6th mass extinction event
Discussion
I saw a planet earth piece the other day and they were explaining how the loss of elephants in an area lead to the extinction or near extinction of most of the life in the area. They worked on protecting a new population of elephants and life returned…as said above, losing a big chunk of species could be the bulk of a timeline of a mass extinction.
Silvanus said:
Mass extinction events can start gradually. Probably not the best way to describe it but imagine you have a big brick wall and you start to knock out individual bricks over time, occasionally knocking out some of the supports (key stone species), eventually the wall will start to crumble and eventually collapse.
Ross Barnett is a paleontologist and zoologist who has done some fantastic research into the extinction of mega fauna. One of his books Missing Lynx is well worth a read if it's a topic you're interested in.
'Events' on a geological timeline might be hundreds or thousands of years.Ross Barnett is a paleontologist and zoologist who has done some fantastic research into the extinction of mega fauna. One of his books Missing Lynx is well worth a read if it's a topic you're interested in.
These things are labelled as happening round numbers of millions of years ago.
Arguing whether the Anthropocene Epoch started in 1750AD or 1900 is cutting things with a very sharp scalpel.
It seems to me there is a mass extinction event well under way, exactly when it started or where it ends is up for debate.
The world has changed a lot in my lifetime.
I have a great-nephew who is 4. By the end of his lifetime, things will have changed more.
Pests and diseases evolve a lot more quickly than host species like trees or mammals.
OutInTheShed said:
Silvanus said:
Mass extinction events can start gradually. Probably not the best way to describe it but imagine you have a big brick wall and you start to knock out individual bricks over time, occasionally knocking out some of the supports (key stone species), eventually the wall will start to crumble and eventually collapse.
Ross Barnett is a paleontologist and zoologist who has done some fantastic research into the extinction of mega fauna. One of his books Missing Lynx is well worth a read if it's a topic you're interested in.
'Events' on a geological timeline might be hundreds or thousands of years.Ross Barnett is a paleontologist and zoologist who has done some fantastic research into the extinction of mega fauna. One of his books Missing Lynx is well worth a read if it's a topic you're interested in.
These things are labelled as happening round numbers of millions of years ago.
Arguing whether the Anthropocene Epoch started in 1750AD or 1900 is cutting things with a very sharp scalpel.
It seems to me there is a mass extinction event well under way, exactly when it started or where it ends is up for debate.
The world has changed a lot in my lifetime.
I have a great-nephew who is 4. By the end of his lifetime, things will have changed more.
Pests and diseases evolve a lot more quickly than host species like trees or mammals.
Caddyshack said:
Wow, that is a bit Schrödingers cat…
I mean that most of the destruction and extinction of plants and animals would be halted and heal back to a healthy world without us.
The world and nature would be better off without us and studies have shown that non fishing areas designated as refuges shows that fish populations soon bounce back in those areas (NZ have a lot).
Humans have overpopulated the earth.
How about the world being better if there were only 10,000 humans left to judge the world as a better place.
Wouldn't be only 10.000 humans for long I'd imagine. I mean that most of the destruction and extinction of plants and animals would be halted and heal back to a healthy world without us.
The world and nature would be better off without us and studies have shown that non fishing areas designated as refuges shows that fish populations soon bounce back in those areas (NZ have a lot).
Humans have overpopulated the earth.
How about the world being better if there were only 10,000 humans left to judge the world as a better place.
JRHartless said:
ATG said:
Without us, in what sense would it be better? The "better or worse" judgement is something that only exists inside our heads. If you posit a world in which there aren't any human heads to be doing any judging, where's the better or worse judgement taking place?
To be fair that's a pretty ridiculous and pointless whimsical philosophical question to raise.The main source of whimsy is the people who think they're doing stuff "for the planet" as if that is selfless.
JRHartless said:
Ah right so we humans destroy every natural ecosystem and habitat on the planet along with all the higher lifeforms that inhabit them but "humans will likely survive... So who cares"
Lovely stuff.
