Are we in the sixth mass extinction?
If you go internet surfing to discover the scientific answer to this question, you're bound to come across this article. In it, the authors state, "Life has now entered a sixth mass extinction." The footnotes for that statement refer to three articles. In one case, the author is referring to an article he himself wrote. A second reference is to the popular Barnosky article which does not conclude that we are in a mass extinction event, but that it's possible in the next 300 years. The third reference is an article by Pimm, which also does not conclude that we are in a sixth mass extinction event. In short, this is poor science.
This article delivers the opinion of Doug Erwin, a paleontologist and expert in mass extinctions. He makes a couple of observations:
1. We aren't in a mass extinction now, though it's possible that we could enter one in the future
2. People who announce that we're in a mass extinction may think they're doing their cause a favor, but in fact, they're actually presenting a no-win scenario. No action would make any difference. So if they're trying to encourage no action, they've chosen the right strategy.
This article delivers the opinion of Doug Erwin, a paleontologist and expert in mass extinctions. He makes a couple of observations:
1. We aren't in a mass extinction now, though it's possible that we could enter one in the future
2. People who announce that we're in a mass extinction may think they're doing their cause a favor, but in fact, they're actually presenting a no-win scenario. No action would make any difference. So if they're trying to encourage no action, they've chosen the right strategy.
Comments (57)
Public discourse can jump the gun. Here in Minneapolis, the City Council's stated intention to shift substantial funding from the police department to social services hasn't been acting upon. Still, some people think the police have been totally defunded. I've heard about the mass extinction so often I could easily believe that we were half-way there.
A bad weather day (too hot, too cold, too damp, too dry, too windy, too...) is routinely blamed on global warming, which is almost certainly an error--weather and climate are two different things, but people get confused.
The galaxy turns as it circles the great cosmic toilet bowl. It's just a matter of time.
The conclusions in those articles are, essentially, that we are not currently seeing a mass extinction event, but that there may be one over the next few hundred years. That sounds reasonable. Both the Barnosky and Erwin articles add the caveat that if humanity pulls its finger out and stops eroding ecosystems and reduces emissions, that it might not happen. Again this is reasonable, but this is where the problem lies. Is humanity going to stop?
So what people are getting exercised about when they harp on about climate change and the destruction of ecosystems is the inertia in this human behaviour. Is humanity able to reduce carbon emissions, are they going to stop exploiting areas of land where healthy ecosystems are found? The population is still rising, all efforts to reduce emissions keep falling short, or paying lip service to the calls to do something. In areas where there are healthy ecosystems, poverty pushes people through desperation to exploit the land and cut down the ecosystem where they live.
So in reality the desperation is about this inertia, in the knowledge that if humanity does not change its trajectory, things are not going to end well.
One cause for hope is that humanity might fail in some way and through decline, reduce the destruction and emissions. 2020 is a good example, the emissions did fall, the pollution did reduce, because of the global pandemic.
Since extinction is a global-scale event, on a global timescale, if there is a mass extinction in the next few hundred years, then it seems reasonable to conclude we are in fact in a mass extinction already.
"Regardless, scientists agree that today’s extinction rate is hundreds, or even thousands, of times higher than the natural baseline rate. Judging from the fossil record, the baseline extinction rate is about one species per every one million species per year."
https://naturalhistory.si.edu/education/teaching-resources/paleontology/extinction-over-time
We could try for intentional non-procreation. Give it a try!
Do you think it ever will be? Would voting in new councilmen make a difference?
Quoting Bitter Crank
True. It's the psychology of apocalypticism that has me fascinated. Why do people grasp and believe that the situation is much worse than it actually is? Does it satisfy some need? If so, what? Is it a way to resolve anxiety associated with the unknown?
Right, but just focus for a second on this: the scientific community does not support the conclusion that we're 'presiding over a mass extinction event', yet some people believe it steadfastly. It's close to impossible to get them to even question their assumptions. They walk away before you can even present the truth to them, as if they dont want their belief threatened.
Why does this happen?
It may seem reasonable, but it isn't. Look again at the Atlantic article about Erwin. He goes into more detail about what a mass extinction event really is.
That would require dictatorship.
Statistically, the number of species lost fits the profile of a mass-extinction. If it doesn't follow the usual "pattern", that's likely because the human contribution is a novel element.
If you want to say that human activity is associated with extinction or near extinction of a large number of species all over the world, you've got science on your side.
If you want to say we're in a mass extinction, you don't.
Quoting Pantagruel
And yet, we are not in a mass extinction event.
Quoting Pantagruel
The worst mass extinction event was brought on by the dominant lifeform of the era. Scientists can handle that kind of variable.
In short, if you say we're in a mass extinction event, you dont have science behind you.
Given this fact, if there's a sixth mass extinction in progress, it's going to be different this time round because this one will, if all goes well, have a good ending. What am I talking about? Humans, given another couple of decades or maybe a century, will have developed the means to maintain the biosphere at optimal levels in terms of environmental parameters such as biodiversity, population, etc. In essence, nature has decided to suffer a sixth extinction at humanity's hands only because it goes toward ending the phenomenon of extinctions once and for all. We, humans, are the saviors of the planet although it may not look like that at the moment. Wait and watch...
