CharminUltra
Member
I am so fucked if this happens.
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We are now officially entering Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction Event
- Thread starter Amir0x
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As cliche as the saying is "life finds a way" and if there is one thing humans are good at it's surviving. I very much doubt even unchecked this would lead to the end of the human race. The previous 5 events didn't lead to the end of life on earth and I doubt this would either. I'm not saying this couldn't be very bad for humanity if left unchecked it will probably be catastrophic. But the end of humanity? Not for a second do I believe that.
Are you portrayed by Samuel L Jackson?
TheLaughingStock
Member
My dog is my best friend and I'd never eat him though.
Not me, I play guitar
King Cobra
Banned
Is it 9pm already? Seems like you can set your watch on end of the world / apocalyptic news. I'm going to continue with my life and raise my children to be productive while others put their heads between their knees.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events
here's a neat list of every time we were supposed to have gone extinct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events
here's a neat list of every time we were supposed to have gone extinct.
The previous extinction events led to extinction rates of as much as 90%. Do you think humanity is good enough to beat those odds considering?
This species extinction is one element of what is a result of our actions, because what is actually going to destroy us is a complete devastation of our living environment to the point where our crops start to consistently fail, water levels rise, ecosystems collapse and forests continue to disappear. Our emissions have already caused rapidly rising rates of cancer in many parts of the world.
Do you think humans are going to be immune to it? Because we're already now facing the results. Millions have already died over the century as a direct result of this stuff caused by us. As this problem accelerates, the only real solution will become abandoning the planet entirely. It seems hard to comprehend because it won't happen in our lifetime, but the trend rates are clear. We are making our planet unlivable. And the population rates keep soaring, meaning we are actually exponentially accelerating the problem every decade.
King Cobra said:
There is so much wrong with your post is almost like you're being willfully ignorant on purpose.
Apocalyptic Event != Extinction Event, of which many have already occurred and which we now know is occurring now again thanks to the indisputable scientific data. And during every extinction event, at least a few species survived. Odds are, it won't be us this time.
evilromero
Member
Humans will lay waste to the planet, build spaceships and leave it behind with a trail of death its wake.
Now your speculating. We don't what the extinction rate will be and the consequences of it and we don't know what tech will be developed in the next few decades that could change things. Call me an optimist but I'm not willing write the planet off just yet.
Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!
Member
We survived the first extinction event when Morgoth flooded Beleriand and the second one when Ilúvatar destroyed Númenor and it can't get much worse than those.
Warm Machine
Member
Look back 20 years. No internet. Now it is ubiquitous.
10 years ago. No smartphones. Now they are ubiquitous. No affordable LCD TVs now they are ubiquitous.
In 10 years EVs, home batteries, and Solar power will be the norm for a huge part of the world. Technology pushes forward and it is quickly turning in this direction. If the developed world does it, it automatically bleeds to the developing world as it is all that is being manufactured.
Socially I'm seeing a push for sustainable everything.
Population is supposed to be leveling off as we have passed peak child and we are said to be settling in at 10 billion people tops.
I'm more concerned about the damage that has already been done and if it is reversible.
10 years ago. No smartphones. Now they are ubiquitous. No affordable LCD TVs now they are ubiquitous.
In 10 years EVs, home batteries, and Solar power will be the norm for a huge part of the world. Technology pushes forward and it is quickly turning in this direction. If the developed world does it, it automatically bleeds to the developing world as it is all that is being manufactured.
Socially I'm seeing a push for sustainable everything.
Population is supposed to be leveling off as we have passed peak child and we are said to be settling in at 10 billion people tops.
I'm more concerned about the damage that has already been done and if it is reversible.
If you don't see the difference between these predicted apocalyptic events and this scientific study, I'm not quite sure what to even say?
The tech to what? Magically fix the ecosystems in short order and repopulate the planet with dead species? We have to fix this shit quick, because eventually there won't be a possible way to turn around the damage we've done to ourselves.
The Earth takes millions and millions of years to recover from extinction events, and usually it's after what caused the extinction event dissipates or stops being an issue or dies.
