Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction Has Begun According to Scientists

[Agema]

This is a good article. But the prevailing message should be highlighted. Even if we are destroying the environment that leads to a planetary extinction event. Life will likely survive, as it has done in every extinction event before it. Humans might die out, and likely we will, but life itself will remain for a time.

At some point though, the Earth itself will die. The core will cool, which will cause the magnetic poles to vanish thus allowing the atmosphere to drift off into space killing everything on the planet. OR the sun might die first and consume the Earth as it expands to millions of times its current size.

Extinction is enivitable ultimately. But until the big extinction, life will continue to bounce back because eventually the contirbuting factor will be snuffed out and once it is gone, life will flourish again.

I can't help but feel that life bouncing back after a few million years is a somewhat weak compensation for humanity killing half the planet and itself.

 

[Silvanus]

Are we though?

Yes, we are. This is not a point of serious contention.

 

[Cheetodust]

This is a good article. But the prevailing message should be highlighted. Even if we are destroying the environment that leads to a planetary extinction event. Life will likely survive, as it has done in every extinction event before it. Humans might die out, and likely we will, but life itself will remain for a time.

At some point though, the Earth itself will die. The core will cool, which will cause the magnetic poles to vanish thus allowing the atmosphere to drift off into space killing everything on the planet. OR the sun might die first and consume the Earth as it expands to millions of times its current size.

Extinction is enivitable ultimately. But until the big extinction, life will continue to bounce back because eventually the contirbuting factor will be snuffed out and once it is gone, life will flourish again.

Everyone is going to die, I should be allowed kill with impunity.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Everyone is going to die, I should be allowed kill with impunity.

That isn't what's happening. You are using hyperbole and it doesn't even make sense. Should we arrest you for killing ants that invade your home? Should we have laws against killing the mosquito that landed on your arm?

I can't help but feel that life bouncing back after a few million years is a somewhat weak compensation for humanity killing half the planet and itself.

I mean if that is the case, then humanity is a terrible creature and we SHOULD go extinct. It would be better for every other creature on the planet wouldn't it? Seems like a win-win for the vast majority of lifeforms if you ask me.

 

[Agema]

I mean if that is the case, then humanity is a terrible creature and we SHOULD go extinct. It would be better for every other creature on the planet wouldn't it? Seems like a win-win for the vast majority of lifeforms if you ask me.

Let's not get too overexcited.

For all their intelligence, humans are animals and have a whole host of animal failings. Any animal can (and will) overpopulate, or otherwise overexploit their ecosystem, and cause a load of damage to it. Much like we can talk about obesity rates, but if you sit a load of animals in an area with a near-inexhaustable supply of food, they'll overeat themselves into obesity, too.

The problem is thus not that humans are terrible, simply that we are prone to shitty decision making, instinct, irrationality, perverse incentivisation, and many other things. A wolf or deer cannot recognise their actions are wrecking their own ecosystem, but humans can. The tragedy is merely that all that collective rationality, intelligence and wisdom our species has is so frequently unable to overcome elements of our primal idiocy.

 

[CriticalGaming]

wrecking their own ecosystem, but humans can.

If we could would we still do it. The smartest of us might see it, but the vast majority of the animal that is human does not.

I actually think that the smartest of us are a fluke. Humans are not meant to be as smart as we are because it both allows us to create great things that ultimately lead to our self-destruction (weapons, and industry that pollutes) as well as realize that we are fucking things up. Yet at the same time our animal instincts prevent us from giving a shit too much.

"We are destroying the planet and if we don't stop we will destroy the planet."

"Oh no! How much time do we have?"

"If we don't stop we only have 50-100 years."

"Pff sounds like my fucking grandkid's problem. YOLO!"

 

[Fallen Soldier]

Speaking of which, Elon Musk apparently thinks we don't have enough people or some shit.

Elon Musk says population collapse ‘potentially the greatest risk to the future of civilization’

Musk has previously warned population collapse is a bigger problem than most people realize.

thehill.com

We've got 300+ Million Americans and the World Pop is about 8 billion or so. We're not anywhere close to a population collapse, at least at this moment. Now when ecological disaster hits hard, then this might be a problem but 8 billion people is not sustainable at the rate we're using resources and polluting. It sure as hell isn't gonna be sustainable going forward when we lose more arable land, potable water and such to rising sea levels and climate change.

Fuck, world population is expecting to peak in a couple decades and then start sloping down.