According to one article. The suggested consensus I posted from the Smithsonian website is that it is at least an open question. So maybe try to keep your perspective a little more open. At best, you may be right.
Thereabouts, yes.
In the face of the openness of the question, would you back down from claiming that we're in an extinction event?
I read a science fiction story once that was from the point of view of a gaia-like organism. It was trippy.
Oh my....
I'm open to nature maybe having intentionality. But...
Pinned it's hopes on humans? Hopes for what? Violent suicidal nature wrecking madness?
Humans are the most intelligent creature only if we define intelligence as being of a human nature.
If we define intelligence as survival, as nature seems to do, we are the species with thousands of hydrogen bombs aimed down it's own throat, an imminent self extinction threat we typically find too boring to discuss, even in a presidential campaign. Yes, that again.
Why does such strong evidence have to be relentlessly ignored by those who pride themselves on their ability to perform logical analysis of observable real world data? Here's the answer. We ain't intelligent!
My guess is that humans are just one in a long series of experiments nature is conducting in a process that will span millions of more years.
I read a lot of statistical documentation a couple of years ago (which is at least as new as the article you cited) that in and of itself is equivalent to a "mass die-off". So call it what you like, numerically, statistically, species are dying off at an unprecedented rate.
Fact imitating fiction? Possible, very possible.
I don't know. All you have to do is become immersed in nature for a few years and you cant miss the dispersed intentionality of the whole thing. I get why people think in terms of Gaia.
It occurs to me that misanthropy might be what I'm really wondering about.
Is it misanthropy that makes people go for the evil human vs innocent nature theme? Or is it a covert sadism? Maybe both.
No doubt about that. "Mass extinction event" has a particular scientific usage. I was focusing on scientific language.
It's possible that religiously based apocalypse scenarios have migrated to the environment. "The Final Judgement" is a powerful concept, and whether it's delivered by a Father Sky God or Mother Earth God doesn't matter all that much. Humans are environmentally guilty (we've been guilty for a long time--wiping out mastodons, saber tooth tigers, Neanderthals, passenger pigeons, etc. The chickens of judgement are coming home to roost.
Then there is selectivity bias; it isn't hard to read widely and deeply and find only negative predictions. There are dozens of confounding biases that we are prone to.
The best (and only good) anti-natalism argument.
:up:
Would you agree that Marxism was a form of apocalypticism?
Perhaps the apocalypse has already happened in various ways, and we are already entering a post-apocalyptic era. The post apocalyptic is the stuff of fiction but perhaps the edges of fiction and reality are becoming more blurry day by day.
The worse fate that Marx predicted was that the Bourgeoisie and Working Class would destroy each other IF they were not able to resolve the question of ownership (of the means of production) in favor of one class or the other.
Marx, of course, was in favor of the conflict resolving in favor of the Working Class, but he didn't guarantee it.
Were one to be living in an advanced industrial society where the conflict between Workers and Capital resulted in mutual destruction, it might well seem like the end of the world, but maybe it would be no worse than the last world war (as if that wasn't altogether bad enough).
There has not been a working class movement in the 20th-21st centuries capable of powerfully battling the capitalists, because the capitalists have so far always had a well-armed government on their side. If this class battle went nuclear, then sure, it would be the apocalypse.
The most intellectually satisfying apocalyptic fiction has involved some deus ex machine (disease or war) which leaves a few people healthy and whole, who given their talents and good intentions, are able to put together a workable small but tenuous fragment of human society. Kunstler's A World Made by Hand quartet fills the bill.
To begin with, we shouldn't judge the contestants before the contest is over. Humans are only beginning to understand the complexity of nature and ergo, much of the mistakes we've been accused of commiting can be chalked up to ignorance. Misanthropy is justified only if we don't take measures to stall and reverse the damage done to nature in the coming few decades or century which seems unlikely as it's a do-or-die situation any way you look at it. To make the long story short, humans have just been informed of nature's plight- expect some time-lag before we take action and before these actions produce tangible results.
Have you experienced this?
Whatever takes our place might be the coolest thing ever. Is that what you mean?
Yes, my life has always been a bit blurry between fact and fiction, but it is a bit hard to explain on a website. I had 3 friends die tragic deaths in a very short space of time while I was at university and this led me to question a lot of things I had taken for granted. All through my adult life since then barely a week goes by without some major drama to the point where I always have a lot to say.
I do have some good things happen as well and I do keep a sense of humor though. But generally I feel I am on an accelerated learning curve all the time. It also seems that some people have more dramas while others seem to just have lives, which apart from inevitable things like deaths of relatives, everything from relationships, studies, career etc just flow smoothly without continuous dramas.
But I am on crash course collision with the apocalypse and a phase I borrow from Marilyn Manson's autobiography is the idea of a 'personal apocalypse.'
I would question this "truth" and Also I don't see the phenomenon you refer to of protesters over exaggerating the issue. Perhaps this is how it is in the US, but the rest of the Western countries have already passed beyond this point and the crisis is accepted for what it is.