Cow Mengde
Banned
We eat and destroy everything. All signs point to something close to the Permian extinction. We're fucking up the ocean and the land. More and more pockets of ocean have become death zone with no oxygen. This will be bad. Hopefully, what life that's left can hold out and survive, but the 6th extinction will be very ugly.
King Cobra
Banned
What exactly do you think is a better way to react? Even if we are finally right this time about us reaching a point of free fall it won't happen in a matter of decades, It may be centuries. The only thing I can do is prepare my children to be better than others to ensure their survival in whatever world they will inherit.
I'm sure there was science behind a lot of those predictions. The truth is we still don't know everything about our world. Science has been able to clearly prove certain theories that are beyond dispute now, global warming wasn't until recently something that really gained traction and even then it's still something almost half of the population hasn't been convinced by. So we can't go from barely being able figure out that global warming is a thing to being able to say for a fact that we will go extinct soon.
The difference between this and that list is we can watch species loss happen pretty much in real time, and as a species we know enough ecology to know that species loss kills ecosystems and anything dependant on that ecosystem.
Cow Mengde
Banned
It took the planet 10 million years to recover from the Permian extinction. Our extinction will leave behind god knows what kind of garbage behind that the planet might not be able to clean up.
Ivan A Nguyen
Member
All this doom and gloom. This is a perfect chance for us to remake the world how we want it! All the sucky species will die off and we can replace them with something genetically modified to do it better. Besides, we aren't truly dominating a world until we are every part of the food chain. Hydroponics can become the new norm. Genetically modify mosquitoes to pollinate plants. Flood the ocean with oxygen creating fungus that's also good to eat. There are a ton of smart people who don't want to die and we have the technology to clone/splice what ever the hell we want.
First of all, scientists are not religious nuts. Scientists reach consensus on issues based on hard data and eventually make conclusions based on those facts.
This study is literally an attempt to check past studies that have received criticism on this issue by doing the most extensive survey yet and plugging the most conservative numbers into the formula possible to see if it would still qualify as a mass extinction event. It does. Do you have some argument as to why the data is wrong, or are you just enjoying trying to compare incompetent, faith-based nonsense like religion to the demonstrably endlessly success scientific community, whose testable discoveries have led to pretty much every convenience you have today and who you probably owe your borrowed time to thanks to medical science?
There is no argument about extinction events. We know they have occurred before. That is a fact. So being sarcastic about them does not serve you. This "sixth extinction event" has been suggested to been started for the past few decades in various studies that were building evidence, and this study definitively looks over that data and compiles their own most extensive survey yet to see if it checks out. It did, and it's actually worse than they thought.
How should you react? By not being the latest dude shrugging their shoulders pretending they have no responsibility for this problem because it's always going to happen at some nebulous point in the future in which you have nothing to do with.
Because of course it's awesome to leave your problems to your grandchildren
King Cobra said:
Calculating a date for the end times based off biblical scripture is not science.
Jesus christ.
But I like being conscious and perceiving things around me
All you can do then is to live in a way that tries to go with the world. If not, you might as well end that conscious temporal state now because you'll only be a provable problem. By this I mean don't live in a way that clearly causes harm; I'm not playing eugenics.
Of course, in order to mitigate the damage, one has to reject a lot of social ideas and demand a change, even if it's only to get on a soapbox and scream into the ears of conditioned silence and apathy. Realize one is society, and one is the world, for one lives in those domains. Many people live as if these are "other", and as such accept the problems made and given to the state of affairs.
Pretty sure your head has to be beyond your knees to think this is doomsday mongering...
We're talking about the human species; we'll find a way to ruin it. We always do when it comes to technology, because we oddly live against it, always in conflict with it. We've become a culture where based on many powerful social institutions and ideas that technological progress can be turned into a bad fucking thing. We guarantee environmental and social bugbears, let alone petty ones on psychological shitpits like the sustainability of an economy. What good is an economy in a damaged environment? It means little of anything, really.
