction. Maybe in a century or two we'll know enough to make this a major concern (note that 114x background rate translates to ~225 species going extinct per million years - it's hardly going to be a swift extinction, except in geological terms).
Or not....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
This same Paul Ehrlich says we're in a Golden Age of Discovery finding many new species "with a small range". I have to question how accurately they can calculate the background extinction rate when biologists couldn't even identify subtle differences between species that were collected in the field.
Horses do. The ones with no names.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
This paper talks about the background rate, averaged over 350 million (with an M) years, since the Cambrian Explosion. In the middle of that "background" we have had tidal shield volcanism, planet-killer asteroid strikes, the utter destruction of the global ecology by graminoids, and the nearly complete extinction of all anerobic life by cyanobacteria.
Now, compare this against the "current time frame" -- 100 years. 100 Years! That's insanely short. The analogy is comparing the overall murder rate of people attending church, averaged since we had statistics, to the single two hours in Charleston and then making the claim that "Church Murders are 500 Time Higher."
Comparing rates is tricky stuff. The data curve is hugely noisy, with one event causing a spike, other times things average out. In mathematical terms using the derivative of a function over short periods to extrapolate a long term event is suspect at best, and an exercise in blithering ignorance at worst. 100 years sounds like a long time to humans, but in geological time it's not even a clock tick.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
Cause... umm... you know... extinct is extinct.
You can't say "no it isn't" if all you have to show for as evidence of existence it is... you know... nothing.
This ain't a religious but a question of biology and of ability to count up to more than "one animal".
E.g. You can't go around claiming that T. Rex is actually hiding. And no, Bill Legend's T. Rex is not THE T. Rex.
The summary warns of "paid trolls", "FUD-ers" and finger pointers going around acting holier than thou, trying to "solve the problem" by placing the blame and spreading "it's the End Days" fear and panic.
You know...
People generalizing the entire humanity as being "people who cannot imagine anything beyond 3 months" and "folks who actually want the world to end" and assuming that "we're going to drive the bus off that extinction cliff while singing happy days are here again."
Which is also a bit of ye old irrelevant conclusion fallacy.
Cause... umm... people not able to think beyond 3 months about pandas or people wanting to burn all pandas and people singing "happy days" instead of working on preserving pandas...
Well... they are not the ones actually working on preserving pandas, aren't they?
It's almost as if a relatively small group of people (compared to the world population or even the population of China) is taking steps to preserve the damn pandas - regardless of all those other people.
Making them kinda irrelevant as long as they don't make it their business to get off their ass, fly off to a game preserve and start shooting pandas.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
It's a tough call. Immediate vs deferred gratification?
I hope it does, especially when article commenters spew all manner of bigoted nonsense and racism. I mean seriously, there are no less than 4 references to the n-word in this space. I though this site was for "smart people" to debate tech and other significant issues. It has seriously gone downhill over the years. I'm now commenting as anon but I've got well over 2,000 posts to this site.If I keep seeing this nonsense I might as well move to reddit or a platform that is less infested with idiots.
We're not in the middle of an "extinction event" -- we're simply crowding out other species and consuming their habitats.
There is a world of difference between an asteroid strike and bulldozing the rain forest.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Uh, you ever hear of something called the food chain? Let me look that up for you... https://en.wikipedia.org/?titl...
It would cause a cascading effect if species start dying off, unless you prefer soylent green.
So sad to see cute, cuddly and some magnificent animals die off. But they are of little significance compared to small and microscopic life forms. When they die, we die. Poison the ocean, the air and the soil and we are killing vast, unimaginable numbers of critical life forms that make our planet livable. Who is measuring our losses of algae and bacteria, the providers of oxygen that made all the rest of life possible?
You've heard about the dying honeybees, now consider the rest. You may not care for cockroaches, amoeba, bacteria or fruit flies; but they matter. And it's not just the external ones. Inside our bodies are critical critters that digest our food and symbiotically live with us. They too are at risk as we experiment with chemicals, radiation, genetics, nanotech and other fun stuff.
We all love lions, tigers and bears. Who can resist adoring a panda, koala or even an ordinary baby kitten? But are these things critical to human survival? Human emotions are fascinating but they often lead us astray.
