Holocene Extinction - We're Causing It

[TomFoolery]

Study: ’Without Any Significant Doubt’, Sixth Mass Extinction is Here
http://www.discovery.com/dscovrd/wildlife/study-without-any-significant-doubt-sixth-mass-extinction-is-here/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=DiscoveryChannel

The sixth mass extinction is here -- and the situation is dire, according to a new study published in the journal Science Advances.

Researchers used vertebrate fossil records to estimate the 'regular' rate of species extinction, and their results are harrowing: species are disappearing 100 times more quickly than normal. The "exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity" could put humankind itself at risk:

"If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover, and our species itself would likely disappear early on," warns lead author Gerardo Ceballos.

In the study, researchers name several main causes for the acceleration of species extinction, including habitat destruction, introduction of invasive species, climate change and ocean acidification.

"[The study] shows without any significant doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event," adds co-author Paul Erlich.

The study's authors call on humankind to enact "rapid, greatly intensified efforts to conserve already threatened species" in order to minimize the damage that has already been done.

I read this, and I just feel incredible sad. Not frightened or anything, but sad that the world will become a place without elephants and frogs and bees and whales and everything because the Industrial Revolution happened and you know how the story goes from there about consumerism, corporate greed and overpopulation.

What I find irritating is I've already seen a handful of religious outlets using it as an example that the end times is here, and I wonder how far that will go as an excuse to not bother doing anything, because there's nothing we can do. God wills it, after all.

[Munch]

my opinion is if humankind is the reason for these amazing animals going extinct at the rate they are, and the effects will impact our species, maybe its good that it does. If mankind is so corruptible that it cares so little for anything else but its own kind, then maybe its about time nature won out.

[TomFoolery]

my opinion is if humankind is the reason for these amazing animals going extinct at the rate they are, and the effects will impact our species, maybe its good that it does. If mankind is so corruptible that it cares so little for anything else but its own kind, then maybe its about time nature won out.

But I feel like nature isn't winning out. We're like that asshole committing suicide by driving our car through the front of a packed cafe.

Ultimately it still fills me with a sense of wonder, because I know life will go on even after most of the beautiful things we associate with "nature" are gone. And I also know that those who survive will again have a chance to evolve into a new creation long before our sun dies, and I can't help but wonder at what it will be like. Mammals didn't exist until they did, and before them, the reptiles, and the vertebrates and so on. Of all the infinite possibilities for life forms, what will be come about in a few hundred million years? Will another highly intelligent, adaptable, sentient life form come around and make the same mistakes H. sapiens did?

[Mike Cl]

But I feel like nature isn't winning out. We're like that asshole committing suicide by driving our car through the front of a packed cafe.

Ultimately it still fills me with a sense of wonder, because I know life will go on even after most of the beautiful things we associate with "nature" are gone. And I also know that those who survive will again have a chance to evolve into a new creation long before our sun dies, and I can't help but wonder at what it will be like. Mammals didn't exist until they did, and before them, the reptiles, and the vertebrates and so on. Of all the infinite possibilities for life forms, what will be come about in a few hundred million years? Will another highly intelligent, adaptable, sentient life form come around and make the same mistakes H. sapiens did?

I often wonder the same thing.  I would love an after-life just to sate my curiosity. :)

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Not to worry. Not all is lost quite yet. My granddaughter is visiting and I heard a reference to barbiepedia so I looked it up and it's not what you think. .
http://barbiepedia.com/

[SGOS]

I've long thought we're toast, not in a hand wringing kind of way.  We just won't survive, and most other species will go with us.  Mass extinctions are followed by periods of slow rebuilding.  All we need are few remaining bacteria.  A whole new array of living things that we have never conceived of will re-populate the earth in another billion years.  In addition to having an altered climate, the new environment will likely be unusually toxic, so the direction this new life takes will be strange by our standards.  I doubt that the Earth will see intelligent life again.  All current living humans have been born near the end of a fabulous but incredibly short run of the hominid types that dominated the Earth for a only a couple of short  seconds on the geological clock.  We are incredibly intelligent, but not survivors.  We're too fucked up for that.   We living humans have been very lucky to come into existence when we did.  No other life forms have ever been able to experience Nascar racing or own skidoos.

[trdsf]

It is arguably inevitable that h. sapiens go extinct eventually anyway.  That's the way evolution works.

That said, we're doing ourselves no long-term favors.  We're discovering that intelligence - by which I mean the ability to willfully manipulate the world around, not actually being smart -- may have a limit as a survival advantage.  This is probably inevitable when you put high technology in the hands of a brain that is structurally still a caveman's.