You can’t destroy every natural ecosystem.Lovely stuff.
Our very bodies are a complex ecosystem of life.
It’s impossible for us to destroy all the other life without us also destroying ourselves.
But it’d be self moderating.
Even if we kill 90% of stuff and ourselves, in 1,000,000 years it’d be back to a utopia of life and diversity.
Likely we wouldn’t entirely disappear but evolve and perhaps decide to live differently with nature?
Who knows but I can definitely say we are a part of nature. We are nature.
Just because some of us like to observe us as bad, it’d be like a hurricane feeling guilty… it just is, and exists as a consequence of the cogs of the universe doing their thing.
That doesn’t mean we should be a bit more considerate perhaps.
But if you want true enlightened change you’re not going to get it from the current lot in charge.
They just want more humans living like battery hens doing productive work for the very wealthy few to skim off a tiny fraction of your efforts to live in utter luxury.
They don’t give a toss about the planet really, just enabling it to sustain more humans without breaking.
None of them have said, let’s slowly shrink the population over 100 years… nope, just more more more!
Their goal is greed and money, at your expense.
JRHartless said:
You've gone from initially saying 25k years ago to now saying 10k years ago so you're not being particularly "clear" about anything and seem to be getting a bit muddled up with your dates and time periods
Taking your latest claim, was there really an extinction of 80% of all animal species 10k years ago? Over what length of time did it play out?
And if there was an extinction of 80% of animals back then what evidence is there to show it was entirely due to humans?
Given that the time period coincides perfectly with the ending of the last ice age it seems a fairly big coincidence that the huge change in global climatic conditions and the subsequent knock on effect for ecosystems and habitats apparently played no part at all in that extinction.
Probably a lot more than 80% of large animals. I was being conservative. Taking your latest claim, was there really an extinction of 80% of all animal species 10k years ago? Over what length of time did it play out?
And if there was an extinction of 80% of animals back then what evidence is there to show it was entirely due to humans?
Given that the time period coincides perfectly with the ending of the last ice age it seems a fairly big coincidence that the huge change in global climatic conditions and the subsequent knock on effect for ecosystems and habitats apparently played no part at all in that extinction.
Over a period of about 50k years. Culminating 10k years ago.
I was clear that both climate and hunting had a collaborative impact. That you give more weight to climate and me more weight to hunting, are both quite reasonable positions to take.
You are putting words in my mouth saying climate played no part. Either you are not capable of comprehending the nuance of what I'm saying, or you are not bothering to.
Edited by lizardbrain on Thursday 23 November 10:38
Kawasicki said:
It's clear that a considerable, and growing, number of people see mankind as a plague on earth.
If it is it’ll self moderate.We increasingly live on the precipice.
A tiny rock from space, or a bit of a solar flare, that may have been unnoticed by 90% of humans 5,000 years ago, could cause billions of deaths today.
We’re not a plague so much as just setting ourselves up for a fall.
JRHartless said:
lizardbrain said:
I would consider extinction of 80% of animal species by human hand 10k years ago a kind of mass extinction
Where was I falling to understand the nuance or putting words in your mouth? Edited by lizardbrain on Wednesday 22 November 21:03
You quite clearly and unequivocally stated this figure of 80% extinction of animal species by human hand 10k years ago.
Captain Smerc said:
Caddyshack said:
Wow, that is a bit Schrödingers cat…
I mean that most of the destruction and extinction of plants and animals would be halted and heal back to a healthy world without us.
The world and nature would be better off without us and studies have shown that non fishing areas designated as refuges shows that fish populations soon bounce back in those areas (NZ have a lot).
Humans have overpopulated the earth.
How about the world being better if there were only 10,000 humans left to judge the world as a better place.
Wouldn't be only 10.000 humans for long I'd imagine. I mean that most of the destruction and extinction of plants and animals would be halted and heal back to a healthy world without us.
The world and nature would be better off without us and studies have shown that non fishing areas designated as refuges shows that fish populations soon bounce back in those areas (NZ have a lot).
