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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.
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.
They haven't decided whether to call it the "Holocene extinction" or "Anthropocene extinction".
How about the Covfefecene extinction?
Table-ized A.I.
Humans = the ultimate form of pollution.
Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer on this planet, you are a plague.
Yes. The human presence has been destructive ... like a virus ...
Now note that viruses (virii?) adapt. A big problem in the medical field.
And people adapt. You may have heard that we are becoming aware of our environmental impact. You may have heard that it is a matter of great concern in some circles. You may know that many people in many diverse fields of science and government and the private sector are taking vigorous action to correct our ignorant mistakes of the past.
...omphaloskepsis often...
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.
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
It's a fun quote delivered by a good actor, but I hope you don't take it as something intelligent. With the exception of some species of island birds (Watch "Parrots, The Universe, and Everything"), humans are actually one of the only species that avoids explosive population growth. Incidentally, that video is good viewing for anyone who thinks high mortality rates are the only way to control reproduction in safe environments. It's the nonhuman mammals that become invasive. Try googling "mouse plague" for starters. Now THAT'S a mammalian virus! You can argue that humans cause species invasions, but that's still just transportation; everything thereafter is natural behavior in a temporarily favorable environment.
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.
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?
TFS lost all credibility with me when it described Paul Ehrlich as "not an alarmist". This is the guy who famously predicted that human civilization would collapse in the 1980s, and that was the "best case" scenario.
Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer on this planet, you are a plague.
(Agent Smith then proceeds to make billions of copies of himself)
Now note that viruses (virii?) adapt.
If being pedantic, the plural of virus is virus. It's a group noun like "slime" (it actually means slime in Latin), "money" and "people", which all lack a singular. You should only say "viruses" for the same reasons you'd say "slimes", "monies" and "peoples", i.e. only to refer to multiples of separate groups. Which is rarely needed.
In common parlor, "viruses" is what's used as the plural.
But if you otherwise use plurals like "fora", "octopodes" and "aquaria", by all means use "virus" as a plural too.
I'll applaud your effort, futile as it may be.
If the human race does not move in to space WE will go extinct.
Quotes from Paul Ehrlich:
***
“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” Paul Ehrlich confidently declared in the April 1970 issue of Mademoiselle. “The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
“Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born,” wrote Paul Ehrlich in a 1969 essay titled “Eco-Catastrophe! “By[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
Ehrlich sketched out his most alarmist scenario for the 1970 Earth Day issue of The Progressive, assuring readers that between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the “Great Die-Off.”
Paul Ehrlich chimed in, predicting in 1970 that “air pollutionis certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.” Ehrlich sketched a scenario in which 200,000 Americans would die in 1973 during “smog disasters” in New York and Los Angeles.
Paul Ehrlich warned in the May 1970 issue of Audubon that DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbons “may have substantially reduced the life expectancy of people born since 1945.” Ehrlich warned that Americans born since 1946now had a life expectancy of only 49 years, and he predicted that if current patterns continued this expectancy would reach 42 years by 1980, when it might level out. (Note: According to the most recent CDC report, life expectancy in the US is 78.8 years).
In 1975, Paul Ehrlich predicted that “since more than nine-tenths of the original tropical rainforests will be removed in most areas within the next 30 years or so, it is expected that half of the organisms in these areas will vanish with it.”
***
He's awesome. Please give him more grant money for the comical art value alone.
it's in my head
> Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. Y
"Instinctively develops" such a relationship? I'd say "no". Many mammals, introduced to new environment, have no means to make such accommodation and devastate ecosystems. A very classic example is the introduction of rabbits to Australia's ecosystem: others include the introduction of goats almost anywhere, since goats are notorious for cropping plants much closer to the root and destroying the plant parts of ecosystems.
The idea that all mammals "develop a natural equilibrium" ignores the cycles of population growth and decline of simple predator/prey relationships, like the well analyzed one between wolves and rabbits described at https://stanford.edu/~ajspakow... . These equilibria don't require instinct, nor does there seem to be "insinct" involved. They only require negative feedback from the environment.
the beauty of science ... (Score:2) ... is that what we destroy, we can replace.
by swell ( 195815 ) Alter Relationship on 07-12-17 21:18 (#54798469)
The beauty of not beginning a comment in the subject line is that repliers don't have to hack all that shit out to quote you. Asshole.
Anyway, what you said is as stupid as how you said it. It's always easier to destroy a thing than to create a thing because entropy is on your side when you break things, but you have to fight it every step of the way when you create things.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm unsure whether you meant to claim that the numbers you gave supported him, but no, they really don't. Saying he's right on "principles" while being horribly wrong on the actual facts is the whole point. He claims the number X will happen REALLY SOON NOW - BE SCARED!, and X doesn't happen. ... and that's been the case throughout his whole career.
1) He did not mean soot from wood burning stoves in India/Africa with "smog" btw, that's where the millions of deaths due to pollution comes from. Electrify now! Doesn't matter if it's coal plants or solar for this.
2) Food supply has outstripped demand. Vitamin A deficiency is a real threat though, so make sure to hit the nearest anti-GMO protestor on his/her head since they're blocking golden rice.
3) DDT hadn't reduced life expectancy to 42 years. Neither has anything else. You can't be right "on principles" when you're so horribly wrong on the facts.
it's in my head
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
I'll just cut and paste my responce from a post just like yours posted above.
Well none of that rediculousness changes the fact that the population counts of most large mammals are crashing globally.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
HA HA HA!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
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.
"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.