The warnings seem to be more aggressive......

http://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-offici ... extinction

Still I wonder if anyone, but a few, believe we are in serious trouble or do they even care? My feeling is that since we pretty much in general are not directly connected to nature anymore we as a group are not aware of the situation. And this pseudo mistrust of scientists because they are telling us stuff we don't want to hear has got them relegated to the sidelines. The recent heat waves are telling, but will it take 130 degree temps every year before all people listen?? Or no more sea food? Is it possible that in 3-4 generations people will resent us now as we resent the nazis of 3-4 generations ago??

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environm ... ightmodule

I just ordered this  pulitzer prize winning book by Elizabeth Kolbert entitled "the Sixth Extinction",

Has anyone read it already?

Paul

There have been 5 previous extinctions, all before humans existed. There will be more, regardless of human behavior. Alarmist reactions are good for the news media to grab attention and for a small group of people to obsess on.



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The question is whether humans can prevent their own extinction that will be caused by the loss of too many other species.

Does anyone really know how long a "mass extinction" event takes to completion? I doubt anyone has the answer! It might take a few decades to tens of thousands of years. Whichever it is, it will probably be long after I have departed this planet.

So...
It's going to happen anyway so shut up meets, We will eat / pollute ourselves out of existence meets, I don't care I'll be dead.

Embarrassing

amullis wrote:Does anyone really know how long a "mass extinction" event takes to completion? I doubt anyone has the answer! It might take a few decades to tens of thousands of years. Whichever it is, it will probably be long after I have departed this planet.

True, however, human tolerance for environmental change is limited and our 'comfort' zones are quite narrow. Global warming is playing havoc with ambient temperatures around the world. Already people are dying of extreme heat in many parts of the planet while we've seen record winters here in the northeastern US. The southwest meanwhile faces extreme draught with the water tables dropping, massive fires that are impossible to put out and loss of agricultural production. 

Yes, people can and do adapt, but the process is painful and often times too much to bear. The majority of humanity has no choice but to adapt since they cannot move to another part of the world, unlike in prehistoric times, when if you could get to a place, you could simply settle down there. Ironically, with all the progress human beings have made in the name of 'civilization', there is less opportunity for people to travel to a 'better land'. Immigration laws are discriminatory, even in this day and age, tailored to favor certain racial/ethnic/economic attributes. But that's off topic....

Pradeep

I guess I could also say I'll be dead and gone when it all happens, so what of it..... and does it matter? But I don't think like that. It gives me peace of mind to visualize a different outcome. And I guess I feel that if something was ever worth loving, then it is worth protecting...even if I am no longer around to enjoy it.

I'm much more the biocentric type...not the anthropocentric type. I'm not much concerned with man's fate in all this, or the troubles he and she will be facing. Some, maybe a lot will perish, and that is by their own hand, but many will adapt and go on. I am much more concerned that the innocents in all this will also be thrown into struggle and annihilation........ as we see they already are. For me I want the planet to go on, and be healthy for them, as they have little ability to pick up and move or endure big changes. How lonely and desolate and sad this planet will be if most life other than humans are all gone. It would be like a box of crayons with only black crayons in it.

This planet I believe is a miracle, it is our paradise. Seems we have been trying to break away from it forever..to be something it is not. Will it ever be that humans will think different?

Well we would all be in quite a pickle on a lot of things if the people who came before us didn't care about the future cause they would be dead and gone. To not care about the future seems like the ultimate cop out..


Paul

EGrav wrote:There have been 5 previous extinctions, all before humans existed. There will be more, regardless of human behavior. Alarmist reactions are good for the news media to grab attention and for a small group of people to obsess on.

There are solid and definite reasons to be alarmed. Sure bad news makes good copy, but that does not at all mean the bad news was made up or exaggerated. And there is no alarmist people out there all wracked in paranoia shouting the sky is falling. Hundreds of thousands of dedicated professional scientists and researchers have been spelling it out to those who continue to hide their heads in the sand. Satellites galore, airplanes flying for data, collecting stations, computer models, real life feet on the ground hands on evidence are telling a story of impending destruction. No one knows with absolute certainty the exact ending, but for real we are facing some things now that have little recourse than to adopt a very different out look...at least for starters.


Paul

pleverington wrote:

EGrav wrote:There have been 5 previous extinctions, all before humans existed. There will be more, regardless of human behavior. Alarmist reactions are good for the news media to grab attention and for a small group of people to obsess on.

