Frightening study-"We are now entering the sixth great mass

[Mojocvh]

... extinction event."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-3320...

Not a single event but rather a series that run together to lead to gradual species extinction..

[eldar]

Mojocvh said:

... extinction event."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-3320...

Not a single event but rather a series that run together to lead to gradual species extinction..

Those extinctions leave room for new species, maybe more interesting ones.

[Blaster72]

I'm still waiting for a comet to wipe us out, global warming to drown us all, SARS to kill us all, Ebola to make my eyes bleed and on and on.

Stop fretting.

It reminds me so much of this

http://www.anorak.co.uk/288298/scare-stories/the-d...

[croyde]

Not bothered. Just another silly story for the papers.

It's easy to list these things millions of years later but the events themselves spanned millenia or longer.

Aren't we in the midst of an ice age as well?

[turbobloke]

Apparently one of the authors is Paul Ehrlich. A post in the Climate Politics thread reminded me that this is the Ehrlich who forecast in 1971 that England would not exist in the year 2000 due to environmental catastroophe besetting the UK. That, and other crystal ball failures, are here; nothing similar seems to be available at The Guardian or The Independent websites.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/30/botched-...

Extinction is one natural endpoint of evolution.

[Eric Mc]

I predict that extinctionists will (sadly) never become extinct.

[grumbledoak]

Is he claiming humans caused the previous five? No? Thought not.

File with Global Warming.

[Moonhawk]

eldar said:

Those extinctions leave room for new species, maybe more interesting ones.

Yep - without past extinctions we probably wouldnt exist. Extinction is pretty much inevitable.

[Simpo Two]

turbobloke said:

Extinction is one natural endpoint of evolution.

I think it's the only natural endpoint.

[croyde]

Extinction is not possible nowadays. I caught a bit of a documentary last week where scientists had already cloned dinosaurs from fossil DNA.

[turbobloke]

Also why is the study frightening if there have been 5 previous mass extinctions and we still got to drive V8s. The planet is fine at least for a few billion years, we're not, so what, that's life on a planet.

[Simpo Two]

More room for us I say. Huzzah!

[Moonhawk]

croyde said:

Extinction is not possible nowadays. I caught a bit of a documentary last week where scientists had already cloned dinosaurs from fossil DNA.

What was it called - "Cretaceous Meadow"?

[Moonhawk]

Simpo Two said:

More room for us I say. Huzzah!

Unless we are one of the species to go extinct.

In the grand scheme of things - we haven't been around all that long. There are species that were around for a lot longer than we have been - but which still went extinct.

[Terminator X]

Why worry about stuff you can do nothing about? We're all fked in a billion years anyway when the Sun gets too hot. Not co2 related either...

TX.

[Simpo Two]

Moonhawk said:

Simpo Two said:

More room for us I say. Huzzah!

Unless we are one of the species to go extinct.

In the grand scheme of things - we haven't been around all that long. There are species that were around for a lot longer than we have been - but which still went extinct.

Yes but they were a bit thick.

What event - apart from plantary destruction before we've figured to how to get to Mars - do you think would cause every breeding pair of H. sapiens to die out?

Remember, even if 99.9% of the human population dies from some new disease, there will still be 7,000,000 left.

[durbster]

Moonhawk said:

Unless we are one of the species to go extinct.

In the grand scheme of things - we haven't been around all that long. There are species that were around for a lot longer than we have been - but which still went extinct.

To illustrate just how incomprehensibly long dinosaurs were around for, I once read that a Tyrannosaurus Rex was closer to seeing a Justin Bieber concert than he was to seeing a Stegosaurus.

Simpo Two said:

Yes but they were a bit thick.

What event - apart from plantary destruction before we've figured to how to get to Mars - do you think would cause every breeding pair of H. sapiens to die out?

Remember, even if 99.9% of the human population dies from some new disease, there will still be 7,000,000 left.

I'd say the loss of population isn't as important as the knowledge that'd go with it.

Imagine having to invent the internet again.

[Moonhawk]

durbster said:

To illustrate just how incomprehensibly long dinosaurs were around for, I once read that a Tyrannosaurus Rex was closer to seeing a Justin Bieber concert than he was to seeing a Stegosaurus.

Yep - T-rex and Stegosaurus missed each other by around 83 million years, whereas there are only 66 million years between T-rex and Bieber.

[AshVX220]

Moonhawk said:

durbster said:

To illustrate just how incomprehensibly long dinosaurs were around for, I once read that a Tyrannosaurus Rex was closer to seeing a Justin Bieber concert than he was to seeing a Stegosaurus.

Yep - T-rex and Stegosaurus missed each other by around 83 million years, whereas there are only 66 million years between T-rex and Bieber.

Wow, did not know that! Amazing that nothing evolved in that time to develop human levels of intelligence. (Well, I think it is anyway).

[944fan]

Moonhawk said:

Yep - T-rex and Stegosaurus missed each other by around 83 million years, whereas there are only 66 million years between T-rex and Bieber.

So what you are saying is that T-rex missed his chance to do us all a favour by 66M years. Very poor