So youre saying that the scientific community is secretly confident that we're in a mass extinction? What makes you believe this?
Quoting Punshhh
The truth referenced here is that the scientific community in general does not conclude that we are in a mass extinction event. Could you show why I'm wrong?
From a certain point of view change is the death of something. Is that what you mean?
From the theosophical perspective, we are presently in the fifth kaliyuga, which would mean the demise and dissolution of the fifth planetary sphere. So no, not the sixth mass extinction from that point of view.
I am not sure that I actually meant that change is the death of something. My basic point was that we face the darkness within our own consciousness and what occurs may be a death but also a transformation. I suppose the difference is that I am saying that an end may be a new beginning.
So, my view of mass extinction, quite related to my own discussion thread about cultural collapse, is that when one form of existence or culture comes to an end, it may not be an ultimate end but may be followed by a new beginning.
Actually, I responded to Frank and I think what you have said is along the same line as my reply. This is fairly possible because I am influenced by theosophy, especially Blavatsky and Alice Bailey.
I have to also admit that I have read some books by Benjamin Creme, who spoke of the transition from the energies of the age of Pisces to Aquarius. He thought that the Maitreya would emerge but he died and it did not happen.
But, in general, collapse of some kind may be followed by a new beginning.
Theosophy views everything as epicycles within epicycles, and from that perspective, a new beginning is imminent.
Theosophy is a very cohesive system that is capable of explaining nearly everything through it's own terms, and in that respect, it is very interesting. Unfortunately, from a purely philosophical perspective it is hyper-speculative with a narrow focus on metaphysics. It hardly touches on epistemology and ethics, which is why it remains conspicuously absent in philosophical circles.
This is unfortunate, I had thought of scaling this edifice, philosophically, but eventually realised that the gulf is to wide to span. Particularly as philosophy seems to be going in the direction of post modernism. Theosophy is an exercise in translating Hindu spiritualism into something which can be grasped by the West. As such it is orthonogal to the edifice of Western philosophy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy.
This episode is important here because it exposes the phenomenon of climate change skeptics, some of whom are funded by fossil fuel exploiters, rubbishing the dissemination of genuine climate science into the public sphere.
Per psychologists:
"Worry refers to the thoughts, images, emotions, and actions of a negative nature in a repetitive, uncontrollable manner that results from a proactive cognitive risk analysis made to avoid or solve anticipated potential threats and their potential consequences."
Interesting.
"There are some who respond to mental representations in an uncertain or ambiguous state in regard to the stressful or upsetting event.[9] In this state the worrier is held in a perpetual state of worry. This is because availability of an overwhelming number(maybe 2 or 3, depending upon the worry-prone individual) of possibilities of outcomes which can be generated, it puts the worrier in a threatening crisis and they focus their attentional control voluntarily on the potential negative outcomes, whereas others engage in a constructive problem solving manner and in a benign approach rather than to engage with heightened anticipation on the possible negative outcome."
Plus another theory says that worrying can be a coping mechanism: it provides a sense of having confronted the evil and so controlled it.
Worry can create sleepless nights and misery. But of course it is better to be conscious of sources of misery than in denial or manic flight.
It would just be better if the leaders, who have the power to influence culture and prevent extinction did more worrying rather than leaving it to the rest of the population. I am sure the leaders are struggling but unfortunately I am not sure that they are grappling with all the philosophical issues deeply enough. Unfortunately a lot comes down to money and power for the politicians.
A good example is Boris Johnson, a sociopath born with a sliver spoon in his mouth, educated at Eton and Oxford, steeped in an outdated Victorian mentality, with a sense of superior privelidge, walking a path of privelidge right into No10, resulting in an incompetent government.
Entirely depends on the type of ELE. Avians as predators have one big advantage; they can see their prey for miles away. So in a case of mass extinction, where prey gets scarce, a flying creatue has the best odds of still sustaining itself.
Altitude isn't necessarily a huge benefit though. In the case of gas for instance, while CO2 is indeed heavier than oxygen, it is so neatly diffused throughout our atmosphere that you'll still find it everywhere. So in the end it becomes a question of total concentration, globally and regionally.
How? All ELEs boil down to famine-conditions; flight capability (enhanced mobility) would be a big asset, would mean the difference between life ans death.
Famine is a consequence, not what it "boils down" too. Ecosystems are generally stable - until they are not. Why is there famine to begin with? Some catastrophic natural event? A disease? Changing climate? Changing environment? An invasive species that competes for resources?
I guess we better get ready to have to start to eat some soylent green in the near future, regardless if it is actually made from either sea-weed or people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green
Hopefully in this upcoming dystopian future we won't have Charlton Heston running around. I think I can handle having to eat green wafers made from human corpses but having to deal with him would be too much to bear.
And yet... The second law of thermodynamics says that if order in a closed system is created, like is done globally on a massive scale and an exponentially increasing rate, there has to be an accompanying decrease in the medium the order is created in, i.e, in nature. We can nothing but conclude then, that a mass extinction is immanent.
Interesting isn't it that life (DNA, others) holds information on what life had to go through to get to the present?