Humans have overpopulated the earth.
How about the world being better if there were only 10,000 humans left to judge the world as a better place.
Kawasicki said:
Where are those numbers coming from? Humans made 80% of animal species extinct? 10k years ago? Really?
I said large animal species. (2015) "Megafauna and ecosystem function from the Pleistocene to the Anthropocene" about 80% of megafauna species went extinct between 50,000 and 2,000 years ago, concentrated in the Late Pleistocene period.
(2004). "Assessing the Causes of Late Pleistocene Extinctions on the Continents." overall the global pattern of extinctions was more consistent with human overkill than climate change.
There are papers that argue the opposite too. But overkill is the more widely accepted theory. The relevance of large animals is not just cherry picking. Rather it's evidence of human impact. If climate change was acting alone, you might expect broader extinctions.
I'm not trying to belittle accelerating damage of more recent times. But we've likely been at it for a while.
Edited by lizardbrain on Thursday 23 November 13:11
Caddyshack said:
105.4 said:
Scarletpimpofnel said:
This is overdue. I'd always assumed we'd experience a massive increase in solar radiation with much genetic damage/mutation/evolution happening at that time but it seems (or so I read) that the poles simply rotate around the world so the magnetic field is still there giving protection.
So will the pole flip actually cause any issue for life on earth (or electronics in space) etc?
I’ve been meaning to start a thread about that for quite some time.So will the pole flip actually cause any issue for life on earth (or electronics in space) etc?
The only issue is that unless it’s in NP&E, the thread will likely get little traction, if it did it would be spoilt by the usual a
holes, and I know so little about the subject matter that I wouldn’t be able to meaningfully contribute.From what little I do understand, the North Pole is taking a rapidly brisk jog eastwards, whilst the South Pole remains reasonably stable. Eventually they’ll come a point where things go very badly wrong, very quickly, (as in just a couple of weeks or less).
Again, based upon what little I understand, it would be a rapid “mass extinction event”.
The Suspicious Observers YouTube channel has quite a lot of decent information about this, including links to many peer reviewed scientific studies.
Frightening stuff tbh.
1. Bloke with one bullet pushing a rusty Asda shopping trolley
2. Old man with bin bags for shoes, uttering death is a treat
3. Cannibal with a truck
4. Someone's next meal
Caddyshack said:
No, but from 7.88 billion down to 10,000 you would find earth a VERY large and empty place once again. In biological terms we would very much be on our own endangered list, I suspect. The 10k was only grabbing a figure from the air, it could be 2,000 or 2m and the world would have time to re-wild a lot of what man has destroyed. It would take a good many hundred thousand years before we were back to doing so much harm, I would guess.
I wonder what the minimum number of people would be to sustain something like a normal life as we currently know it?Everything from mining raw materials onwards.
JRHartless said:
Mr Whippy said:
You can’t destroy every natural ecosystem.
Our very bodies are a complex ecosystem of life.
It’s impossible for us to destroy all the other life without us also destroying ourselves.
But it’d be self moderating.
Even if we kill 90% of stuff and ourselves, in 1,000,000 years it’d be back to a utopia of life and diversity.
Likely we wouldn’t entirely disappear but evolve and perhaps decide to live differently with nature?
Who knows but I can definitely say we are a part of nature. We are nature.
Just because some of us like to observe us as bad, it’d be like a hurricane feeling guilty… it just is, and exists as a consequence of the cogs of the universe doing their thing.
That doesn’t mean we should be a bit more considerate perhaps.
But if you want true enlightened change you’re not going to get it from the current lot in charge.
They just want more humans living like battery hens doing productive work for the very wealthy few to skim off a tiny fraction of your efforts to live in utter luxury.
They don’t give a toss about the planet really, just enabling it to sustain more humans without breaking.
None of them have said, let’s slowly shrink the population over 100 years… nope, just more more more!
Their goal is greed and money, at your expense.
Well yes, I suppose if you're happy to view things on the scale of geological epochs then it doesn't matter how much we destroy and degrade the planets current ecosystems, habitats and wildlife populations because as you say, give it a few hundred million years and complex life might just about start to evolve once again from the bacteria and other simple life forms that were able to survive our destructive onslaught. Our very bodies are a complex ecosystem of life.
It’s impossible for us to destroy all the other life without us also destroying ourselves.
But it’d be self moderating.
Even if we kill 90% of stuff and ourselves, in 1,000,000 years it’d be back to a utopia of life and diversity.
Likely we wouldn’t entirely disappear but evolve and perhaps decide to live differently with nature?
Who knows but I can definitely say we are a part of nature. We are nature.
Just because some of us like to observe us as bad, it’d be like a hurricane feeling guilty… it just is, and exists as a consequence of the cogs of the universe doing their thing.
That doesn’t mean we should be a bit more considerate perhaps.
But if you want true enlightened change you’re not going to get it from the current lot in charge.
They just want more humans living like battery hens doing productive work for the very wealthy few to skim off a tiny fraction of your efforts to live in utter luxury.
They don’t give a toss about the planet really, just enabling it to sustain more humans without breaking.
None of them have said, let’s slowly shrink the population over 100 years… nope, just more more more!
Their goal is greed and money, at your expense.
It’ll never be back to bacteria.
We’ll kill ourselves off well before all the other life has gone, because other life is more adaptable than we are.
If we make the world so utterly toxic and dangerous to other life, it’ll kill us off too.
Indeed we may already be well into that phase, look at auto-immune diseases and allergies.
We’re living “alien” lives in our natural environment already.
JRHartless said:
Mr Whippy said:
If it is it’ll self moderate.
We increasingly live on the precipice.
A tiny rock from space, or a bit of a solar flare, that may have been unnoticed by 90% of humans 5,000 years ago, could cause billions of deaths today.
We’re not a plague so much as just setting ourselves up for a fall.
Well that's not self moderation is it? We increasingly live on the precipice.
A tiny rock from space, or a bit of a solar flare, that may have been unnoticed by 90% of humans 5,000 years ago, could cause billions of deaths today.
We’re not a plague so much as just setting ourselves up for a fall.
Not in the sense of something like the Gaia Principle anyway
Are you suggesting that “it” should be doing something by now, and that because either:
a, you don’t see it, and it’s not a nuanced feedback loop already in play, possibly already spelling our doom…
b, you’re the arbiter of what Gaia can tolerate or not, and deem it as not acting, when in fact on the timescales of life on our planet it may currently be that we’re still an insignificant turd which has little influence, but we’re so self indulgent in our belief we’re powerful, insightful and special, that we’re ‘hurting’ the planet.
From my view, we’re part of nature. And nature is brutal and harsh.
If we can’t be humble then we’re doomed.
I don’t think Westernised humans can be truly humble.
We’re killing ourselves perfectly well on our own.
Risonax said:
If it happened, what will you be:
1. Bloke with one bullet pushing a rusty Asda shopping trolley
2. Old man with bin bags for shoes, uttering death is a treat
3. Cannibal with a truck
4. Someone's next meal
You’d never get roving hordes because as soon as stuff became scarce they’d struggle to survive on what they can find and scavenge/eat (inc people)1. Bloke with one bullet pushing a rusty Asda shopping trolley
2. Old man with bin bags for shoes, uttering death is a treat
3. Cannibal with a truck
4. Someone's next meal
So they’d turn on each other.
Or they’d learn to cooperate.
As long as you don’t go being a muppet (many would) congregating with other desperate people you’d be fine.
These images of people crowding around a truck for bread or something, are a perfect example of how stupid our society is.
250 years ago most people had the food literally around them, not grown/farmed/processed/transported to a big shop and sold to you, but broadly available in sustainable levels based on community sizes for the vast bulk of people.
A perfect example of survival of the fittest playing out.
Big consumerist s
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