In the multi-million year history of life on Earth there have been 5 great extinctions of species of fauna and flora.
In the context of human civilization activity and the rapidly progressing process of global warming, has the 6th species died out?
Please reply
Best wishes
No, I did not start it. The start was with the arrival of mankind but I am taking part in the acceleration process right now.
We humans are the greatest plague that this Earth endures but there is a certainty for the future; In a million years from now there will be no more humans but there will be life on Earth. The effects of humans will be reduced to a 1 mm thin layer in the Earth where once was New York. Our pollution will be gone, including radioactive and chemical remains from our primitive devices. And Earth will go on for another 3 Billion years.
Being humans we are so focussed on our own well-being, which is our only concern to our environment. We are worried for a global 2 degree temperature raise because it will affect our quality of life, and as a side effect kill millions of species. It may raise the sea level by 10 meters and we may loose countries like my beloved Netherlands. However, do we realise that during the last Ice Age 100,000 years ago, the sea level was 120 m lower and before the Ice Ages of the Pleistocene we had the Miocene when the temperature was 10 degrees higher than today and sea level was also much higher than today. Did anybody care about the extinction at the start of each of the five Ice Ages during the Pleistocene? Nobody, unless you were part of it!
I realise that my own lifestyle adds to mass extinction; I eat some meat, I do heat my house, I drive my car, I consume products made of polluting items like plastic, and yes I have three children that have the same lifestyle like me. But I am only human and I am programmed to live, have fun, reproduce, and alas destroy my environment on the way. I hope that I can focus on the good things in life and destroy as little as possible for the little time that I have (or humans) have left. For the Earth I can only hope that this plague is over soon. Certainly, there will be a boom of life again after we are gone; the Earth is patient.
In this contemporary time, we are losing several species, for instance:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253645164_Endangered_Species
No, I did not start it. The start was with the arrival of mankind but I am taking part in the acceleration process right now.
We humans are the greatest plague that this Earth endures but there is a certainty for the future; In a million years from now there will be no more humans but there will be life on Earth. The effects of humans will be reduced to a 1 mm thin layer in the Earth where once was New York. Our pollution will be gone, including radioactive and chemical remains from our primitive devices. And Earth will go on for another 3 Billion years.
Being humans we are so focussed on our own well-being, which is our only concern to our environment. We are worried for a global 2 degree temperature raise because it will affect our quality of life, and as a side effect kill millions of species. It may raise the sea level by 10 meters and we may loose countries like my beloved Netherlands. However, do we realise that during the last Ice Age 100,000 years ago, the sea level was 120 m lower and before the Ice Ages of the Pleistocene we had the Miocene when the temperature was 10 degrees higher than today and sea level was also much higher than today. Did anybody care about the extinction at the start of each of the five Ice Ages during the Pleistocene? Nobody, unless you were part of it!
I realise that my own lifestyle adds to mass extinction; I eat some meat, I do heat my house, I drive my car, I consume products made of polluting items like plastic, and yes I have three children that have the same lifestyle like me. But I am only human and I am programmed to live, have fun, reproduce, and alas destroy my environment on the way. I hope that I can focus on the good things in life and destroy as little as possible for the little time that I have (or humans) have left. For the Earth I can only hope that this plague is over soon. Certainly, there will be a boom of life again after we are gone; the Earth is patient.
Dear Dr Dariusz,
An important discussion, humans will be the last species died out.
I agree with Mr. Leon in certain points, but we should focuse on the the scientific reason for our existence on earth, and our positive or negative role
best regards
Amina
L'apparition et la distinction d'espèces rentre dans la dynamique des populations. Des pics peuvent avoir lieu mais la vie sans les êtres vivant n'aura pas lieu. Ça sera la fin d'une vie pour une autre vie.
No, I have not started it. I walk to my work place rather than hiking a fuel-driven transportation, I don't smoke, and I use more of electricity than natural gas for cooking. Yet I believe mass extinction is inevitable - natural forces are something we can not escape from or prevent.
Currently (mid-May 2019) a UN report appeared, which shows that the species extinction process accelerates and is no longer invertible, it is not possible to stop this process. However, if humanity quickly implements pro-ecological reforms, implementation of sustainable environmentally friendly development consistent with the green economy concept, it is possible to significantly slow down the process of greenhouse gas emissions, environmental pollution and unfavorable processes in nature.
Do you agree with me on the above matter?
Please reply
I invite you to the discussion
Thank you very much
Best wishes
Hello all; It is really quite a source of curiosity to me that most discussions like this one assiduously avoid discussing the handful of measures that would mitigate the impact of the "mass extinction".
1. We make more babies than the world's resources can support…at any standard of living. All the damaging features of the technological society flow from that.
Robert Malthus had it figured out two centuries ago. Paul Ehrlich could tell us how many people the world can support if we can tell him the standard of living we demand. Defining the problem is scientifically pretty straightforward. Acting on what we know is up to us. We can fix the problem or Nature will fix the problem! I'm quite sure that Nature's solution is not the preferred one.
Let's talk about that. Best regards, Jim Des Lauriers
Dear Abdelkader Mohamed Elsayed, Thank you very much.
I am glad that we look at this issue in a similar way. Best wishes, Dariusz Prokopowicz
Dear P. Contreras, Thank you very much for the kind words and vice versa. Best regards, Have a nice day,
Dariusz Prokopowicz
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