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Era of 'Biological Annihilation' Is Underway, Scientists Warn (theguardian.com)
Tatiana Schlossberg reports via The New York Times (Warning: source may be paywalled, alternate source): From the common barn swallow to the exotic giraffe, thousands of animal species are in precipitous decline, a sign that an irreversible era of mass extinction is underway, new research finds. The study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, calls the current decline in animal populations a "global epidemic" and part of the "ongoing sixth mass extinction" caused in large measure by human destruction of animal habitats. The previous five extinctions were caused by natural phenomena. Dr. Ceballos emphasized that he and his co-authors, Paul R. Ehrlich and Rodolfo Dirzo, both professors at Stanford University, are not alarmists, but are using scientific data to back up their assertions that significant population decline and possible mass extinction of species all over the world may be imminent, and that both have been underestimated by many other scientists. The study's authors looked at reductions in a species' range -- a result of factors like habitat degradation, pollution and climate change, among others -- and extrapolated from that how many populations have been lost or are in decline, a method that they said is used by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. They found that about 30 percent of all land vertebrates -- mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians -- are experiencing declines and local population losses. In most parts of the world, mammal populations are losing 70 percent of their members because of habitat loss.
Giraffe are great I once saw one at the zoo.
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Earth will survive. If we are dumb enough to destroy everything, then maybe a more intelligent lifeform will thrive. Or if we do not get entirely extinct, Darwinism will be the rule once again. Only the best will survive. Only those who can adapt.
Can we stop posting the exaggerated climate change and mass extinction crap that causes scientists to lose credibility with the public because of a few irresponsible people? Remember that the uncertainty in the effects of aerosols is so large that we don't even know if the overall effect of human activity on temperatures is positive or negative. Even the IPCC admits this, with the huge error bars around aerosol forcings. Yet the alarmist crap keeps getting trotted out. Please stop so the scientists can maintain their credibility and continue to do actual.l research instead of this alarmist rubbish.
Meanwhile, 99% of the human race isn't even thinking about it.
Humans = the ultimate form of pollution.
I almost wallopped him one when he ate my pet dodo bird, because those really are hard to come by. But I was too busy scaling the coelacanth I had caught for lunch to notice when he made DeeDee his lunch.
What a horrible era we live in, when some species go extinct. It's such a rare thing we should take pictures so we can remember it longer. I was pretty sure that Darwin talked about this already, but he's dead and I can't ask him.
Paul Ehrlich ... not alarmist
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Somehow I always knew it would end like this.
Humans are a natural phenomenon.
While the main efforts need to be made to conserve habitats, lower pollution, and stop over harvesting of animals, one thing is different this time around that provides some hope. De-extinction. More of an effort needs to be made to preserve as much tissue and DNA from existing threatened species and save them in a bank similar to how we already do with seeds. We are close to bringing back animals like the passenger pigeon but with proper samples and possibly living cell cultures this job is made much much easier. With advancements over the coming decades de-extinction will become a reality and a last hope for many species. Not just giving elephants a few mammoth genes, but nearly complete genomes will become possible. The specific information stored in DNA and the creatures it brings forth are a unique treasure of this planet within the visible universe, we have learned so much we never would have otherwise by reverse engineering them it boggles the mind, and in my opinion our most valuable resource.
until we extinct ourselves.
humans? Why do you post stories about "global warming", dying insects and ANYTHING as long as it's *not* what everyone should be talking about non-stop? We are being genocided. Aryans. "Whites".
I bet 99.99% of all the species that have ever existed are extinct.
It is perfectly normal for species to go extinct, that is how we get to the fittest species.
They haven't decided whether to call it the "Holocene extinction" or "Anthropocene extinction".
How about the Covfefecene extinction?
Table-ized A.I.
Then go out and make some babies and quit bitching. Its not genocide when it's self inflicted by low birth rates. Not that i even care.
Assuming we don't destroy the planet and ourselves first.
...omphaloskepsis often...
The Age of Animals is ending. The machines will replace them. We all know this, and are in fact working as fast as we can to make it happen. Why pretend otherwise?
In most parts of the world, mammal populations are losing 70 percent of their members because of habitat loss.
By losing 70% of their members, do they mean mammals are losing three legs out of four?
Anyway, going extinct due to habitat loss totally stupid. If those animals are going to die anyway due to "habitat loss", why don't we get in there, kill them first, and have a big BBQ?
Well I annihilate your mothers gash every night
What I wish to know is what they propose to do to stop this from proceeding. I hear a lot about, Oh My God, but not what to do? My 2 cents ;)
A virus is really not an organism and it doesn't have higher consciousness to understand the consequences of its activities, we do, we choose to do what we do, we are quite different creatures than viruses in that regard.
I watched the Matrix seven times in a theater in the 3 weeks following the premier. That idea though, I thought about it enough to realize it is a nonsensical non starter. Humans do spread to an environment on the one hand, however on the other they do not leave, they modify the environment and make it liveable for very long periods of time. Any environment is constrained by the availability of resources but being in balance with all other systems and resources means not to progress forward at all, it means stagnation and stagnation kills just as well as consuming all of the resources does in the first place. Dinosaurs were supposedly 'in balance' and yet where are they? (don't say chickens, please.)
What is the virtue of being 'one' with the environment, what is the virtue of being 'in balance' with the 'natural order' of things? The natural order of things is being born and then dying, well I think that the natural order is crap, it is bullshit and the sooner we end this natural order crap the better.
Being in balance with the surrounding environment? I think not. I don't like balance and entropy, I say we must spice things up.
You can't handle the truth.
thanks, trump!
Ah, thank you. Amongst Ehrlich's funny predictions
"By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people." ..."
" I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000."
"The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate
in 1970, he warned that "[i]n ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish."
In 1968 he wrote "India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980." Well, you can argue about that one, since the population hadn't grown by 200 million in that timeframe, but now the populationis 800 million greater and don't look worse off than back then..
So great, in the opinion of his co-author Ehrlich isn't an alarmist. I'd call; him a hysterical headline grabber with a predictiveusefulness of zero.
So, what, humanity isn't a natural phenomena?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
If there are no predator, herbivore multiply and will eat every greenerie available for example. Nature do not care for equilibrium, it cares only fir fitness to reproduction, and overwhelming an environment with offspring work well. It is only because prey are paired with predator that an equilibrium SEEM to be reached on small time scale. But look again on bigger time scale and you see the same, that species can go out of equilibrium, change environment sonetime for the worst, and there are period of extinction. That is why this is the sixth and not the first.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I wonder if those have considered have noted how the highest fall first and hardest.
even within a species.
not quite the same, but 1789. come to mind.
Is this the same Paul Ehrlich who predicted humans would be reduced to cannibalism by the 1990's ?
http://reason.com/blog/2015/06...
https://www.masterresource.org...
These guys are pseudo-religious nutters with their repeated doomsday predictions. Life has never been as good as it is today, but their myopic perspective and toxic personalities prevents them from seeing how good life is today compared to any other time in the past.
Smart Slashdotters can also see how good things are compared to the past, and how bright the future can be if we work towards making greater scientific and technological progress. Leave the quasi-religious eschatons to their 'sky is falling' narratives.
As foretold by Methus- I mean, George Carlin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Some species will take advantage of this new world, some won't. Opportunistic species will take over, whether it be slime in the ocean, or mosquitoes on land. Viruses are primed to hit hard with all of the meat on the planet. We are just in a period of massive flux. What shakes out may very well be less people, with a lot of technology.
The population bomb author https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb
Even though his predictions overshot, he was predicting 20 years into the future- as we all know a risky thing to do. In some ways, HE WAS NOT WRONG. Global warming is exacerbated by overpopulation, animal habitat loss, pollution, traffic congestion, all exacerbated by overpopulation.
So why should you thank him? Because of his alarms, some people took action to control population, most significantly China. Without that action back then things would be even worse than they are now.
He told me so. MAGA!
And the heroes of the political correctness revolution like Naomi Klein can't spit the word "overpopulation" out of their mouth. It dilutes the dogma of totalitarian communism, their only solution.
If the human race does not move in to space WE will go extinct.
Wow! Someone finally finished the jurassic park the lost world. Good. For. Them.