There are solid and definite reasons to be alarmed. Sure bad news makes good copy, but that does not at all mean the bad news was made up or exaggerated. And there is no alarmist people out there all wracked in paranoia shouting the sky is falling. Hundreds of thousands of dedicated professional scientists and researchers have been spelling it out to those who continue to hide their heads in the sand. Satellites galore, airplanes flying for data, collecting stations, computer models, real life feet on the ground hands on evidence are telling a story of impending destruction. No one knows with absolute certainty the exact ending, but for real we are facing some things now that have little recourse than to adopt a very different out look...at least for starters.


Paul

Actually, Paul, there are "alarmist people out there all wracked in paranoia shouting the sky is falling." In fact, one of the main proponents of the "mass extinction" theory is one of those alarmists - Paul Ehrlich (and there are many others). Ehrlich's the guy that wrote the Population Bomb in 1968 that claimed hundreds of millions - literally - would die in the 1970s due to starvation. That wasn't his only outlandish claim (he also claimed he thought England wouldn't exist in the year 2000 and that the UK would be nothing but a group of tiny islands filled with starving people). The guy is a nut job and does a disservice to sane people that are trying to help the environment. The media too frequently gives them a soapbox without questioning them. For example, not one of the articles on the mass extinction that I read mention his history which is entirely relevant to his credibility on this topic. 

Unfortunately there are too many of these groups that function this way - with over the top exaggerations (and in some cases lies and outright intentional deception - see the global warming email fiasco from a few years ago) to scare people into agreeing with them. It's counterproductive. The end does not justify the means. And, with all due respect, people that disagree with them aren't all "hiding their heads in the sand." I'm one of those people. I support conservation efforts and donate a fair amount of money (for me at least) to it but I don't think we are facing anything close to "impending destruction." My head is most certainly not in the sand.  If certain groups would stop the exaggerations then I think we would see more progress. 

Actually Doug your touching on an important subject. There are people that overcook and  burn the dinner if you will. This is fact and anyone of opinion not recognizing this is fooling themselves.

I'm of the believe we all, I do mean all of us, are guilty of believing things that we essentially NEED to believe. I think it's past what we want to believe, it's about what we "must have" to believe. And that is rather a double edge sword cause on one hand it is a source for our dreams, the part of us that says "be all that your can be and not what you are" because universally we all want to be better than what we are. We want maybe to be better than what others are also almost by extension of that fact. So we all make up things that fit our pictures of whatever. The bad side? We lie. And we deceive. We all do it. It's natural and it's being humans with a big  brain that can fabricate possibilities.This is what I believe. This does not mean of course we are bad or lie and deceive all the time especially during critical times.

That's just touching the subject concerning deception, but here is the big difference, the deal breaker..

Evidence....

Not one guy and his wife writing a book in 1968 during a time of unprecedented social, political,and economic change who made predictions that didn't happen as so many others that have done the same in history. He was right that someday too many people would see this planet become a finite resource. In that he was correct. He just got when it will happen wrong. According to  what  I  have read, he was working  with knowledge and evidence based on the  way things were and didn't add in the calculations or whatever facts about increasing harvest yields per acre and other technologies that obviously are getting  us through.
But I agree completely with you that we as environmentally minded people need to be proven more right over time than wrong so as to build up a solid track record of accuracy and honesty. Unfortunately that being said, what about this--People do not react much if there is not much reason too. So environmentalists have this dilemma similar to the frog in the pot of cold water as it slowly heats up till he's cooked. Without somebody pointing out hey...look...it's the last white male rhino!! Or hey...look...there's no more rainforest frogs! Or hey/...look...30 years ago we had four times as many Asian elephants!!  On and on..you read it all too I'm sure

OK your right Doug there have been a handful of call them extreme-o-philes or reckless deceivers. I wish it weren't so.

But there are mountains and mountains and reams and reams of documented evidence from whatever scientific or research source you want to name that is telling us we have a problem that's real. It's not about a guy and his wife or a few guys falsifying reports for more bucks. Just reminding you and others we have dedicated people in the field all over the planet who collect data and report it and make no more money or less money because of what that data is. We have NASA, we have the IUCS, IPCC, we have the EPA, we have computer modeling...I won't go on -you know what I'm saying. We have in our hands hard evidence. The skeptics are fine with me. I feel they contribute in the long run. But no one should misinterpret claims for fact without evidence and that does happen a lot. On either side of an argument.

