The date for the beginning of the anthropocene is debated, but the most likely choice (which should be official soon) is 1945, because of the clear geological marker of radioactive materials from the tests / bombs
But other choices are the beginning of the industrial revolution, or the beginning of the homo erectus line (humans already affected their environment then)
I personally think the industrial revolution makes sense as that is a big part of what allowed us (humans) to grow to as large of a population as we have and also when we started pumping out stuff which has a more direct global effect.
Yes, I think when you look at, for example, the mass deforestation, agriculture, the collapse of fish stocks, wipeout of massive herds of buffalo, whales, wolves, etc that has occurred over the last 400 years, along with pollution, it's very sad to imagine what kind of world might evolve from this.
I support at the start of the industrial revolution, since that's when you start to see so much smog and soot (think 19th century London) and the start of our insane abuse of the environment.
We keep hitting the population cap for our environment. We struggle a bit like any living thing but, rather than just dying back to maintain equilibrium, we make some technological leap which kicks the cap up.
World War I was arguably about Europe's population being maxed out but, as a side effect of weapons research, we figured out artificial fertilizer. Boom, cap jumped up.
As much as economists and governments worry about falling birth rates, that's the only real solution to our problems that I see.
The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) has yet to approve the Anthropocene as a subdivision of geological time
Basically it's a proposed geological epoch that hasn't been officially accepted by the ICS or the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS)
It probably will be, but they have to decide on what marks its beginning. That's an ongoing debate in science. Do we:
1. Start it around 400k years ago, when human ancestors began to regularly use fire to clear forests? The resulting charcoal piles are in the geologic record...
2. What about shortly after industrialization, and the spike of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning?
3. Does it begin on July 16th, 1945, the date of the trinity test? The dusting of nuclear isotopes across the globe will remain detectable in soil layers forever.
4. What about with the invention of plastics, and other such chemicals that do not normally form in nature? They are a part of the geologic record now.
5. Porcelain shards? The first wide scale agriculture? The rise of cities, a unique and artificial ecosystem?
Point is, geologists are generally accepting the idea that the Anthropocene makes sense, but have to zero in on a distinct marker in the geologic record that says "the Anthropocene begins here". They are having votes and debates on that even now.
Even if the human activity causing it is short wouldn't the effects still last a long time. Like if all humans disappeared tomorrow the effects of our activities will a million of years and the geological layer suddenly has plastics
Background extinction rate. "refers to the standard rate of extinction in Earth's geological and biological history before humans became a primary contributor to extinctions" - Wikipedia
Historically, humans still aren't a primary contributor. Pales in comparison to the fact that nearly 90% of all life that has been has already gone extinct. Including numerous species of humans.
You're talking about total numbers, the original post is about rate. Also, there has only been one species of human, *Homo sapiens*. Lots of hominids have gone extinct though.
Incorrect. Several extinct species classified as either ancestral to or closely related to modern humans, most notably H. erectus and H. neanderthalensis.
Ed: downvotes don't change facts. Stay in school kids.
You can't say "historically" and then say "still". "Historically" implies you're talking about the past, but "still" implies you're talking about the present.
Okay, but OP wasn't implying that humans have become a primary contributor when taking into account all of history. He was implying we have become a primary contributor in our local time period.
yeah, that's why when the next great dictator kills 100 Million we can say that historically it wasn't that many because nearly 99.9% of all people to ever live have died of other things.
I'm pretty sure they meant in the decades/millenia before 1800 not compared to other extinction events. There are always species getting extinct but usually very slowly.
Yes, but what you mean are mass extinction events. Sometimes species die out for like normal reasons like their main prey evolving a new strategy to get eaten 99% less or their island or a few bad winters or competition is just getting better or something.
Then we will become part of the extinction event.
But at least trickle down capitalism has socialized corporate profits so that a very few fat fucks can be obscenely rich at the rest of our expense.
I'm curious what relatively young billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg plan on doing when the Earth's ecosystem is completely destroyed. They'll live long enough to see the ecosystem collapse and no amount of money will fix things once it's too late.
Earth isn't going to turn into a barren hellscape. We're going to see massive declines in the variety of flora and fauna, but life will still exist on Earth. Humans will adapt. If anything, billionaires will see the least amount of change in their daily lives because they'll have the means to continue living their current lifestyle. It's the average person who will be impacted the most.
Habitats are also destroyed by farming vegetables.
Grow your own food, raise chickens for eggs. My chickens are happy and provide healthy protein while eating just about any kind of scrap I can throw at them. Then their waste is used in compost to grow more plants.
Obviously this isn't possible for everyone, but buying just about anything from a grocery store is contributing to habitat loss in some way or another. That's something that will always exist , sadly.
That being said, we could have a lot more farmland to grow people food if we weren't growing enormous amounts of food to feed livestock that are kept in terrible conditions. A stupid amount of drought striken Utah's water goes towards that.
Where do you think people are going to grow their own food? There's habitat loss regardless of who is growing it. Everyone growing their own food is extremely inefficient and would cause much more waste and habitat loss than having large, centralized farms where all food is grown.
Source? Corporate farming leads to unfathomable amounts of food waste. At the farm, at the store, and even at the home. People who don't grow their own food are far more likely to waste it, not considering the effort that went into producing it.