If you're really worried about people not having kids, maybe you should take a look at all the people living in fucking poverty not only around the world but in this country, Rich boy. How about donate a billion or so for universal childcare? Or stopping climate change? Or making sure everyone can fucking eat on the regular?

I wish people would just ignore this guy. He’s full of hot air.

 

[Dalisclock]

I wish people would just ignore this guy. He’s full of hot air.

I try to. For a while my sister fawned over the guy despite his awful labor record and the fact he basically grew up rich on SA diamond money. She's finally gotten better.

 

[Agema]

I wish people would just ignore this guy. He’s full of hot air.

He is rich and powerful, and people are wont to admire the rich and powerful to some degree simply for being rich and powerful.

I get the horrible feeling that that tool's opinion boils down to nothing more than that he needs lots of plebs to dig in mines and put things together so he can make more money, and cause overcrowding that motivates more people to support his efforts to travel the void. It's very capitalist. Imagine we had a world with only maybe a few hundred million people, all that room to roam, all that abundance to enjoy. We might not want to work like dogs to make him billions or see the need to jet off to Europa.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

We might not want to work like dogs to make him billions or see the need to jet off to Europa.

I still say the only issue with these billionnaires launching themselves into space is we keep letting them come back.

 

[Hawki]

He is rich and powerful, and people are wont to admire the rich and powerful to some degree simply for being rich and powerful.

I get the horrible feeling that that tool's opinion boils down to nothing more than that he needs lots of plebs to dig in mines and put things together so he can make more money, and cause overcrowding that motivates more people to support his efforts to travel the void. It's very capitalist. Imagine we had a world with only maybe a few hundred million people, all that room to roam, all that abundance to enjoy. We might not want to work like dogs to make him billions or see the need to jet off to Europa.

Musk isn't the best person to discuss these matters, but he's far from the only person to raise the issue of underpopulation, and that includes people trained in the field.

I mean, doubt I'm stating anything you don't know, but you need a TFR of 2.1 to maintain a population, and about half the countries in the world are under that. And from a purely human-based standpoint, paradoxically, the more people there are, the cheaper resources become - think it's called the Simons Abundance Index, since we're no longer in a Malthusian economy. But even that aside, an inverted population pyramid isn't good for a society.

Now, for what it's worth, population stability and even decline would be good for the planet, but overconsumption is a bigger problem than overpopulation, but long term, a population crash could be an issue. Especially when you consider humanity's lack of genetic diversity (recently read a work about humans being doomed to extinction due to lack of genetic diversity).

 

[Mister Mumbler]

I still say the only issue with these billionnaires launching themselves into space is we keep letting them come back.

Time for some really expensive skeet shooting.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Do be fair to us, extinctions have been happening long before us and will happen long after we're gone. I'm sure we are fucking with things while we are here, it isn't like it also wouldn't happen if we weren't

The article pointed that out, but the other critical point was that we’ve accelerated the process from what would’ve taken place over millennia to mere decades.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Time for some really expensive skeet shooting.

How much do you think the Russian will charge for a couple of their new generation ASAT missiles? Asking for a friend.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Speaking of which, Elon Musk apparently thinks we don't have enough people or some shit.

Elon Musk says population collapse ‘potentially the greatest risk to the future of civilization’

Musk has previously warned population collapse is a bigger problem than most people realize.

thehill.com

We've got 300+ Million Americans and the World Pop is about 8 billion or so. We're not anywhere close to a population collapse, at least at this moment. Now when ecological disaster hits hard, then this might be a problem but 8 billion people is not sustainable at the rate we're using resources and polluting. It sure as hell isn't gonna be sustainable going forward when we lose more arable land, potable water and such to rising sea levels and climate change.

Fuck, world population is expecting to peak in a couple decades and then start sloping down.

If you're really worried about people not having kids, maybe you should take a look at all the people living in fucking poverty not only around the world but in this country, Rich boy. How about donate a billion or so for universal childcare? Or stopping climate change? Or making sure everyone can fucking eat on the regular?

Incidentally, it's mostly the people living in poverty that are the issue. The US has a population of 300+ million in just over 200 years since the country was founded. That's a really slow birth rate. The real issue causing overpopulation is the poverty stricken countries where having a dozen kids to a single couple is a routine thing. Have as many kids as possible in the hope that some survive. It's yet another instinct that doesn't work in the modern world.

Like anything else, global warming, polluting the oceans and so forth, a few countries can make great strides towards fixing the problem but if the rest of the world doesn't give enough of a crap to do it too, the efforts of those few isn't going to come to anything more than slightly slowing down how quickly everything goes to hell, if that.