Consider for a moment we're still a society that is trying to avoid going the whole way ASAP with renewable energies because we got to care about the economy, and big oil, along with those it gives jobs to, over the actual planet. We're going to see the same problems with technologies that even replace people, for we've made technology a kind of spook, a kind of "nuh uh, that ruins what we have now" level of thinking. In fact, the problems of the energy we use and the way we employ people will be problems hitting us at the same time, for they're hitting us now. It'll only become bigger and heavier punches as we move on from now.
We are still a very hateful, very ignorant, very egoic species. All changes we make within this system will come along with those habits. We can't even make a society where we treat people equally, how are we going to make a society where we don't tear the planet asunder? Both of those things have to happen together, or else it isn't worth it.
bigmit3737
Member
Cancer rates are rising due to the increase of average life span. Smoking also has high correlations with cancer.
http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/02/04/why-are-cancer-rates-increasing/
The previous extinctions were of species that are no where as intelligent as us.
We have scientists around the clock monitoring the environment. I really doubt humans will easily be wiped out.
Genetic engineering, scientists are diligently studying photosynthesis to see if we can somehow utilize it for humans and what not.
While I agree there needs to be changes, scientists are doing their job.
Bigboss242
Banned
Pretty sure eventually we will start wiping ourselves out. With mechinization of jobs. Environmental pressures etc.
All the smart people aren't making things to help save the world, they're just making entertaining time-wasting apps we use on our smartphones or making better smartphones so we can do more entertaining things at the same time. We'll figure out how to make realistic sex VR sims long before we ever touch any of the miraculous sci-fi BS you think will happen.
I did not say cancer rates were rising solely because of emissions. But emissions are one major reason they are rising, and that is also confirmed by scientific data. And there's countless other things what we're doing the planet has caused to harm humans individual even right now. Ergo, our nonsense is already effecting millions.
Intelligence is not something which inherently gives you an evolutionary advantage in every situation. Many creatures that survived past extinction events did so with almost no intelligence in the traditional sense whatsoever, but by being the best adapted to survive in the world after whatever it was that caused the extinction. The stuff we're causing right now is specifically extremely deadly to us, and we currently have no sustainable way to survive it if we let it keep going.
This IS the scientists monitoring the environment. They are the ones telling us this shit is serious. This is them doing the very job you're telling them to, and you're saying some other scientists won't let it happen. With magic?
A scientists may do their job, but humanity is clearly not.
King Cobra
Banned
You do understand that what was considered science before and what is considered science now has evolved over the centuries right? We are talking about predictions that were around before calculus was even invented, you can't pretend to ignore that although primitive to our age some science was used. In a couple hundred years scientists will look at scientists of today the way you just described it.
I am not sure if you are unaware of your own posts but you just speculated with other posters that even advances in technology won't be enough to save us. So you are pushing the idea that this is past the point of no return. So they are not my problems that I am leaving to my grandchildren, but even if all this hogwash is true it would be worse for me to pass over a spirit of cowardliness to them instead of preparing to still move forward regardless of what lie ahead.
Having said all this, reality is an organism in itself that responds and adapts according to our perception. We will survive - we just have to believe we will. I'm serious. Belief leads to technological and other advances - because they all thrive on, and are born from, thought. We build on what we know. This thread and the scientific study shown is a great way to convince people of the realities of our Earth. Because what is, is - and we must accept that. It's reality. But through acceptance we put ourselves in control. And I am in control, and you are in control. Believe in yourself, and you will exude that. That real quality that science is not capable enough yet to explain - it affects others. We will change, and we will make it. It's simple.
Which is why I've been joking a lot in this thread.
Which is why I've been joking a lot in this thread.
Before modern science - which is an actual distinct period of human scientific thought - we did not have a codified system for the scientific method, or an adequate system of peer review. We did not have as efficient ways of sharing information and data.
There is a very specific reason why as soon as the modern scientific method was discovered, technological advance literally exploded at a rate infinitely higher than in any past age. In 300 years, we have made the technological progress equivalent to the combined total of every other century of human existence.
That is because we have finally landed on what works to maintain true scientific progress. Just because people were always investigating the natural world does not mean they were actually doing modern science, which is what we know consistently works. Just like 'alchemy' is not the same as 'chemistry', despite both dealing with elements and chemicals.