...omphaloskepsis often...
You do realize that "race" is merely an accident of melanin levels and sun exposure?
Nah, of course not. When it was time to learn grade school biology, you took that as your cue to fuck your cousin.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
[citation needed]
Have gnu, will travel.
But the high CO2 is hampering the uptake of nitrogen, and the warmer temps is moving their habitable zone north.
photosMy Photostream
So because the world you live in hasn't changed significantly ('Still got chicken and cities!'), the idea that biodiversity is on a fast decline is wrong... even though the article asserted it started long before the 1970's. So yes, it did "come to be". Please give us some references that there hasn't been a massive loss of biodiversity over the last 100 years. You can't because there has been. Are you really naive enough to think we can't have any effects on the biosphere, because look we're all still here? We do have finite resources and an ever expanding population.
we can always make soylent green
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Because if you want to preserve nature, you hate humans....
Young to elder on deathbed..."So how long you been dyin'?"
Craggy brows lift, " All my life."
Lost in space at an early age. Survived the vacuum. Now rebuilding castle in air.
Part of the problem is the great difficulty involved in comparing things between scales of millions or tens of millions of years and mere centuries. Maybe if the current rate was sustained for a few thousand or hundred thousand years it would start to be comparable in magnitude to a mass extinction. The conditions would have to persist a long time before you start knocking out, say, 50% of the species. Secondly, many of the species that have gone extinct are ones that are on the precipice of extinction anyway because their numbers and geographic distribution is very limited. This is relevant for two reasons: A) they stood a good chance of going extinct anyway regardless of humans, and B) it's doubtful they would have shown up as fossils in the first place to be counted as part of the standing diversity -- i.e. there are a lot of species that would come and go without any notice if dealing with an ancient record. Show me the hugely important and widespread species that go extinct, because those will be the ones that matter.
When paleontologists look at mass extinction events we're talking wholesale extinction of entire groups (e.g., whole families), not merely a few species, including species that until the extinction were common and widely distributed as fossils. Extinctions such as the passenger pigeon might be something comparable between the two records, ancient and modern, but something like the dodo that went extinct due to human interference? It's probable we never would have known it existed as a fossil in the first place, were we looking at the present time in the same way as we do fossils. And even with the passenger pigeon extinct there are plenty of other similar species. Kill off all pigeon species and it would be more like the sort of thing that happens at a mass extinction.
This study also focuses on vertebrates. Mass extinctions are wholesale disruptions of just about everything, not only vertebrates, and while there are plenty of other species that have gone extinct, vertebrates have the disadvantage of being rather large and edible. They have higher resource demands and are more vulnerable compared to many other creatures that won't catch as much direct human attention. The paper argues that they are a good choice because of the comparably better modern and ancient records, which is a good point, but vertebrates also seem to have a higher turnover (species originations and extinctions) than many other groups.
Don't get me wrong: we probably are accelerating extinction rates. But this paper is considering a bigger question: are we doing so at "mass extinction" scale. I don't think we're even close. Not yet anyway.
Original paper is here and is open access.
Not sure what came first, the decline of new species or the decline of taxonomists. But there has been a steady decline in the number of the taxonomists. In the field of botany lots of newly discovered plants are not described because they just aren't interesting enough for the taxonomists to work on them. Anyway, the best way to stop the perception of an extinction event is to create more species! Admittedly, that would be a short term fix.
Paul Ehrlich is a famous doomspeaker known for his predictions of imminent doom and gloom.
He's not famous for being right though.
He may not believe in the easter bunny but he certainly believes in The Great Demise despite its consistent failure to materialize in any shape or form.
Yes, this topic at the same time as Sony is killing of the Aibo.
if you dare mention that the greenhouse effect is logarithmically challenged.
I like the way you phrase that. You should be a writer.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Slashdot has always (at least since the five-digit days, which is when I started reading) been a refuge for people for whom English (or even simple logic) is simply too complicated, but what is it lately with people insisting that words have just one meaning? I've noticed a significant upward trend in it here on Slashdot. People want words to mean the one thing they want them to mean, and they want any other use of the same word to be invalid. You can start a flamewar most days just by using the word decimate.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Have faith in Slashdoters ! ;)
I suspect that there are less of us around here on Saturdays and Sundays, and what you're seeing is concerted shilling by some conservative group outnumbering us.