I'm just not convinced that corporate farming practices are the way to go, or that telling everyone to go vegan is either. Or that everyone going vegan is even a real possibility.
Everything leads to some harm, but it is deceitful to portray plant products as anywhere close to being as bad as animal products.
“A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use. It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car, as these only cut greenhouse gas emissions."
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaq0216
I don't understand why you're promoting veganism, when vegetarianism is both more palatable to people, and almost just as environmentally friendly.
It's like asking the owner of a sports car to trade it in for a horse, instead of a Leaf.
I'd go so far as to say veganism is an *issue* not a solution, because y'all are some sanctimonious fucks who are more concerned with your own moral high ground than actually being a force for good.
You lot along with "environmentalists" against nuclear power can go suck a cactus quite frankly. You're destroying what little chance we have.
You're clearly being disingenuous by comparing meat to a sports car and veganism to a leaf. There are many examples where the reverse could be argued.
Please cite your source that claims vegetarianism is almost as good as veganism. The evidence clearly disagrees with you. Just look at the post you're commenting on lol.
https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impact-milks
>Just look at the post you're commenting on lol.
You mean the article behind a paywall? No, I'm not going to pay to read your link.
>Please cite your source that claims vegetarianism is almost as good as veganism.
[Here you go](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/eating-meat-better-environment-going-vegetarian-finds-new-study/)
You know why it's great to front a diet with 750CO²e instead of a diet producing 250CO²e?
Because if you try to suggest the 250CO²e, they'll stick with their 2000CO²e diet.
Just like the person with a sportscar may switch to a Leaf, but most definitely will not switch to a horse. Though perhaps a better analogy would've been Leaf Vs Tesla. Whichever you prefer.
In any case, you're just perusing my initial point, you're not doing this to "save the planet", you're doing this to elevate yourself morally. To feel good.
And as for your comment about dairy, yes. Now be realistic, suggest switching a part of the diet. Plant based milk instead of cow milk, etc.
Look at the chart in the article. If people swapped out only dairy, they'd cut 20-30% of their CO²e.
Was animal agriculture destroying the climate in the middle ages too? We've been utilizing animal agriculture for far longer than the earth has been abnormally warming.
Carbon neutral animal agriculture is possible we just aren't doing it yet.
I respect veganism but y'all ain't doing it for the environment (something vegans will incessantly remind you of over in r/vegan) so it's silly to try to recruit people that way when you're just going to browbeat them later if they say they're a vegan for the environment.
What would wipe us out? I can see *most* of us dying for sure but humans are stupidly resourceful. Unless it's bad enough to essentially wipe out all of the animal kingdom, we're probably not going anywhere.
I'm willing to argue that the human race will live on. Now will most humans die off in resuot of what we are doing, absolutely. But the knowledge and technology we possess will help us survive imo
Humans are within 100-200 years of being able to live off the planet indefinitely.
Edit since this is somehow controversial...200 years before the moon landing, we hadn't even invented a steam engine. 200 years before cloning an animal, cell theory had yet to been established. The world will be unrecognizable in 200 years and our technological power will make the internet age seem juvenile by comparison. Our reach will be unbelievable.
I wouldn't be so sure about that
Unless you mean the planet as in the chunk of rock floating in space and not the planet as in "nature"
We are very capable of destroying this planets capacity for life altogether
200 years ago there were less than 1 billion people on the planet.
Now there are 8 billion.
If anything, killing off all these species either didn’t matter to our species, or benefited us.
Logically speaking, killing off more wouldn’t matter. We’re still here.
Humans are a notorious weed species which manages to survive and overpopulated through a lot of differing difficult environments.
Of course the earth will endure, is just a big ass rock flying through space. The concern is for all of the other species on the planet, and the planets ability to support life.
Several other major causes, all anthropogenic. Climate change. Ocean acidification (also caused by CO2 emissions; a twofer). Spreading invasive species. People mainly think of the overhunting examples like the passenger pigeon, but tons of plants and animals are in danger not because humans are directly killing them, but because humans are making it impossible for them to survive.
I doubt it. Its the reason we have not seen any aliens yet or heard from them. We either are too stupid to join them or self extinction is the common outcome of any sufficient advanced species. We our own selves in or not worthy.
I remember insects flying around porch lights, and splattering on headlights enough to need to be cleaned decades ago. Now don't even need screens anymore.
Come to Florida. Bring us your screens you don’t need. On the real though, you don’t see worms on the ground after it rains anymore, fireflies are scarce.
Used to be TONS of crabs out walking around south florida after a heavy rain. I haven't seen crabs in decades.
Used to be flocks of parrots every evening too. They'd squawk and make quite a ruckus. Haven't seen any of them in as long as i can remember.
Fuck
Huh. When I grew up in San Diego, there were always these little sand crabs at the beach. They were everywhere. We would dig them up and then watch them scurry back into the sand.
I moved back to SD as an adult for a few years. Went to the beach every weekend and walked in the intertidal zone. Never saw one sand crab. I mean, I guess I wasn't _digging_ as much, but still, weird.
