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First reported mammal goes extinct due to climate change.

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Hypron

Member
When European sailors discovered “large rats” on a tiny island in the Great Barrier Reef, they amused themselves by shooting the animals with bows and arrows.

What a bunch of cunts.
 

Pandy

Member
While this should absolutely be a cautionary tale regarding global warming, it kind of reads like they were living on borrowed time anyway. One decent tsunami would have probably wiped them out too.

I do support the concept of climate change brought about by humans... but prior to that we were already slowly emerging from an Ice Age. It seems unlikely these cute little guys were going to stand the test of time regardless. :(
 
Yep. The Earth has taken a small size planet collision and it gave us the moon. That worked out well for all life. A meteor/and likely other events killed dinos, that worked well for mammals. There have been so many catastrophes that we know about and probably a lot we don't. It does suck that we are the problem but this beautiful blue dot will continue long after we are forgotten. Maybe we give rise to the machines. Maybe we die out and a different creature gets its chance. Imagine them finding our ruins and fossils in the rock and trying to come up with our story. Humans will absolutely not make it until the Earth is no longer life capable. The dinosaurs lasted millions of years. We are a footnote. Enjoy our special time on this special place. Though we have left plenty of space junk and sent out some cool probes that will help us last forever. Virtual reality on servers in deep space are our only chance!

I mean, this is all true, but we could be benevolent custodians of Earth and not kill billions of innocent animals while we're in charge.
 

Raggie

Member
The real problem with global warming is people going straight from "the problem probably doesn't exist, no reason to do anything" to "the problem is real and it's too late to fix it, no reason to do anything". Alternatively: "people are the worst and deserve to die, no reason to do anything".

Whatever the excuse, the result is exactly the same.
 
All of them were living on one single island? That was only roughly the size of a football field? I mean, I get that global warming is to blame but really ANY sort of disaster could have wiped these guys out. What if the island had flooded some other way, like a tidal wave? Are these melonys different than other giant rat types in the area, or are they just an offshoot of the same species that is only different due to environmental differences (like Darwin's finches). Who knows how many of these microclimate inhabiting creatures have risen and then gone extinct over the years, maybe even without us noticing.

Still a sad story though.
 
The real problem with global warming is people going straight from "the problem probably doesn't exist, no reason to do anything" to "the problem is real and it's too late to fix it, no reason to do anything". Alternatively: "people are the worst and deserve to die, no reason to do anything".

Whatever the excuse, the result is exactly the same.

Judging from the first 10 or so responses to the OP, that certainly seems to be the case.
 

geomon

Member
I do support the concept of climate change brought about by humans... but prior to that we were already slowly emerging from an Ice Age. It seems unlikely these cute little guys were going to stand the test of time regardless. :(

Well we certainly didn't help.
 

entremet

Member
Nah, Earth the will be fine, and will reset like after countless other mass extinction events. But yeah, our species and many others are fucked.
Yeah. The Earth is resilient.

Eventually our Sun will go supernova tho, but not for millions of years.
 

Sephzilla

Member
While this should absolutely be a cautionary tale regarding global warming, it kind of reads like they were living on borrowed time anyway. One decent tsunami would have probably wiped them out too.
Yeah, I honestly agree with you here. A good left hook from nature would have done them in too.

That being said, we need to do something about global warming
 

Torokil

Member
For what its worth, Cape York Melomys are the same thing as these Bramble Cay melomys and they're listed as Least Concern. Surely they can jurassic park them back.
 

RSLYG

Member
honor_troops_and_veterans_-_saluting_soldier_-_handmade_mouse_ornament_1a2797aa.jpg
 

Audioboxer

Member
Sorry little guys.

Humans won't give a shit till Florida is under sea level and some humans have died.... Nah wait Humans still won't give a shit.

Hats off to those that do try and be mindful of the earth, but we're fighting a losing battle. At least most can be honest about climate change and accept what they do to cause it. Those who deny it as a conspiracy.... smh.

Renewable energy is just going to be needed one day though, end of. I wish coal and fossil fuels were due to die out completely in my life time. Let's see the world coping with that and big industries panicking.
 

Xe4

Banned
I think the point Carlin makes is that in the end, what we do to earth won't harm it, it will harm us. We will engineer our own extinction in the end but Earth after a couple hundred thousands of years will shrug us off, heal and move on. Earth can easily heal stuff we have barely figured out how to do to it. We might take (almost) all the other animal species on Earth down with us but new ones will pop up in their stead.

All this time the active movements like Greenpeace etc. who proclaim "Save the Earth!" have had the wrong message, it should be "Save the People of Earth!" I think that would sell better to the selfish masses and the selfish companies who are the reasons why we are fucking our planet over. They don't care about the Earth, they care about themselves, saying that THEY will die due to their actions probably goes a much longer way than saying they are killing the planet.

I know the earth will be fine. What I was saying is I think humans will be fine, even if our civilization may not be.

What I was saying is we have a responsibility for the creatures on this planet, regardless of the earth "being fine".

Yeah. The Earth is resilient.

Eventually our Sun will go supernova tho, but not for millions of years.

Actually it won't go supernova (the sun isn't large enough). It will enlarge to swallow the earth then form a planetary nebula. This will happen in billions of years, though, so you're right about that.
 

John Blade

Member
Why do we have to care about the small rats? I know it suck this mammal is gone in this world we live and yes, it look cute in the picture but let's be realistic, it's a rats and if they is one less rats in this world is a good thing as we don't need them as they're pests.

Let us send a rat there from Toronto.
20081004-rat-happy7.jpg
 
Reminds me of the head of the math department at the college I attended. Die hard climate change denier, would actually take time during class lectures to try and convince us that climate change is a myth, that "it's all about them making money." Who? Who exactly is making money from raising the alarm about humans' prodigious consumption of fossil fuels and the side-effects?

This is just another grim example of the reality we live in now and how quickly people are to blame anything and everything else so that we don't need to act.

Sorry, little rat friends.
 

Noshino

Member
Why do we have to care about the small rats? I know it suck this mammal is gone in this world we live and yes, it look cute in the picture but let's be realistic, it's a rats and if they is one less rats in this world is a good thing as we don't need them as they're pests.

Let us send a rat there from Toronto.
20081004-rat-happy7.jpg

As someone who owns several pet rats, fudge ya.
 

MrToughPants

Brian Burke punched my mom
Why do we have to care about the small rats? I know it suck this mammal is gone in this world we live and yes, it look cute in the picture but let's be realistic, it's a rats and if they is one less rats in this world is a good thing as we don't need them as they're pests.

Let us send a rat there from Toronto.
20081004-rat-happy7.jpg

Yes because the carbon footprint of rats is raising greengouse gases at such a rate that other species go extinct.

Humans are a plague on their environment, should we send you there?
 

Lamel

Banned
I mean I agree climate change is fucking up the wildlife on the planet, but if you're existence spans a football field worth of land surrounded by sea, you needed a better insurance policy because anything could wipe you out.
 
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