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We Are Not In the Middle of A Mass Extinction Event

LowDown

LowDown

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Popular environmentalist blogs and other publications assume it's just a fact that we are in the midst of a mass extinction event caused by humans.

Doug Erwin is a Smithsonian paleontologist, an expert on mass extinction events, who spoke recently at the Geological Society.

I had written to Erwin to get his take on the contemporary idea that there is currently a sixth mass extinction under way on our planet on par with the so-called Big Five mass extinctions in the history of animal life. Many popular science articles take this as a given, and indeed, there’s something emotionally satisfying about the idea that humans’ hubris and shortsightedness are so profound that we’re bringing down the whole planet with us.

Erwin says no. He thinks it’s junk science.

“Many of those making facile comparisons between the current situation and past mass extinctions don’t have a clue..."
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Popular environmentalist publications are wrong in just about everything they say. Catastrophe porn is all it amounts to. These mooks look upon the success and prosperity of capitalistic economies, and their hearts burn with envy and resentment. They so love to paint a picture of human hubris bringing the world to ruin, but it's a false picture.

Link
 
LowDown said:
Popular environmentalist blogs and other publications assume it's just a fact that we are in the midst of a mass extinction event caused by humans.

Doug Erwin is a Smithsonian paleontologist, an expert on mass extinction events, who spoke recently at the Geological Society.



Popular environmentalist publications are wrong in just about everything they say. Catastrophe porn is all it amounts to. These mooks look upon the success and prosperity of capitalistic economies, and their hearts burn with envy and resentment. They so love to paint a picture of human hubris bringing the world to ruin, but it's a false picture.

Link
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Are you telling me that we can't even do this right?
 
There is a mass extinction of island species.

Beyond that the continental ones that have survived the mass extinction due to the arrival of hunter gatherers are almost all safe now. Often safe due to our choosing to keep them.
 
LowDown said:
Popular environmentalist blogs and other publications assume it's just a fact that we are in the midst of a mass extinction event caused by humans.

Doug Erwin is a Smithsonian paleontologist, an expert on mass extinction events, who spoke recently at the Geological Society.



Popular environmentalist publications are wrong in just about everything they say. Catastrophe porn is all it amounts to. These mooks look upon the success and prosperity of capitalistic economies, and their hearts burn with envy and resentment. They so love to paint a picture of human hubris bringing the world to ruin, but it's a false picture.

Link
Click to expand...

So your proof is a blogger. You pick one blogger to try and disprove many bloggers (although the blogger themselves throw numbers around to support the theory of mass extinction). The only proof he has is an unquotable line (the line you indicated was not in quotes and therefore the authors words) and a conversation that does not discount the serious damage to the environment humans are doing, and does not discredit a mass extinction event, but says if we are in one there is no hope for humanity. The conversation was about how mass extinction events are mislabeled. He even said if we don't change pass we are at we will have a mass extinction event.

Basically the article reads that we are not in the middle of one, but at start of one or about to start one.
 
So, "we're not already into the end-of-days but we might be nearing the trigger point for the end-of-days."

Compelling ****in argument there, OP. Everything is fine!
 
As for the planet I’m not concerned. If we continue to behave like microbes and viruses the antidote will come and earth will be fine, and go on evolving as it always has, a healthy host. Be interesting to see what happens to us. But the earth is kinda this living entity and we can see vast swaths of some continents exhausted and so desolate that refugees who no one wants wander already.
 
LowDown said:
Popular environmentalist blogs and other publications assume it's just a fact that we are in the midst of a mass extinction event caused by humans.

Doug Erwin is a Smithsonian paleontologist, an expert on mass extinction events, who spoke recently at the Geological Society.



Popular environmentalist publications are wrong in just about everything they say. Catastrophe porn is all it amounts to. These mooks look upon the success and prosperity of capitalistic economies, and their hearts burn with envy and resentment. They so love to paint a picture of human hubris bringing the world to ruin, but it's a false picture.

Link
Click to expand...

Eventually a minor solar flare will hit us all and FINALLY they will be happily oblivious.


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akyron said:
Eventually a minor solar flare will hit us all and FINALLY they will be happily oblivious.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Or a large asteroid.