Well, that's for the nonsense. I didn't see the racist posts, they're probably by ACs and probably have been modded down by now, as they ought to be.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Trapped gasses everywhere will surely take note of this...
PaulEhrlich, the author of the Population Bomb! You really don't want to put stock in anything he has to say? This man has been so wrong so many times it's amazing he can keep a job.
From the Population Bomb “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines–hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”
It all starts at 0
Not all of them... but a lot of them... and the overall synthesis of them tends to work that way.
It works something like this usually "lets study how many species have gone extinct in this acre of land". And that acre could be a place that someone build a parking lot. The acre in question is often cherry picked to give apocalyptic results. And a big thing you have to pay attention to in these studies is that "extinct" doesn't mean the species is gone from wherever in the world... just "that spot" A deer could wander into the box... be counted at time X... then wander out at X+1... and boom... deer are extinct... in the box.
Then what they do is through Drakes equation they estimate how many species are in the acre that they don't even know exist. And then they estimate how many of those have gone extinct using the number of known species that went extinct in that box... remember the deer.
Then again using Drake's equation they extrapolate this sample... of one acre... to estimate the extinction rate of the entire planet.
If you ask the people making these claims to cite species that are actually gone EVERYWHERE... and only to cite species that are known... the numbers fall radically because most of the extinctions are theoretical.
The next problem is that it is really hard to estimate historic extinction rates. You're doing it from what... Fossils? not all species are captured in fossils. And you can't compared what would show up in the modern fossil record with the past fossil record until the modern fossil record has been created first. So... maybe in 10,000 years... you might be able to compare current extinction rates with past extinction rates. That is unless you have a way of figuring out past extinction rates without looking at the fossil record.
Are extinctions higher today then in the recent past? Probably. Humans are taking too much habitat away from animals for that to not be the case. However, lets not be hyperbolic about it. I can't take people seriously if they're going to start exaggerating everything transparently for political reasons. The environmental movement did itself great injury when it put politics above all else.
I am very sympathetic to the environmental cause. But only the rational elements of it. The instant they start trying to treat me like one of their brainwashed zombie cultists... They eat a double barreled boomstick of reason.
I am all for saving animals. Show me which animals are endangered and I'll do what is possible to save them.
All of this said, keep in mind that human beings are the biggest thing to happen to this world since the Cambrian explosion. So a higher rate of extinction is to be expected and is not inherently bad.
The first means of evolution was random mutation.
The second means of evolution was sexual selection.
That was it... until humans.
Now we have a third means of evolution - Intelligent Design... aka genetic engineering.
And whatever you might feel about that... life couldn't do that before we came along. That's new.
We are the third stage of evolution on this world. A little chaos as we get our feet planted is normal.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Tell that to the residents of California, and the grain farmers in the Midwest. it isn't just water, it is soil loss and increased salinization of the soil from fertilizing, and drawing from low aquifers. As the aquifers delete, the water gets more saline. It is hard to motivateele to change behavior, especially if there is money involved. Sustainability takes the backseat to short term profits
They were warned to get off...
One of the tricky things about these great extinctions is they call them "Events" which makes people think the extinctions happened quickly over short periods of time but often they were over tens of thousands or even millions of years. How that relates to our current one is an interesting point.
I'm in the midst of lawn mowing. (It was pretty long.) I have to admit to contributing to the extinction event by ruthlessly and completely without mercy killing the poor cute little ground hog that's been making mounds everywhere. (I'd post a pic but it might offend the sensitive.)
We could all do with fewer niggers. But but they are incapable of developing advanced civilization.
I don't know. They managed to make the current civilization.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Unless the die-off is set to happen during the lifetime of the greedy old fucks that continually put money over common sense, we're screwed.
Paul Ehrlich is a famous doomspeaker known for his predictions of imminent doom and gloom.
He's not famous for being right though.
He may not believe in the easter bunny but he certainly believes in The Great Demise despite its consistent failure to materialize in any shape or form.