So reading this book "The Sixth Extinction" (I've only gotten the first chapter read)apparently the worlds frogs are going extinct. It took researchers a while to figure it out, but apparently it's a fungus that was a natural part of the worlds environment, but in a very local place. But because we are taking invasives all over the planet now, and things such as a fungus are not seen, this fungus is now all over the world and in every habitat that frogs also live in. Not just frogs Doug--amphibians too. The fungus-batrachochytrium dendrobatidis-batrachos-a specific form of the Chytrids fungus covers their skin and stops  the up take of valuable electrolytes and essentially gives them a heart attack. 3 weeks after exposure they are dead.

"It’s difficult to communicate the extent of the amphibian crisis using only numbers. The 2008 global amphibian assessment lists 120 potentially extinct species and 39 extinct amphibian species. Of these, 94 had chytridiomycosis listed as a likely threat associated with their disappearance. Most of the missing species are from Central and South America, but we are also losing species from North America, the Caribbean, Australia, the Middle East, Asia and Australia."

And here's the eye opening roll call:
http://amphibianrescue.org/tag/list-of- ... n-species/

This kind of extinction has never happened before in human history and demonstrates fully the hazards of ignoring caution and how intricate and unforeseeable consequences of certain actions such as moving things around on this Earth can be.

If one is anthropocentric, then I guess none of it matters to that person cause it's all about, and nothing but, man. In that case there is no mass extinction problem cause that  would only have meaning if we go extinct. But if your biocentric, and believe man is just another inhabitant of this planet and all species are meant and have a right to be here equally..... it's a whole different story.


So my question would be to anyone: At what point would you say we are in an extinction event? What would it take? how much evidence do you need? The amphibians are the tip of the iceberg. And they have only seriously crashed since 2000, that's how quickly things can move.

Is it being alarmist to call it a mass extinction or is it just an inconvenient fact?

I ask.....

Paul

*Think about why we even need an endangered species act today.

I'd say it's a pretty serious situation when an entire class (Amphibia) of the animal kingdom is threatened with extinction.
Keep an eye on what is happening within the Reptilia class also. The Order Chelonia (turtle) is fast disappearing around the world as well. That one is due almost entirely from human causes, including overharvest, poaching, and collecting.
Paul

Paul Fusco wrote:I'd say it's a pretty serious situation when an entire class (Amphibia) of the animal kingdom is threatened with extinction.
Keep an eye on what is happening within the Reptilia class also. The Order Chelonia (turtle) is fast disappearing around the world as well. That one is due almost entirely from human causes, including overharvest, poaching, and collecting.
Paul

Paul from the book I'm reading it says there a lot of researchers to volunteers are keeping tanks going, under clean room conditions, that are holding species that are almost gone in the hopes of heading off extinction. They are  doing that with the caveat that there  are only hundreds being saved rather than thousands or millions that should be in the  wild, but  the paradox is that what's next?? Because of the fungi  everywhere they  can never  be released anywhere.... ever....So some ask is there a point to saving them? The only thing I can think of is it possible to breed a resistance into them against the fungus or genetically engineer them to do the same?? It's just so crazy...

I have a turtle. She lives in a tank by night and gets put out in my little pond by day. She trusts me and we do have a repor.. It's very cool looking at how magnificent she looks at times--the colored streaks, the design of her eyes and shell, patterns..I like to watch her and ponder whats going on in her head. Don't have a clue why she has a tail but she does..She is totally beautiful...


Paul

Paul, I read somewhere a long time ago that it takes something like 40 generations to breed resistance into an animal. That was in reference to Hawaiian birds and avian malaria (also a human introduced malady).
P

Here's a synopsis of a 2012 study on all of the avian extinctions over the past 500 years of 141 monotypic species and 138 subspecies of polytypic species:  

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0047080

The study says that the rate of extinction during this period is more than 100 times the long-term average. 

Even if you don't believe that particular statistic (perhaps you disagree with the methods used to calculate the long-term average extinction rate), the most sobering conclusion of the study is that virtually all of these extinctions are attributable to human activity.  By "virtually all" I mean all but one, i.e. over 99%. 

So even someone who denies that we're in a mass extinction event still has to deal with the conclusion that the vast majority of recent extinctions are at our hand.  We have a very good idea of what are the causes of recent extinctions; not much room for debate in hardly any cases. 

BTW in case anyone's wondering, the single recent bird extinction due to natural causes was that of the San Benedicto Rock Wren (actually a subspecies), which perished by a volcanic eruption.