[Solitary]

Buddha said that we would have been better off if we were never born. So it seems to me that life is problematic because it depends on the suffering and death of other living things to live, including us.  I'm moving to California, getting a motorcycle, and letting the good times roll (no pun intended) have a few drinks of beer or wine, and listen to good music while watching the sun set. Life seems more like a punishment than a reward, unless you think death is the reward. Isn't that the way most religious people see it? I see life making beautiful living things struggling to survive, that mature, bloom, and become beautiful, reproduce, wither up, with the end of us and all living things a great tragedy of the worst kind of hell. Have a nice day! 

[Atheon]

I blame the Republicans.

[TomFoolery]

Buddha said that we would have been better off if we were never born. So it seems to me that life is problematic because it depends on the suffering and death of other living things to live, including us.

I've long held that nature's currency is cruelty. I learned that as an adolescent watching that Big Cat Diary show of all places. You feel bad when you watch a cheetah take out a gazelle because you watch the gazelle in its final death throes, bleating and writing and generally having a bad day and you almost want to hate the cheetah for it. Then you realize if the cheetah hadn't done it, it would slowly starve to death, and if it had any cubs they would also, and that's also cruel. Then you sit there and wonder if you're the kind of person who would prefer to watch an animal get ripped apart by a toothy predator or watch kids slowly starve to death and you feel like the universe generally fucking hates all living things.

I just think people are the most interesting animals of all. We pretend we're capable of being above cruelty, but we aren't. Every thing we take for ourselves and our families ultimately takes away from someone or something else. We have the ability to make the world (at least for us) a far less cruel world than it needs to be, but we don't. It's just such a bizarre paradox to me.

[SGOS]

I've long held that nature's currency is cruelty. I learned that as an adolescent watching that Big Cat Diary show of all places. You feel bad when you watch a cheetah take out a gazelle because you watch the gazelle in its final death throes

Being at the top of the food chain isn't all that great.  Predation is just one of evolution's adaptations, but it's not like nature hands the predator the golden keys to the kingdom.  It's a hard life and requires a lot of dangerous work.  It's not so nice being kicked in the face while taking down your only source of food, and you need a large population to feed on.  The predator's prey is usually the type that walks quietly about grazing on the bounty of plants, a much easier lifestyle, and it's greater numbers attest to that.  The prey's much bigger threat is man, and that's not the man with the hunting rifle.  It's the one with the back hoe and the feller buncher.  Loss of habitat is its real concern.  When the prey's numbers dwindle, it becomes the death knell for the predator, who is absolutely dependent on a source of food that is in good supply.

[Mike Cl]

I've long held that nature's currency is cruelty. I learned that as an adolescent watching that Big Cat Diary show of all places. You feel bad when you watch a cheetah take out a gazelle because you watch the gazelle in its final death throes, bleating and writing and generally having a bad day and you almost want to hate the cheetah for it. Then you realize if the cheetah hadn't done it, it would slowly starve to death, and if it had any cubs they would also, and that's also cruel. Then you sit there and wonder if you're the kind of person who would prefer to watch an animal get ripped apart by a toothy predator or watch kids slowly starve to death and you feel like the universe generally fucking hates all living things.

I just think people are the most interesting animals of all. We pretend we're capable of being above cruelty, but we aren't. Every thing we take for ourselves and our families ultimately takes away from someone or something else. We have the ability to make the world (at least for us) a far less cruel world than it needs to be, but we don't. It's just such a bizarre paradox to me.

Being at the top of the food chain isn't all that great.  Predation is just one of evolution's adaptations, but it's not like nature hands the predator the golden keys to the kingdom.  It's a hard life and requires a lot of dangerous work.  It's not so nice being kicked in the face while taking down your only source of food, and you need a large population to feed on.  The predator's prey is usually the type that walks quietly about grazing on the bounty of plants, a much easier lifestyle, and it's greater numbers attest to that.  The prey's much bigger threat is man, and that's not the man with the hunting rifle.  It's the one with the back hoe and the feller buncher.  Loss of habitat is its real concern.  When the prey's numbers dwindle, it becomes the death knell for the predator, who is absolutely dependent on a source of food that is in good supply.

When taken together, what these two said seems to me to be proof (or all that I need) there is no God.  And if there is a God behind this system, then he is one sick puppy!

[trdsf]

I blame the Republicans.

I thought they were blaming us gays.  Don't take my superpowers away!  :D