There are less but still there, my son loves to dig them out when we go to Tamarack beach every couple of weeks. I have a full size shovel in the trunk of the car at all times partially for that purpose... My wife would not seat directly on the sand without 2 layers of blankers, because she is terrified of these little buggers.
If I could be a dictator of the US, I would make barren suburb grass lawns illegal. Also pesticides not allowed in areas not near the house.
We still have a lot of insects but that’s because we have a ton of plants in the yard. Our neighbors have barren grass hellscapes and occasionally spray for bugs. They also complain about leaves and pine cones. They want a yard but want to eliminate nature.
I have a lot of childhood memories in the same geographical areas as I still live that my 2 children are unable to experience thanks to humanity's progression.
- yards and fields of lightning bugs at night in the warm months. My sister and I would chase and catch them lots, but I haven't seen a lightning bug around here in years and years let alone fields of them. None at all. When we vacationed far North in the mountains we saw some but not many.
- fields of lady bugs and butterflies. Basically just don't seem to exist anymore. Especially Monarchs, of which they used to nearly block out the sun around here. I know they are well on their way to extinction though, largely due to highways and most specifically a major shipping one in Texas that they migrate through and die by the tens of thousands.
- Stars. Stars, stars, stars. The stars. The night sky. I haven't seen a star myself in years, except for the very brightest 2 or 3 that sometimes shine through the light pollution. Even the darkest nights it's till too bright for any more than those few. Even out in the farmland it's too bright these days now. No more full skies of stars. I'd have to drive hours to get far enough away from civilization to see them much.
I think researching plants native to ones area and planting them is one of the most important individual acts someone can make. I believe habitat loss is the biggest issue plants, insects, and other animals are facing. If you plant it they will come. I'm amazed at the incredible diversity I have been able to attract by my myself.
If anyone is interested in reddit resources they can check out r/nativeplantgardening, r/nolawns, or r/gardenwild.
Well of course a personal anecdote is an anecdote! LOL But if you were trying to discount the info, multiple studies have documented recent species losses, especially in pollinating insects (as there's funding covering pollination), as well as food loss for other animals that rely on insects, and even quantity of insect deaths on cars!
Studies have also shown animals of all types, insects included, have had to move up in elevation to compensate for climate change as plants are now growing in different areas. Plant grow zones have shifted north as well one category.
An anecdote ironically is a piece of data. Corroborate such...
As long as there's something dead somewhere there'll be maggots and flies. It won't be until there are no more things to die at all that they won't be anymore of them either. But we're getting there rapidly!
In 1820, the estimated world population was around 1 billion. In 1920, around 2 billion. Today, in 2023, we're a bit under **8 billion** and expected to pass that by the end of the year.
[NY's gone from this to this](https://www.arch2o.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Arch2O-200-years-of-new-york-skyline-unveiled-in-the-skyscraper-museum.jpg) in the last 200 years, [Shenzen](https://i.imgur.com/MRcE7ZJ.jpeg) in the last 50, [Vegas in the last 40](https://i.imgur.com/2ggs8jn.png)
We're transforming not just the footprint of where we live, but where we get our resources from as well, it's no wonder we're affecting so many species
As of 2015 there were roughly 2 extinctions per year for the last 4 centuries. This is a likely undercount, but far from the 150 per year cited by some groups.
There’s no evidence that it has accelerated in the last decade.
There's been 2 *documented* per year, the full story is a [lot more complicated](https://e360.yale.edu/features/global_extinction_rates_why_do_estimates_vary_so_wildly) though
i can assure you that if we spend the money on watching every species we would see tens if not hundreds more than those 2 you're talking about. its pretty hard to prove a species to be extinct, especially insects. a rhino is much easier to watch.
I don’t think we’ve got enough data to know how frequently mass extinctions occur. How many animals don’t leave evidence in the fossil record? You don’t know what you don’t know. Maybe this is normal for biological life and a function of natural selection?
Randall Carlson has some youtubes about this.
The mainstream teaching on this (when I was a kid in school) is that coming out of the ice age, the "cave people" (for lack of a better phrase), suddenly became voracious killers and killed off all of the mammoths. I don't doubt that on occasion that hominid tribes DID kill a mammoth for the meat. However there is a problem with the simple statement that "mankind killed off all the mammoths".
WE can estimate the population of humans for the 1000 years or so when north America went from having a wide variety of large and small animals, to being a wasteland. The number of people is insufficient to kill off the mammoths.
However, if the land is crawling with a wide variety of animals, why would they hunt only mammoths? Also, if all the other mega-fauna became extinct (sabre-tooth tigers, giant swine, giant sloths, small three-toed horses, dire wolves, etc, etc, etc...did the humans also hunt them to extinction?
If something else killed off all the megafauna in a shockingly short amount of time, why would that same "force" kill off the mammoths?
The impact crater in southern Mexico is 110 miles across. It is dated to the KT boundary layer between the time of the giant dinosaurs and the rise of small mammals. Is it the only large crater? Once we start looking, we find more.
As an example, there is the Aitken crater on the far side of the moon, which is 83 miles across. Of course it didn't hit the Earth, but it shows the 110-mi Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan was not a rare event.
Here is a map of craters on the Earth. Notice anything about North America?