You are right about Erlich (and Malthus and others) in as much as thier predictions of doom and gloom are highly exagerated in terms of time-scale. However I would question the intelligence of anyone who doesn't understand the basic thermodynamic argument against infinitely sustained growth. The question is when do we reap what we've sown; 100 years? 1,000 years? 100,000 years?
That we are in the midst of a great extinction event is not news. Might there be a significant reduction in the size of human population in the coming centuries? Probably. However we are a highly adaptable species, barring a massive asteroid impact or a massive nuclear exchange I suspect that humans becoming extinct is highly unlikely.
"The question may really be whether we can get past paid trolls, FUD, and finger pointing in order to act wisely in a timely manner." translated means: There should be not discussion, dissent or alternative opinions. You will only believe our version of the future.
Reminds me of the Y2K extinction event...
So here's your first opponent: Bolloks. Even if some of your assertions are true, the world is a living breathing organism. New life appears. Old life adapts. Things change. Climate changes. Things stay the same. Nothing new. Get over it.
Well, this time he's right, but not for the right reason. The real extinction event is occurring in the pacific ocean, first , and then on land..in 30 years the level of radioactivity from Fukushima, in large sections of the Pacific will match that inside the reactors.. althogh it doesn't need that much to extinguish all but algael and bacterial life. Or us. with huge concentrations of CO2 in the ocean, a strong atmospheric pressure change could cause a Carbon Dioxide release that would suffocate hundreds of millions overnight. And of course there's no fish then either.. possibly only the southern hemisphere near antarctica would be left for fishing.. . Roast penguin, anyone?
I see dead people.
Humans have destroyed, degraded or appropriated habitat on a global scale - on land and in the seas - and pushed most things we can't eat (and many we can) to the edge of extinction and beyond. One. More. Shove.... There. Done.
Only boring people are ever bored.
He's right. You just don't know it yet. That's the problem with predictions. By the time the slow among us realise they are correct....it's FAR too late.
Only boring people are ever bored.
Unfortunately this is being reported in the media as equivelant of the big past extinctions which is totally out of proportion. The past extinctions are a whole magnitude or two larger. Exaggeration like this is done to try and get the attention of people but in the end it turns people off because the end up going "Ho-Hum" and ignoring the lies. Stick with the facts. The facts are enough to make the point.
" depending on the vertebrate taxon, between 800 and 10,000 years to disappear. These estimates reveal an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity over the last few centuries, indicating that a sixth mass extinction is already under way."
yea, that 10,000 year range sure leads a lot of credibility to their argument.
This is not research in any meaningful way. this is politics.
All of our economies require growth.
when growth stops we have depressions that kill people.
therefore when or growth globally stops (for whatever reason) we will lose a large chunk of the population.
We've had far too many species for far too long. It's about time some of them go away, to make room for new ones.
I'm kidding. I have no idea what the right number of species is. I don't even know if there *is* a right number of species. And I'm actually a little unsure about how to tell a species from a subspecies, anyway. (I hear the biologists have had some trouble in that area, too.)
The important thing is, nature shouldn't change. Evolution is done. Change in nature is bad.
I'm kidding. Of course nature is going to change, whether humans are around or not.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Prove it. In particular, note timescale.
When an economy is such that large numbers of people are on the edge of starvation, sure, any change that causes increased unemployment is going to cause deaths of people unable to feed themselves. But many rich countries are awash in food, and it would take a complete economic collapse lasting more than a year for starvation to become significant.
By what mechanism? Note, you wrote "growth globally stops", which means production doesn't increase, not "production collapses". If production remains roughly constant, consumption remains roughly constant, and production supports life.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
You are loony.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Does it involve a new tax? Hmmm.
You want to know why 97% became a meme? Because a large number of people are irrational about climate science, disregarded the evidence, and took a few odd people as proof that there was an ongoing debate about AGW. Somebody came up with strong evidence of a consensus among climate scientists, to show that there was a consensus that AGW is happening and is serious, and then the deniers concentrated on calling climate scientists incompetent and corrupt.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Economies can grow without using more resources, by increasing efficiency and developing better versions of the same thing.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes