Facing the Sixth Extinction

***What is the Sixth Extinction?***
We can divide the Sixth Extinction into two discrete phases:
*Phase One began when the first modern humans began to disperse to different parts of the world about 100,000 years ago.
*Phase Two began about 10,000 years ago when humans turned to agriculture.
The fossil record attests to human destruction of ecosystems:
*Extinction struck elements of the Australian megafauna early when humans arrived some 45,000 years ago.
*Humans arrived in large numbers in North America roughly 12,500 years ago-and sites revealing the butchering of mammoths, mastodons and extinct buffalo are well documented throughout the continent. The demise of the bulk of the La Brea tar pit Pleistocene fauna coincided with our arrival.
*The Caribbean lost several of its larger species when humans arrived some 8000 years ago.
*Madagascar - something of an anomaly, as humans only arrived there two thousand years ago - also fits the pattern well: the larger species (elephant birds, a species of hippo, plus larger lemurs) rapidly disappeared soon after humans arrived.
***Why does the Sixth Extinction continue?***
Estimates vary, but range between 1 and 10 million people on earth 10,000 years ago.
There are now over 6 billion people.
The numbers continue to increase logarithmically - so that there will be 8 billion by 2020.
There is presumably an upper limit to the carrying capacity of humans on earth - of the numbers that agriculture can support - and that number is usually estimated at between 13-15 billion, though some people think the ultimate numbers might be much higher.
This explosion of human population, especially in the post-Industrial Revolution years of the past two centuries, coupled with the unequal distribution and consumption of wealth on the planet, is the underlying cause of the Sixth Extinction. There is a vicious cycle:
*More lands are cleared and more efficient production techniques (most recently engendered largely through genetic engineering) to feed the growing number of humans — and in response, the human population continues to expand.
*Higher fossil energy use is helping agriculture spread, further modifying the environment.
*Humans continue to fish (12 of the 13 major fisheries on the planet are now considered severely depleted) and harvest timber for building materials and just plain fuel, pollution, and soil erosion from agriculture creates dead zones in fisheries (as in the Gulf of Mexico).
*While the human Diaspora has meant the spread, as well, of alien species that more often than not thrive at the detriment of native species. For example, invasive species have contributed to 42% of all threatened and endangered species in the U.S.
The above was written by Niles Eldredge and taken from the following site:
http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/eldredge2.html
Edward O. Wilson, "Is Humanity Suicidal?" can be read here:
http://www.well.com/user/davidu/suicidal.html
"Consequences of the Sixth Extinction" can be read here:
http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/myers_knoll.html
Feel free to contact me for information regarding past and present extinction patterns, causes and consequences.

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[12345combination]

It should be noted that calcitic cosmopolitan marine invertebrates are the organisms that are used to correlate stratigraphic successions and determine which extinction events constitute a mass extinction. Therefore it is not applicable to compare the extinction of megafauna or insects, which are usually not preserved in the fossil record, to previous mass extinctions because there is too little data available to compare them on those grounds.

[TheHatefulDead]

@12345combination

While it is generally true that cosmopolitan organisms w/calcitic skeletal elements are important in biostratigraphy, notable exceptions that jump quickly to mind are graptolites, conodont elements, diatoms and palynomorphs such as acritarchs & pollen. All of these are of importance in the temporal resolution & correlation of stratigraphic succession & the biotic events recorded therein.

My differentiation of the Pleistocene extinction was in response to your mention of it.

[magick205]

How many humans might die? All of us. I think that fact that our dependancy on other ecosystems cannot be overempasized. We're busy farming, fishing, fighting, and fucking our way to our own extinction at breakneck speed. If we don't start getting control of our numbers and how we share the earth with other life, we won't need to worry about anything anymore. Earth will carry on without us just fine.

[kaxitaksi]

We don't even have poor management of our resources on this planet, we have no management at all. It's the economic predators that owns and suck the life out of this world, producing only junk for sale for the benefit of their bank acounts. We need other leaders and other guidelines if we want to survive this mess.

[PE64088]

haha all this overpopulation garbage was started by a global elite to start a green movement which doesn't even help the human agenda, its only meant to shut down independency through out the united states so they can profit overseas with cheap labor, and while all the environmentalists support these bureaucrats, the real environmental problems still exist like GMO foods, Fluoride, arsenic, and other toxic chemicals in the water, and genetic engineering.

[stuntcat666]

They've been referring to it as the 6th extinction' for years, at least 10 years ago I first read of it. People are complaining here like the person who made this video just made up the whole extinction thing. .Look-To someone who's read about the environment, animals wiped out, oceans & forests killed etc. for decades, it's hard to take anti-environment types seriously when they make it obvious they never cared about it anyway, much less studied it or bothered learning anything for themselves

[GTXMAN]

Why are you so sure the humans killed the megafauna ? I always though it was the climate change

[xy274]

@OrchidRa or use a a very thick condom

[HyperSpify]

Funny how they emphasized that this is a problem, but never explained exactly what will happen, and how mass extinction will cause billions of people to die.

@OrchidRa I agree. The best solution is not to consume less or reduce our individual footprint (though those help), but to STOP BREEDING. The population is growing exponentially. Think we can shrink the footprint per person exponentially to compensate? Hell no! Stop breeding, and even shrink the population , and problem solved.

[apexcreatures]

@superearthbender

eww, environmentalism is what you have to say in the face of total ecological collapse? Yo are an idiot.

Nature does not kill itself or if would have never gotten of the ground. Yes there is death in nature, because that is the way it must be for life to continue. Organic Nature is simply life. So what exactly is your problem?

[angrylittlegirl]

Maybe this sounds odd but I'm all in favor of this. Homo Sapiens has grown far too big for its britches. The earth will recover and life will be just as diverse then as it is now. This will sound even stranger: I think that humans, as a collective are aware of this but we deny the reality of it. I strongly suggest everyone read "The Denial of Death". As a species we are bright but very immature.

[angrylittlegirl]

@TheHatefulDead @12345combination: Y'all's science words is sexy.

[superearthbender]

eww, environmentalism. You guys are dead set on bringing humans back to the jungles and caves.

How could anyone think that you will live on through the life that eats your remains? Your circle of life mentality of caring for the entire circle is inhuman I feel.

Isn't it true that natural selection has resulted in our domestication of the environment? Isn't it also true that it is nature which kills it's self. We are not derailing the process dear, we are the process.

[sagemakaiserxl]

Ergo Proxy showed mass extinction. Was it fiction? Yeah. But it's a step in a direction of thought most people don't want to face. A world where the only way to survive is to make giant bio domes, and to step outside is death. What startled me was going from predictions of 1,000 years to 100, now a mere 30 years! Most predict mass fresh water shortages in the next decade!