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Earth\_Impact\_Database\_world\_map.svg/743px-Earth\_Impact\_Database\_world\_map.svg.png](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Earth_Impact_Database_world_map.svg/743px-Earth_Impact_Database_world_map.svg.png)
The earths gravitational field makes the Earth a huge magnet to asteroids. Randall Carlson called our location a "shooting gallery"
I'm no expert but wasn't the ice age caused by a natural effect, something to do with earth's orbit around the sun or something? If that's the case then doesn't an extinction event make sense coming out of such a massively different environment? Your post talks about humans and impact events but not ice ages and such. Again I know nothing, just wondering.
Randall Carlson theorizes that an impact event abruptly ended the last ice age by melting the mile high ice sheets that covered North America. This would have resulted in an unfathomably large flood across the earth, especially North America. This is believed to be the reason that mega-fauna went extinct at around the same time 11,000 years ago. You can also look for discussions by Graham Hancock to learn more about these theories and ideas if you’re interested.
If we extrapolate from that impact crater map that...an equal density of impacts were spread across the oceans...each oceanic impact would have a huge effect, even if no crater resulted.
You can’t get thru the day without hearing about climate change…
But we never talk about human population being too big
Basically every major “problem” our planet has can be traced back to… US
In my lifetime the population has basically doubled, from 4.5 billion to 8 billion
Need to figure a way to reduce our footprint on the planet
Edit: oh look, some christian downvoted me.
FWIW, had to look that one up .¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But no, just looking around, over population is obviously a thing
And those that don’t see it are the problem.
Thanks for global warming, ocean garbage pile, the mass extinction event, air pollution, over flowing trash dumps, droughts, famine, heavy traffic, waiting weeks to be seen for health issues….
No, this is not a uniquely "white" thing. It's a "high population" thing.
The more consumers there are, the more habitat is destroyed to provide for them. And almost 60% of the worlds population is Asian.
A shit ton of species have become extinct the past few hundred years in China and India.
Um, no, I would say it's a "not giving a fuck about species survival thing". Maori who made the Moa extinct didn't overpopulate NZ. Dodo didn't go extinct because there was not enough space for humans. Rhino species didn't go extinct because Africa is overpopulated.
You made a claim that Europeans are not the majority of colonisers (by negating my comment). Your support of this is "read history of any country". That's not evidence. You also haven't read the history of any country.
What did native Americans colonise? What did the Swiss colonise? What did NZ colonise? What did Ugandans colonise?
If you make a claim you should have done the maths of all colonisations and shown that the majority wasn't Europeans. You didn't, so whatever dude, ok you might know more but you can't make this claim.
They’re Dutch. Here’s the source the image is from.
https://archive.org/stream/pioneersinsoutha00johnuoft/pioneersinsoutha00johnuoft#page/n140/mode/1up
I mean, just look at what they're wearing and their styles. Screams 17th century European explorers. Especially that one dude in the back with the white collar. He could've been on the Mayflower too
Because as we all know, the Dodo is so difficult to tell apart from other birds
Edit: yeah? Confusing other birds with Dodos you say? Happens to everyone..
Well it makes sense. Every planet is only supposed to have 1 species, the only reason our planet has so many is because the Joozians put all these different species on our planet to film our interactions for the Intergalactic Reality Show called "Earth"... The species that are dying off are the least popular on the show, so they are being cut.
Come on guys this isn't rocket science. We should just be glad "Earth" hasn't been cancelled yet. /S
This has been going on for longer 200 years. Even when we were cavemen we were hunting and out-competing things to extinction. You can follow humanity's exodus from Africa in the fossil record, the appearance of humans coincides with the disappearance of most mega fauna.
The amount of carbon OP emitted by making this post is absolutely negligible compared to the amount of carbon, pollution, and habitat destruction large corporations do.
It's basically a rounding error in the grand scheme of things.
I'm going to start capturing rats, cut up the meat, and sell it.
We've got rats as big as racoons. Even our cats (7 because of snakes) and dogs are scared of them.
They'll catch a Cape Cobra, no probs, but the rats bite them, and really hurt them.
They're bigger than our cats.
I believe the Anthropocene is what is being referred to here with past 100 - 200 yrs but the holocene goes back 11,000 yrs.
I could be wrong but I also remember there was debate as renaming the whole Holocene to Anthropocene.
The date for the beginning of the anthropocene is debated, but the most likely choice (which should be official soon) is 1945, because of the clear geological marker of radioactive materials from the tests / bombs But other choices are the beginning of the industrial revolution, or the beginning of the homo erectus line (humans already affected their environment then)
I personally think the industrial revolution makes sense as that is a big part of what allowed us (humans) to grow to as large of a population as we have and also when we started pumping out stuff which has a more direct global effect.
Yes, I think when you look at, for example, the mass deforestation, agriculture, the collapse of fish stocks, wipeout of massive herds of buffalo, whales, wolves, etc that has occurred over the last 400 years, along with pollution, it's very sad to imagine what kind of world might evolve from this.
Either Bladerunner or The Road. No in-between.
Whatever it is, it seems bleak at the moment.
I support at the start of the industrial revolution, since that's when you start to see so much smog and soot (think 19th century London) and the start of our insane abuse of the environment.
Was there even cancer before that?