I didn't say that, or else I wouldn't have made this thread. I said we are fast approaching the point of no return - which is also a scientific consensus - and once we're at that point there is no way we will be able to survive without leaving the planet. And when scientists illustrate just how rapidly the window is closing, it is literally within a few hundred years at most. And the longer we wait to take action, the more difficult it will be to reverse the damage for our descendents.
So unless our generation is willing to start taking the action necessary to dramatically change our fortune here, it really is this dire.
Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!
Member
"We are now officially entering Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction Event" sounds pretty point of no return to me
We are entering it. That's what the data shows. That's not in dispute.
What's in dispute is our ability to save the planet for us over the long term. Even during the most severe extinction event, some species survived or we would not be here.
DeadlyParasite
Member
God damn, I read the comments on a bunch of articles talking about this and so many were blaming homosexuals and saying that this is bogus science because there were 5 extinction events before this not caused by mankind.
Like religion aside, what harm does it cause to work together to save species of animals and the environment? Sigh.
Like religion aside, what harm does it cause to work together to save species of animals and the environment? Sigh.
MrSaturn99
Member
Well, after reading articles on this for the past hour, I'm now officially spooked. I think I'm off to a good start by already deciding not to drive/build a family, but I'll definitely attempt to be far more conscious of this, especially whenever I venture out into my own living space.
Thanks for the heads-up.
Thanks for the heads-up.
Yea. Just love everyone and they will collaterally love you and then we can be a team
Subpar Spatula
Banned
It's different in that we're more advanced. If an asteroid was going to hit the planet then, yeah, we would be 99.999% doomed as a species--the planet will continue on in some fashion. With global warming the changes will be gradual enough that we can adapt as we go.
I agree. We will make plenty of mistakes - things will get astronomically worse than they currently are, but these things are part of growing and moving forward. We have the capacity to be the first massively extincting species to be like 'nah, we don't want to do that'
R2D4: Please, children discussion forums are that way -->
global warming eventually becomes a runaway effect that kills entire planets unless the cause of that warming goes away with enough time for it to not create a long-term greenhouse effect so severe that it kills all life.
That is why scientists are raising alarm bells, because in a few hundred years at the continued accelerated rate we're going combined with massively increased population and undeveloped nations starting to become significantly industrialized, the greenhouse effect starting to become runaway becomes a very very real inevitability.
We have got to stop pretending we're going to evolve magical heating powers to protect ourselves from processes in which nothing can survive if we let it go that far, unless we create some massively horrible conditions in which we live in insufferable biodomes and leaving them would kill us instantly. Or escape the planet itself.
i mean those are just two of the super pleasant options we have available to us if merely surviving is all you want.
global warming eventually becomes a runaway effect that kills entire planets unless the cause of that warming goes away with enough time for it to not create a long-term greenhouse effect so severe that it kills all life.
That is why scientists are raising alarm bells, because in a few hundred years at the continued accelerated rate we're going combined with massively increased population and undeveloped nations starting to become significantly industrialized, the greenhouse effect starting to become runaway becomes a very very real inevitability.
We have got to stop pretending we're going to evolve magical heating powers to protect ourselves from processes in which nothing can survive if we let it go that far, unless we create some massively horrible conditions in which we live in insufferable biodomes and leaving them would kill us instantly. Or escape the planet itself.
i mean those are just two of the super pleasant options we have available to us if merely surviving is all you want.
Don't worry Amir0x. The most insufferable poster on this forum. You will be ok. We just have to call on the power of ...
To save us all!
Thanks, most back-handed poster on this forum!
People seem to act dominantly with hate, not love. Look at any developed society: they're all rooted in hatred and disregard for fellow humans, not love. Love is an accident found in these societies.
Majima Everywhere System
Member
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Subpar Spatula
Banned
The problem is "astronomically worse" is really low chance as a near instant extinction event would have to occur to have the best chance of wiping us out: asteroid, virus, super volcanoes erupting, nuclear war, etc. We're already seeing change in how energy is handled, transported, used, etc. and the change is there. If things do take a turn for the worse there would be a bigger call from corporations, government, and people.
hydragonwarrior
Member
I think it's something we're going to butt heads with eventually. It'll be coastal city flooding followed by a freak collapse in the food web somewhere in the ocean which causes more ocean death, wracking up the carbon in the oceans (further acidfying it).
