Heading Towards A Man-Made Sixth Mass Extinction Event

[Jim]

From a piece in The Guardian:

"[P]ast extinctions have been driven by what are now becoming very familiar horsemen of a planetary apocalypse: massive volcanic outbursts to choke the atmosphere and poison the seas; the mayhem caused by major asteroid impact; and the wrenching effects of rapid climate change. None of these has really figured in the current biological crisis – not even climate change, which is still only in its early stages. Instead, the extinctions are being driven by the effects of just one single species, Homo sapiens. Such a mass extinction has not occurred before (with the possible exception, 2.5bn years ago, when a type of microbe evolved photosynthesis to spew out oxygen, a gas that would have been highly toxic to the other microbes living then, and these would have been pushed to the fringes of life on Earth – where they still remain). Even more extraordinarily, this single species is land-living, but has managed to become the top predator in the oceans too, causing populations of whales and fish to collapse."

[Jim]

here's the link, http://www.theguardian.com/environmen...

[Jimmy]

Another good reason to get this group going. How do we get the world going?

[Brian]

This reminds of the book The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. I happened to read and recommend that one last year ( Green Group discussion -- Book Recommendations -- The Sixth Extinction ). Averting this will require behavioral changes on a planet-wide scale, I fear; kind of daunting. I do have some optimism that the Millennials may have the numbers, the foresight, and the passion to generate enough "grassroots energy" (social bio-fuel? ;-) to get past the entrenched political opposition all over the globe. I have two teenaged sons who "just get it" on this issue, and most of their friends do, too.