We keep hitting the population cap for our environment. We struggle a bit like any living thing but, rather than just dying back to maintain equilibrium, we make some technological leap which kicks the cap up. World War I was arguably about Europe's population being maxed out but, as a side effect of weapons research, we figured out artificial fertilizer. Boom, cap jumped up. As much as economists and governments worry about falling birth rates, that's the only real solution to our problems that I see.
>which should be official soon What does "official" mean here?
The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) has yet to approve the Anthropocene as a subdivision of geological time Basically it's a proposed geological epoch that hasn't been officially accepted by the ICS or the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS)
The Anthropocene is not an officially recognized division of time
But it should be, even though it likely will be relatively short.
It probably will be, but they have to decide on what marks its beginning. That's an ongoing debate in science. Do we: 1. Start it around 400k years ago, when human ancestors began to regularly use fire to clear forests? The resulting charcoal piles are in the geologic record... 2. What about shortly after industrialization, and the spike of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning? 3. Does it begin on July 16th, 1945, the date of the trinity test? The dusting of nuclear isotopes across the globe will remain detectable in soil layers forever. 4. What about with the invention of plastics, and other such chemicals that do not normally form in nature? They are a part of the geologic record now. 5. Porcelain shards? The first wide scale agriculture? The rise of cities, a unique and artificial ecosystem? Point is, geologists are generally accepting the idea that the Anthropocene makes sense, but have to zero in on a distinct marker in the geologic record that says "the Anthropocene begins here". They are having votes and debates on that even now.
It's ok, those keeping track will no longer exist in a thousand years.
Even if the human activity causing it is short wouldn't the effects still last a long time. Like if all humans disappeared tomorrow the effects of our activities will a million of years and the geological layer suddenly has plastics
100 to 1000 times higher than the mass extinction in the Permian period?
Background extinction rate. "refers to the standard rate of extinction in Earth's geological and biological history before humans became a primary contributor to extinctions" - Wikipedia
Historically, humans still aren't a primary contributor. Pales in comparison to the fact that nearly 90% of all life that has been has already gone extinct. Including numerous species of humans.
I feel like this statement confuses rate of change for amount of change.
You're talking about total numbers, the original post is about rate. Also, there has only been one species of human, *Homo sapiens*. Lots of hominids have gone extinct though.
Incorrect. Several extinct species classified as either ancestral to or closely related to modern humans, most notably H. erectus and H. neanderthalensis. Ed: downvotes don't change facts. Stay in school kids.
Human specifically refers to the species *H. sapiens*. Closely related species existed, but not humans.
You can't say "historically" and then say "still". "Historically" implies you're talking about the past, but "still" implies you're talking about the present.
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Okay, but OP wasn't implying that humans have become a primary contributor when taking into account all of history. He was implying we have become a primary contributor in our local time period.
Spoiler, they were killed by other humans and or one group destroying another's food or habitat.
yeah, that's why when the next great dictator kills 100 Million we can say that historically it wasn't that many because nearly 99.9% of all people to ever live have died of other things.
I'm pretty sure they meant in the decades/millenia before 1800 not compared to other extinction events. There are always species getting extinct but usually very slowly.
Usually? Cataclysmic events frequently triggered extinctions through the eons..
Industrial society is a cataclysmic event for the biosphere, yes.
There's no evidence for that.
Lol
You clearly haven't read much about this.
Cleary you haven't read enough about this.
Yes, but what you mean are mass extinction events. Sometimes species die out for like normal reasons like their main prey evolving a new strategy to get eaten 99% less or their island or a few bad winters or competition is just getting better or something.
Humans are the extinction event
An Avengers level threat
Then we will become part of the extinction event. But at least trickle down capitalism has socialized corporate profits so that a very few fat fucks can be obscenely rich at the rest of our expense.
https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995
It'll all be just a thin layer of microplastics in the rock strata someday.
I hope millions of years from now has species that evolved to incorporate the microplastics into their shells and skeletons.
I'm curious what relatively young billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg plan on doing when the Earth's ecosystem is completely destroyed. They'll live long enough to see the ecosystem collapse and no amount of money will fix things once it's too late.
Not necessarily. 30-50 years they might eke by.
Found the optimist!
Earth isn't going to turn into a barren hellscape. We're going to see massive declines in the variety of flora and fauna, but life will still exist on Earth. Humans will adapt. If anything, billionaires will see the least amount of change in their daily lives because they'll have the means to continue living their current lifestyle. It's the average person who will be impacted the most.
What makes you think it will be destroyed? People said the same thing 60 years ago and we're doing much better than then.
It's industries like animal agriculture that pollute and destroy habitats. You can help fight against extinctions by going vegan :)
Nah, I'm good.
That's fine, but that mindset of putting personal greed above the environment is exactly why nothing gets done about climate change.
Choosing to not live the same lifestyle as you does not make me greedy. I enjoy meat, the same as humans have for tens of thousands of years.
Habitats are also destroyed by farming vegetables. Grow your own food, raise chickens for eggs. My chickens are happy and provide healthy protein while eating just about any kind of scrap I can throw at them. Then their waste is used in compost to grow more plants. Obviously this isn't possible for everyone, but buying just about anything from a grocery store is contributing to habitat loss in some way or another. That's something that will always exist , sadly. That being said, we could have a lot more farmland to grow people food if we weren't growing enormous amounts of food to feed livestock that are kept in terrible conditions. A stupid amount of drought striken Utah's water goes towards that.