RIP Michael Crichton
"Human beings are so destructive," Malcolm said. "I sometimes think we're a kind of plague, that will scrub the earth clean. We destroy things so well that I sometimes think, maybe that's our function. Maybe every few eons, some animal comes along that kills off the rest of the world, clears the decks, and lets evolution proceed to its next phase."
Remember WHERE and WHO is reproducing at an alarming pace. Just a hint: Not first world countries.
Depends if you add a "WHEN" question, then you hint gets completely wrong.
When meds and industrial agriculture where developed in what you now consider "First world countries", those pesky westerner also had a huge demographic explosion (because they kept their old habits of reproducing like rabbits on the ground that most of their children won't even reach adulthood).
But eventually we got wiser and adapted.
And the same adaptation is currently happening in nearly most of these other countries you allude to. We'll never reach the initially predicted 25 billions.
It's called DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION, and it's actually a thing, whether or not it surprise your bigoted xenophobic view of the world and all the people who happen to be different than you.
Another hint: If first world countries stopped sending food and meds there, the population growth would return to cabal limits.
Another hint: if we stopped selling food and meds to you, you'll probably turn into a raving survivalist cannibal savage in no time.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
There is no shortage of food.
Depends on how you consider the details :
- Indeed, there's no shortage of food, if your target is just to feed the population and keep it alive.
The planet can more or less roughly procude enough food to keep everyone alive.
We *currently* are not at risk of becoming Soylent Green movie.
- BUT if every single human being decided to eat as much (both in terms of volume, caloric intake, composition (meat vs. veggies), etc.) as the typical westerner, and use as much resource for everything else, you'd need about 3 planets earth worth of production to sustain the current population at that train of life.
GMOs only solve the cash problems of some corporations.
Which is exactly the topmost reason why I'm against GMO.
I'm not fundamentally against genetic tweaking (common, I'm working in lifescience research. I should pretty well know that we've been doing tweaking since the beginning of agriculture - just with way more lower tech tools. But one can see the difference between modern crops and their closest wild relatives).
I'm fundamentally against what is essentially a lock-in business by companies that managed to bring out the worst of IP rights.
(Patents on life ? Common. That's a much against the fundamental idea of patents as you can be).
(Not to mention that over relying on the few commercially available GMO crops would increase the risks of monoculture).
In short : I'm not against GMO per se, I am against all the shit that current GMO companies are doing.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
You need a PhD to understand how dozens of strip malls and endless home plans and urban sprawl slaughter everything ?
Um, kinda obvious humans are exterminating all life on Earth to everyone with eyes and a brain...
I just moved from Houston, and the squirrels there seem to be thriving just fine.
"From the common barn swallow to.."
Stop right there, here's a shovel, start cleaning the poop up in my barn from the 4-5 families of swallows living on the light fixtures.
I’ve found this reasoning specious ever since it was part of a George Carlin skit. The Earth is essentially a large rock that happens to have a thin coat of delicate living goo on it. The rock of course will go on. Now if that thin goo is reduced to just some kind of primitive microbial mat, well then yes the Earth and life has gone on, and evolution will kick in to start the climb again. But the whole “Earth will go on” statement seems to imply Earth and its ecosystem are just too big to fail or that it doesn’t matter that it is no longer habitable by humans, all that matters is somehow, some form of life be here and start evolving again. How about we care about the all the life that is here now, both animal and human?
Letter To Iran
Cancer rates are also SKYROCKETING!!! Not because more people are getting cancer, but because of better diagnostic coverage, better discipline in people getting checkups due to the ACA, and overall people paying closer attention to their health.
Species are going extinct, for sure. We are just more aware of it because we are paying closer attention than we ever have before. I imagine extinction rates are not actually going up that much, if at all, but because we have done so much more exploration for new species, implemented many many more monitoring programs, and in general have cared more about it, we are more aware of extinction when it does happen instead of simply not noticing it.
Yes, because the fact that 4 or 5 families of swallows have had to make your barn their home because you destroyed their normal habitat to build it, certainly means that swallows aren't under any stress at all.
Better than another US politics or letter agency article where 150 Putinbots come out of the woodworks to spout their talking points, er, opinions.