We'll still be OK as those retreat inward, which then follows the issue of depleting water and arable land as Earth's population increases. That is when our population starts to go into "survival of the richest -> strongest" and poor/unhealthy nations begin to fade away.
And as our carbon sinks decrease and output increase, earth's temperature continues to rise at a rate until... that I don't know. It's all kind of summarized like this:
We'll still be OK as those retreat inward, which then follows the issue of depleting water and arable land as Earth's population increases. That is when our population starts to go into "survival of the richest -> strongest" and poor/unhealthy nations begin to fade away.
And as our carbon sinks decrease and output increase, earth's temperature continues to rise at a rate until... that I don't know. It's all kind of summarized like this:
Subpar Spatula
Banned
While true the Sun has a bigger chance of causing this. It's inevitable in that regard. It's not about magic machines but adapting. Venus had a runaway green house, they also didn't have humans--this isn't to say we are going to create magic devices that fix the planet but we our chances are much better considering we have the capacity to create technology. In a sense, in our current situation (without the advancement of technology) we are pooped, long term, though, there will be a bigger shift towards environmental protection. Saying we're doomed now is similar to how centuries ago we were doomed from the plague.
Barbacoatl
Banned
Correction about captain planetDon't worry Amir0x. The most insufferable poster on this forum. You will be ok. We just have to call on the power of ...
To save us all!
Right about the rest.
We're not absolutely doomed now, but we are rapidly approaching the point in the near future where we are either absolutely doomed or we have to create conditions so awful for us to survive that you might not even want to be alive in that age.
I mean, if you check what the trendlines say about where we will be in 200 years with CO2, it's seriously horrifying. In 200 years alone, the world will already be an environmentally devastated place from the changes. People will be alive and able to survive, but it will already be at an extremely uncomfortable point and every year hundreds of thousands if not millions of deaths would occur from heat and other CO2 related causes. People will be forced to flee from many areas of the planet which will simply be too hot for long-term life, unless we create artificial environments which would not be a pleasant existence over the long term.
Go 400 years into the future, and see how bad it gets according to the trendlines
Subpar Spatula
Banned
Yes. Based on current society. We also had low mortality rates decades and centuries ago. The study is another item used to make people more aware (and possibly scare). This is just doom--Nostradamus with science.
I don't doubt 400 years from now will look bleak with our current setup but that's if you discount any changes that may occur (most likely will due to trade treaties, corporations, and the planet becoming more cohesive).
We're advanced enough to change that, and it starts on an individual level. Attitude is everything, man. I say this out of love - you're being too pessimistic.
Nostadamus with science, nonse.
The whole point is the reality is clear. We are heading to the abyss. The only way to change that is to get the world on board with massively funding efforts to change the trajectory. The trendlines still continue onward and accelerate, meaning we are failing. This is science trying to once again raise the alarm bells with facts.
As I said, there's a chance. It just gets statistically smaller every day. We have a couple hundred years at best to invent technology that can rapidly change this. To do that, we need governments and their people to agree to this effort. The fear most scientists have, and why so many of them believe the probability is low, is that we continue to do little, and there's a very good chance that humanity will eventually realize it before the end, but by the time they mobilize the effort to change thing we will either be too late or be forced to live for generations in conditions so miserable that many will wish they were dead.
99hertz said:
Depends on where you live. For example, some places the average heat keeps rising, leading to events like the one in India where thousands die from heat exhaustion. That's partially due to global warming, and such events will continue to increase. If you live in a coastal town and are alive for the next 60 years, you too may face some very difficult changes. Some places in the world have already faced severe destruction or drastic landscape changes or deaths due to climate change.
So right now, it effects everyone in that you receive a higher risk of certain diseases, and that locally there will be places you live on the planet that will become higher risk.
As time goes on, that blanket effect will spread, impacting more and more people. In the next 200 years, it's going to start getting bad for everyone without significant changes.
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