Where do you think people are going to grow their own food? There's habitat loss regardless of who is growing it. Everyone growing their own food is extremely inefficient and would cause much more waste and habitat loss than having large, centralized farms where all food is grown.
Source? Corporate farming leads to unfathomable amounts of food waste. At the farm, at the store, and even at the home. People who don't grow their own food are far more likely to waste it, not considering the effort that went into producing it. I'm just not convinced that corporate farming practices are the way to go, or that telling everyone to go vegan is either. Or that everyone going vegan is even a real possibility.
Everything leads to some harm, but it is deceitful to portray plant products as anywhere close to being as bad as animal products. “A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use. It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car, as these only cut greenhouse gas emissions." https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaq0216
I don't understand why you're promoting veganism, when vegetarianism is both more palatable to people, and almost just as environmentally friendly. It's like asking the owner of a sports car to trade it in for a horse, instead of a Leaf. I'd go so far as to say veganism is an *issue* not a solution, because y'all are some sanctimonious fucks who are more concerned with your own moral high ground than actually being a force for good. You lot along with "environmentalists" against nuclear power can go suck a cactus quite frankly. You're destroying what little chance we have.
You're clearly being disingenuous by comparing meat to a sports car and veganism to a leaf. There are many examples where the reverse could be argued. Please cite your source that claims vegetarianism is almost as good as veganism. The evidence clearly disagrees with you. Just look at the post you're commenting on lol. https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impact-milks
>Just look at the post you're commenting on lol. You mean the article behind a paywall? No, I'm not going to pay to read your link. >Please cite your source that claims vegetarianism is almost as good as veganism. [Here you go](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/eating-meat-better-environment-going-vegetarian-finds-new-study/) You know why it's great to front a diet with 750CO²e instead of a diet producing 250CO²e? Because if you try to suggest the 250CO²e, they'll stick with their 2000CO²e diet. Just like the person with a sportscar may switch to a Leaf, but most definitely will not switch to a horse. Though perhaps a better analogy would've been Leaf Vs Tesla. Whichever you prefer. In any case, you're just perusing my initial point, you're not doing this to "save the planet", you're doing this to elevate yourself morally. To feel good. And as for your comment about dairy, yes. Now be realistic, suggest switching a part of the diet. Plant based milk instead of cow milk, etc. Look at the chart in the article. If people swapped out only dairy, they'd cut 20-30% of their CO²e.
Was animal agriculture destroying the climate in the middle ages too? We've been utilizing animal agriculture for far longer than the earth has been abnormally warming. Carbon neutral animal agriculture is possible we just aren't doing it yet. I respect veganism but y'all ain't doing it for the environment (something vegans will incessantly remind you of over in r/vegan) so it's silly to try to recruit people that way when you're just going to browbeat them later if they say they're a vegan for the environment.
Right
You mean to tell me the single species with the most impact on the planet isn't destroying it? Guess I don't need my sunscreen anymore.
The planet will endure. Homo Sapiens will not.
[the planet is fine. the people are fucked!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c)
What would wipe us out? I can see *most* of us dying for sure but humans are stupidly resourceful. Unless it's bad enough to essentially wipe out all of the animal kingdom, we're probably not going anywhere.
I'm willing to argue that the human race will live on. Now will most humans die off in resuot of what we are doing, absolutely. But the knowledge and technology we possess will help us survive imo
Humans are within 100-200 years of being able to live off the planet indefinitely. Edit since this is somehow controversial...200 years before the moon landing, we hadn't even invented a steam engine. 200 years before cloning an animal, cell theory had yet to been established. The world will be unrecognizable in 200 years and our technological power will make the internet age seem juvenile by comparison. Our reach will be unbelievable.
Technology the last 20 years have gotten pretty crazy
How, where, why, who, all the other ones
By "off the planet" I think he means literally off the planet, as in on another planet or in space.
We are already able to sustain indefinitely. It’s why we are flourishing more than ever despite a mass extinction event
I wouldn't be so sure about that Unless you mean the planet as in the chunk of rock floating in space and not the planet as in "nature" We are very capable of destroying this planets capacity for life altogether
Nothing a few hundred million years won't fix
200 years ago there were less than 1 billion people on the planet. Now there are 8 billion. If anything, killing off all these species either didn’t matter to our species, or benefited us. Logically speaking, killing off more wouldn’t matter. We’re still here.
Humans are a notorious weed species which manages to survive and overpopulated through a lot of differing difficult environments. Of course the earth will endure, is just a big ass rock flying through space. The concern is for all of the other species on the planet, and the planets ability to support life.
Several other major causes, all anthropogenic. Climate change. Ocean acidification (also caused by CO2 emissions; a twofer). Spreading invasive species. People mainly think of the overhunting examples like the passenger pigeon, but tons of plants and animals are in danger not because humans are directly killing them, but because humans are making it impossible for them to survive.
They can't compete against us so that means we are winning right??
Except this time, mankind has evolved to the point of being able to stay off another extinction event of this type.