Yes indeed.

But the people driving or exploiting this view most tend to be very rich. Powerful people know that money gives them options - and will give their offspring options - to avoid the worst. So even they can view themselves as securing their dynastic future - the world might go to shit, but they'll be the ones on the top in this dilapidated new world order.

Of course, there are lots of other reasons. Some people genuinely just don't give a shit. Some people find the idea so terrifying that they pretend it won't happen, or some as yet undefined future technology will make the problem go away.

Humanity will never do anything about a problem until it becomes so big that we can't ignore it anymore. Sure, there might be a few scientists here and there that will look for a solution, but humanity as a whole won't get off our collective butts and actually solve a problem until we absolutely have to.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Earth’s sixth mass extinction has begun according to scientists

A study from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found that hundreds of land animals could go extinct in the next 20 years.

en.as.com

Worldwide it is thought that more than 500 species of land animal are close to extinction and could be lost within the next 20 years. The report was published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and studied 29,000 species of land vertebrate. They estimated that the number of extinctions expected in the next two decades would likely take thousands of years if not for the negative impact of humanity.


Yay humanity. We’re really on a roll lately!

Sounds like the wealthy are going to be going on a lot more hunting trips. There's just such a thrill and feeling of power in knowing that you're the person who killed the last of something. God put these creatures on the earth and you single-handedly removed them. Hurray for you. You are better than god. Boner achieved.

 

[Hawki]

Sounds like the wealthy are going to be going on a lot more hunting trips. There's just such a thrill and feeling of power in knowing that you're the person who killed the last of something. God put these creatures on the earth and you single-handedly removed them. Hurray for you. You are better than god. Boner achieved.

That kind of hunting isn't actually the biggest threat towards wildlife. Poaching is an issue, yes, but that's more within countries than people coming into said countries. Far bigger issues are habitat loss and wildlife trade.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

That kind of hunting isn't actually the biggest threat towards wildlife. Poaching is an issue, yes, but that's more within countries than people coming into said countries. Far bigger issues are habitat loss and wildlife trade.

I don't mean that the wealthy are the cause of a mass extinction. I mean that with a mass extinction going on the wealthy are going to be flocking to be the ones to "finish" off the species that are becoming more and more rare.

Shooting a deer? Psh, any hick can do that. Shooting an endangered species of antelope though? That's how a proper richy rich gets their rocks off.

 

[Agema]

Musk isn't the best person to discuss these matters, but he's far from the only person to raise the issue of underpopulation, and that includes people trained in the field.

I mean, doubt I'm stating anything you don't know, but you need a TFR of 2.1 to maintain a population, and about half the countries in the world are under that. And from a purely human-based standpoint, paradoxically, the more people there are, the cheaper resources become - think it's called the Simons Abundance Index, since we're no longer in a Malthusian economy. But even that aside, an inverted population pyramid isn't good for a society.

An inverted age pyramid will stress a society socially and economically (care requirements for or abandoning the elderly to their fate). And yes, there's a certain logic that more people, things become cheaper because of economies of scale. In terms of research and development, more people means more minds thinking of more ways forward.

But I really don't think either are that much of a problem unless severe. Bear in mind the Black Death wiped out about a third of the population of Europe across a few years in the 1300s; the 30 Years War probably depopulated Germany to the same extent in the 1600s. It's not quite the same thing, but it tells us that societies cope with heavy and rapid depopulation. If we mean a country's population decreasing by a third in 3-4 generations (which seems to be what predictions suggest), that can be handled. The global population in the medieval era is estimated at under half a bilion and yet we got to here. We wouldn't lose our technology and advancement just by going back to 1300s population size.

Now, for what it's worth, population stability and even decline would be good for the planet, but overconsumption is a bigger problem than overpopulation, but long term, a population crash could be an issue. Especially when you consider humanity's lack of genetic diversity (recently read a work about humans being doomed to extinction due to lack of genetic diversity).

I don't think lack of genetic diversity is so much of a problem. As a whole species, we clearly do not have much problem with inbreeding. Low genetic diversity becomes a problem when creatures need to adapt to some form of environmental constraint (disease, climate change, food supply change, etc.), but humans have a greatly enhanced ability to adapt to environmental constraint with technology. This is already evident when we consider the distribution of human habitation - for instance from the Arctic Inuit to Arabian deserts. Precious few if any animals could thrive in such variation.

 

[tstorm823]

Have I ever done my rant about trees here? The only form of life more environmentally dominant and willing to pollute it's surrounding spaces is the exact one people idolize as nature.