I have read numerous anthropological and sociopolitical papers that suggest quite convincingly that the Earth with its natural level of resources can comfortably support, at most, 1 billion people or so.
Beyond that, competition for resources leads to what we are seeing today: the mass slaughter of all life on Earth by Human Greed.
Fixing this problem requires hard choices. But, the choice that we have to make is the voluntary cessation of reproductive maintenance of the population. It will be an economic disaster, as 6/7ths of all of the production capital currently deployed will become useless. However, it must be done.
There have been many suggestions, but the one that makes the most sense and is the most fair is simple: mandatory sterilization of any human being that has produced one offspring. No allowances for race, class, creed, wealth, intelligence, or anything like that - just a blanket, uniform, universally enforced program.
The population needs to be halved three times, so the goal of 1 billion could be accomplished in three generations. and the Earth will be far better off.
The problem here is that the ruling elite will never go along with it, as they would endeavor to exempt themselves and their wealthy brethren from the rules, as they always, invariably do.
One day, however, massive reductions in Human population are GOING to happen. We can choose to control it, or we can allow it to happen in an uncontrolled way. Either way, though, the Earth is already at the brink of resource starvation, and when we hit the wall, there is going to be immediate global conflict that results in massive, uncontrolled casualty.
"As it turned out," some guy wrote in 2128, "none of any of this mattered as computerized DNA analysis was soon to let children construct their own life forms while growing up in preparation for their unlimited lifespans, watching as robots cleaned up the environment and harvested untold archaeological data from the time from landfills."
"What if those scientists and their politicians had succeeded?" asked a child, nearly in tears.
"They'd have slowed technological advancement needlessly by applying well-meaning but burdensome regulations that had the net effect of being similar to the burden corrupt governments and mafia organizations have on business, where few people invest because of the up front bribery burden and, if they manage to succeed, end up having to continue massive kickbacks on the success."
"How could they get away with this?"
"They had a number of true believers, who tried their best to suppress oppositional speech, for example, by downmodding posts on various BBS systems in an attempt to hide opinions."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
*Using Giorgio Tsoukalos hair style*
"I'm not an alarmist
but this is alarming"
First make the all the mosquito species extinct please...I have no words to describe their disaster value apart from their whining nuisance value.
"The previous five extinctions were caused by natural phenomena." Why are humans not considered a natural phenomena?
We have nothing to fear but fear itself! And Spiders!
From TFS : "The previous five extinctions were caused by natural phenomena."
Why are we acting like human's aren't natural? Yes it might be our fault that this is happening, but we as a species are a "natural phenomena". We're not some extra-dimensional beings or anything special. We're as much a part of nature as nature is a part of us. We just choose to abuse and ruin it for our own means. Not to say any other species that reached our level of intellect wouldn't naturally end up doing the same.
I tend to rant.
That's way worse than all the reversible ones.
The money isn't there currently but the fact that they did not let them stop working in that direction is worthy of praise. Be strong and hang in there, NASA. Stay the course and I will certainly write my congressmen about funding.
On the other hand, why not try open sourcing design work.. I am absolutely sure you will find an extraordinary wealth of interested people offering ideas and assistance exploring them. Most will be unqualified but it will be an excellent learning experience inspiring a new generation of aerospace engineers. Some will be qualified and will do exceptional work at peer review, engineering calculations, secondary materials research, etc. And the enthusiasm at this site will illustrate the support the American people have for this project. Embrace it.
Matthew
So, ALL of the mass extinction events are caused by natural phenomena.
Even if you are a creationist, you believe that we were created by the same force that created everything else in nature.
"mammal populations are losing 70 percent of their members because of habitat loss"
except I'll bet that there are more mammals today than last year. humans count too.
so it's really just that there is less mammal diversity. that's something else altogether.
and what of all of the animal species that prefer the new world climate? lowering the temperature, the pollution, and the acidity would set back the jellyfish population by decades.
So really, this is just an argument of preferring giraffes over jellyfish. So which ones do we eat, which ones clean our dirty oceans, and which ones look prettier?
Personally, I prefer it a little warmer. My country benefits immensely from global warming -- agriculture, tourism, and land. You in Florida have had your time in the sun. Now it's your turn to have the hostile seasons.