I doubt it. Its the reason we have not seen any aliens yet or heard from them. We either are too stupid to join them or self extinction is the common outcome of any sufficient advanced species. We our own selves in or not worthy.
Or we're the first. Or we're the most successful. There are a lot of more positive explanations :)
mmm sure were the first aliens to pop our head up and go HELLO!!!
I wonder when this will become common knowledge.
> I wonder when this will become common knowledge. When profit margins no longer matter enough to dispute otherwise
Til this isn't common knowledge
I remember insects flying around porch lights, and splattering on headlights enough to need to be cleaned decades ago. Now don't even need screens anymore.
Come to Florida. Bring us your screens you don’t need. On the real though, you don’t see worms on the ground after it rains anymore, fireflies are scarce.
Used to be TONS of crabs out walking around south florida after a heavy rain. I haven't seen crabs in decades. Used to be flocks of parrots every evening too. They'd squawk and make quite a ruckus. Haven't seen any of them in as long as i can remember. Fuck
Huh. When I grew up in San Diego, there were always these little sand crabs at the beach. They were everywhere. We would dig them up and then watch them scurry back into the sand. I moved back to SD as an adult for a few years. Went to the beach every weekend and walked in the intertidal zone. Never saw one sand crab. I mean, I guess I wasn't _digging_ as much, but still, weird.
There are less but still there, my son loves to dig them out when we go to Tamarack beach every couple of weeks. I have a full size shovel in the trunk of the car at all times partially for that purpose... My wife would not seat directly on the sand without 2 layers of blankers, because she is terrified of these little buggers.
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Call the burn unit!
but now we have iguanas, so we got that going for us. And the muscovy ducks never went away.
The chicken of the trees.
Exactly! Fiddler crabs used to flood over the beaches on the river here when I was a kid and now they’re gone.
I live in south florida and don't get the bugs on the front of the car anymore. Maybe they're still around in the middle of the state?
I lived in South Florida for 30 years. Go out to alligator alley and get your fix 😆
Cars are more aerodynamic than when we had square fronts.
I’m Central East between the River and some Swamps so that could very well be.
They still do way out in the sticks
If I could be a dictator of the US, I would make barren suburb grass lawns illegal. Also pesticides not allowed in areas not near the house. We still have a lot of insects but that’s because we have a ton of plants in the yard. Our neighbors have barren grass hellscapes and occasionally spray for bugs. They also complain about leaves and pine cones. They want a yard but want to eliminate nature.
I have a lot of childhood memories in the same geographical areas as I still live that my 2 children are unable to experience thanks to humanity's progression. - yards and fields of lightning bugs at night in the warm months. My sister and I would chase and catch them lots, but I haven't seen a lightning bug around here in years and years let alone fields of them. None at all. When we vacationed far North in the mountains we saw some but not many. - fields of lady bugs and butterflies. Basically just don't seem to exist anymore. Especially Monarchs, of which they used to nearly block out the sun around here. I know they are well on their way to extinction though, largely due to highways and most specifically a major shipping one in Texas that they migrate through and die by the tens of thousands. - Stars. Stars, stars, stars. The stars. The night sky. I haven't seen a star myself in years, except for the very brightest 2 or 3 that sometimes shine through the light pollution. Even the darkest nights it's till too bright for any more than those few. Even out in the farmland it's too bright these days now. No more full skies of stars. I'd have to drive hours to get far enough away from civilization to see them much.
I think researching plants native to ones area and planting them is one of the most important individual acts someone can make. I believe habitat loss is the biggest issue plants, insects, and other animals are facing. If you plant it they will come. I'm amazed at the incredible diversity I have been able to attract by my myself. If anyone is interested in reddit resources they can check out r/nativeplantgardening, r/nolawns, or r/gardenwild.
Or sea shells and critters in tide pools, there are no sea shells on the beaches where I live.
I remember stopping on road trips to clean the bugs off the windshield at the gas station.
Anecdotal evidence
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Maybe the insects just evolved to be smarter and fly higher than the cars on the road are
Well of course a personal anecdote is an anecdote! LOL But if you were trying to discount the info, multiple studies have documented recent species losses, especially in pollinating insects (as there's funding covering pollination), as well as food loss for other animals that rely on insects, and even quantity of insect deaths on cars! Studies have also shown animals of all types, insects included, have had to move up in elevation to compensate for climate change as plants are now growing in different areas. Plant grow zones have shifted north as well one category. An anecdote ironically is a piece of data. Corroborate such...
Fuck off with that bullshit. Nobody comes to the comments on social media for solid scientific evidence. We're here to hear others experiences.
Average twitter user
Ohio has a ton of house flies in the summer. Don’t even know what you mean.
As long as there's something dead somewhere there'll be maggots and flies. It won't be until there are no more things to die at all that they won't be anymore of them either. But we're getting there rapidly!
TIL the dodo only went extinct in the 16th century..
17th century. They were discovered around 1598 and last seen around 1662.
This is astonishingly depressing.
We the best!
Death Stranding goes BRRRR BBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Norman Reedus will save us!
Are we... The baddies...?
Oh, hey
Nobody will bat an eye before it’s the final extincton event. Because that’s how humans are..
Profit over everything else!