 
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LowDown said:
Popular environmentalist blogs and other publications assume it's just a fact that we are in the midst of a mass extinction event caused by humans.

Doug Erwin is a Smithsonian paleontologist, an expert on mass extinction events, who spoke recently at the Geological Society.



Popular environmentalist publications are wrong in just about everything they say. Catastrophe porn is all it amounts to. These mooks look upon the success and prosperity of capitalistic economies, and their hearts burn with envy and resentment. They so love to paint a picture of human hubris bringing the world to ruin, but it's a false picture.

Link
Click to expand...

Right we should just ignore all the science and wait for the catastrophes to happen to satisfy all you deniers. You can't put this genie back in the bottle either. It's more of a Pandora's box.
 
Tim the plumber said:
There is a mass extinction of island species.

Beyond that the continental ones that have survived the mass extinction due to the arrival of hunter gatherers are almost all safe now. Often safe due to our choosing to keep them.
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I think the point is that while species are going extinct, there hasn't actually been a reduction in biomass. Diversity is suffering, but indigenous species are being replaced by invasive species, so actual gaps in the food chain that could cause trophic cascade are few and far between. In Australia, the apex predator has been replaced a few times, going from thylacines, to dingoes, to foxes and cats. This has happened with other ecological niches, small insectivorous and herbivorous marsupials are replaced by rabbits, rats and mice; native birds replaced by sparrows, starlings and pigeons. If anything, the spreading of tough, generalists animals like dogs, cats, mice and rats by humans would work to prevent a mass extinction by ensuring ecological roles are still fulfilled even after indigenous species are gone.
 
spud_meister said:
I think the point is that while species are going extinct, there hasn't actually been a reduction in biomass. Diversity is suffering, but indigenous species are being replaced by invasive species, so actual gaps in the food chain that could cause trophic cascade are few and far between. In Australia, the apex predator has been replaced a few times, going from thylacines, to dingoes, to foxes and cats. This has happened with other ecological niches, small insectivorous and herbivorous marsupials are replaced by rabbits, rats and mice; native birds replaced by sparrows, starlings and pigeons. If anything, the spreading of tough, generalists animals like dogs, cats, mice and rats by humans would work to prevent a mass extinction by ensuring ecological roles are still fulfilled even after indigenous species are gone.
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The environmentalists go nuts when we try to control the evasive species, then blame us for the loss of the species they exterminate.
 
Lord of Planar said:
The environmentalists go nuts when we try to control the evasive species, then blame us for the loss of the species they exterminate.
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As an environmentalist, I'm all for eradicating invasive pests. But a lot go nuts when its the pretty species, like feral horses, that need to be eradicated.
 
ModerateRN said:
So your proof is a blogger. You pick one blogger to try and disprove many bloggers (although the blogger themselves throw numbers around to support the theory of mass extinction). The only proof he has is an unquotable line (the line you indicated was not in quotes and therefore the authors words) and a conversation that does not discount the serious damage to the environment humans are doing, and does not discredit a mass extinction event, but says if we are in one there is no hope for humanity. The conversation was about how mass extinction events are mislabeled. He even said if we don't change pass we are at we will have a mass extinction event.

Basically the article reads that we are not in the middle of one, but at start of one or about to start one.
Click to expand...

Deuce said:
So, "we're not already into the end-of-days but we might be nearing the trigger point for the end-of-days."

Compelling ****in argument there, OP. Everything is fine!
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No. We're nowhere close. And he's not just "a blogger."

[h=3]Douglas H. Erwin - Department of Paleobiology - Smithsonian Institution[/h]paleobiology.si.edu › Research & Collections › Paleobiology › Staff



Douglas H. Erwin; Curator of Paleozoic Invertebrates; Phone: 202-633-1324 ... for paleontologists and geologists to study evolutionary and geological rates in ...

Paleo Expert: Earth is Not in the Midst of a Sixth Mass Extinction

Guest essay by Eric Worrall h/t JoNova – According to renowned Smithsonian Paleontologist Doug Erwin, people who claim we are in the midst of an anthropogenic mass extinction don’t have a clue what a mass extinction actually is. Earth Is Not in the Midst of a Sixth Mass Extinction “As scientists we have a responsibility…


 
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