And what of solar power? Isn't hotter better? Sorry, that's the hole-in-the-ozone thing. I meant greenhouse effect. Isn't that good for plants? And therefore for agriculture? I like food. And hurricanes? Wind power, soon lightning power.
This planet has many deserts. Between arid-north, snowy south, and sandy middles, plenty of earth is hostile to humans. So isn't this just a shift? If you live at the equator, plan to move north in a generation or two. Florida will become as hot as jamaica. But virginia will become the new florida. And the arctic circle will become the new new york.
For a group of scientists looking to colonize the moon, and mars, global warming ought not seem so hostile by comparison.
While it is human to worry about things that affect us in the present like net neutrality (I am very very concerned about it myself) and the like, it is too easy to miss the big picture. If the planet loses half its species in the next few decades, we are what you call "completely fucked". I send my donations to anything that will help preserve nature because, well, it eventually affects every other thing with a very long term effect.
Good, good, all is going according to His Plan; the Apocalypse is not far off, now. 'He' will return to us soon, and shortly thereafter the Faithful will be taken Home, and we can leave this terrible Earth behind.
Assholes.
The reporter, Tatiana Schossberg, is Caroline Kennedy's daughter, possibly having some relationship to why she has a job at the NY Times. Her NY Times reports have generally been extremely biased and cherry-picked in reporting on environmental issues. Although she reports on "science," her degrees are in history. She is 27 years old.
Were are doomed.
Era of 'Biological Annihilation' Is Underway
possible mass extinction of species all over the world may be imminent
So let me get this straight. It is possible that mass extinction may be imminent (meaning: it is not happening now, and we're not sure it will). Thus we have biological annihilation already underway. Somehow those two don't quite align... Methinks the headline isn't just clickbait, but outright #FakeNews?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The planet is in flux, whenever things change there are winners and there are losers, that is part of the concept called natural selection.
"The previous five extinctions were caused by natural phenomena."
So that implies that the human species isn't natural to this planet?
Everything humans do is 'natural' since we are children of this planet like all the other living things on this planet.
Species that modify the environment around them are not new and humans are not unique in doing that. The scale might be bigger than other species, but there is no proof that we are the only species in the history of the planet that has been able to change it on the scale you see today.
To say that other species don't destroy the environment isn't true. An example is Locus plagues, they kill everything in their path, literally. And the forests, the savanna's the oceans are modified drastically by the species that live there. Hell, even the plant's change the environment around them.
I refuse to take any responsibility for species that don't survive, can't cope and die off due to their lack of ability to adapt. It is THEIR responsibility to change with the times, to progress and evolve, not my responsibility to make them change.
This extinction is a natural phenomenon too. How are we special? Because we're God's chosen ones? HAHAHAHAHAHA!
If it is caused by man, then explain why BEFORE man, many species have come and gone. And even if man were NOT here, many species will go. More crap to stir up the government educated lDIOTS that can't think for themselves, but continue to spout 30 second sound bites...because that is all they know.
When I was young, not 40 years ago, an evening drive would involve endless bugs smashing into the windscreen, and a walk in the country would involve endless insect-eating birds singing from the hedgetops.
Nowadays, our farmers use insecticides. It is quiet out there. The Food Chain is as strong as its weakest link.
A flattening out of the population isn't enough.
Well depending on what they eat, it could be enough (= if they dont all eat like westerner. otherwise you'll need 1-2 extra planets Earth just to feed everyone).
We need to get it down to a pre-explosion level and let other "species" reclaim a majority of the areas that we have expanded into in order stop the decline in biodiversity. There's nothing that indicates that that will happen.
...soon. There nothing that indicates that that will happen soon.
On the other hand, there are indicators that that will happen eventually :
in the developped western world, natality rate is falling under 2, sometime even under 1 (= not every couple have a kid at all).
The population of several european countries only growse due to immigration. Not to born babies.
As they progress along their demographic transition, all the countries will eventually lower the number of babies each couple makes.
And you'll eventually see negative population growth.
At least if we are still around by then.
If we've managed to wipe ourselves out by completely destroying the environment (and climate), then it's another story.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
You lost me at "Paul Ehrlich is not an alarmist."