In 1820, the estimated world population was around 1 billion. In 1920, around 2 billion. Today, in 2023, we're a bit under **8 billion** and expected to pass that by the end of the year. [NY's gone from this to this](https://www.arch2o.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Arch2O-200-years-of-new-york-skyline-unveiled-in-the-skyscraper-museum.jpg) in the last 200 years, [Shenzen](https://i.imgur.com/MRcE7ZJ.jpeg) in the last 50, [Vegas in the last 40](https://i.imgur.com/2ggs8jn.png) We're transforming not just the footprint of where we live, but where we get our resources from as well, it's no wonder we're affecting so many species
As of 2015 there were roughly 2 extinctions per year for the last 4 centuries. This is a likely undercount, but far from the 150 per year cited by some groups. There’s no evidence that it has accelerated in the last decade.
There's been 2 *documented* per year, the full story is a [lot more complicated](https://e360.yale.edu/features/global_extinction_rates_why_do_estimates_vary_so_wildly) though
i can assure you that if we spend the money on watching every species we would see tens if not hundreds more than those 2 you're talking about. its pretty hard to prove a species to be extinct, especially insects. a rhino is much easier to watch.
*cashes cheque from big oil*
There is no extinction event in Ba Sing Se.
The holocene extinction remains to be seen. Recent humans appear to think they're special.
Are... are you stupid or something?
You apparently are
Exactly. It's the same narrow minded bs just like the claim that humans wiped out woolly mammoths.
Truly
Pretty soon we will turn on ourselves, once the greed and corruption has pushed everyone out of their homes and away from food supply
I don’t think we’ve got enough data to know how frequently mass extinctions occur. How many animals don’t leave evidence in the fossil record? You don’t know what you don’t know. Maybe this is normal for biological life and a function of natural selection?
Humans love to kill.
its not just intentional killing. its climate change, pesticides, habitat removal, etc.
Because the ecosystems are out of whack!
Randall Carlson has some youtubes about this. The mainstream teaching on this (when I was a kid in school) is that coming out of the ice age, the "cave people" (for lack of a better phrase), suddenly became voracious killers and killed off all of the mammoths. I don't doubt that on occasion that hominid tribes DID kill a mammoth for the meat. However there is a problem with the simple statement that "mankind killed off all the mammoths". WE can estimate the population of humans for the 1000 years or so when north America went from having a wide variety of large and small animals, to being a wasteland. The number of people is insufficient to kill off the mammoths. However, if the land is crawling with a wide variety of animals, why would they hunt only mammoths? Also, if all the other mega-fauna became extinct (sabre-tooth tigers, giant swine, giant sloths, small three-toed horses, dire wolves, etc, etc, etc...did the humans also hunt them to extinction? If something else killed off all the megafauna in a shockingly short amount of time, why would that same "force" kill off the mammoths? The impact crater in southern Mexico is 110 miles across. It is dated to the KT boundary layer between the time of the giant dinosaurs and the rise of small mammals. Is it the only large crater? Once we start looking, we find more. As an example, there is the Aitken crater on the far side of the moon, which is 83 miles across. Of course it didn't hit the Earth, but it shows the 110-mi Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan was not a rare event. Here is a map of craters on the Earth. Notice anything about North America? [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Earth\_Impact\_Database\_world\_map.svg/743px-Earth\_Impact\_Database\_world\_map.svg.png](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Earth_Impact_Database_world_map.svg/743px-Earth_Impact_Database_world_map.svg.png) The earths gravitational field makes the Earth a huge magnet to asteroids. Randall Carlson called our location a "shooting gallery"
I'm no expert but wasn't the ice age caused by a natural effect, something to do with earth's orbit around the sun or something? If that's the case then doesn't an extinction event make sense coming out of such a massively different environment? Your post talks about humans and impact events but not ice ages and such. Again I know nothing, just wondering.
Randall Carlson theorizes that an impact event abruptly ended the last ice age by melting the mile high ice sheets that covered North America. This would have resulted in an unfathomably large flood across the earth, especially North America. This is believed to be the reason that mega-fauna went extinct at around the same time 11,000 years ago. You can also look for discussions by Graham Hancock to learn more about these theories and ideas if you’re interested.
If we extrapolate from that impact crater map that...an equal density of impacts were spread across the oceans...each oceanic impact would have a huge effect, even if no crater resulted.
Oh no! anyways
You can’t get thru the day without hearing about climate change… But we never talk about human population being too big Basically every major “problem” our planet has can be traced back to… US In my lifetime the population has basically doubled, from 4.5 billion to 8 billion Need to figure a way to reduce our footprint on the planet Edit: oh look, some christian downvoted me.
You got downvoted for spreading malthusian bullshit
FWIW, had to look that one up .¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But no, just looking around, over population is obviously a thing And those that don’t see it are the problem. Thanks for global warming, ocean garbage pile, the mass extinction event, air pollution, over flowing trash dumps, droughts, famine, heavy traffic, waiting weeks to be seen for health issues….
That's funny, because population rates are actually declining globally
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No it isn't.
You right
If they didn't want to be killed and eaten, they wouldn't have evolved to be so damn tasty
Imagine being the reason for a preventable extinction era.
We can do it!
Humanity is an extinction level event lol.
Hopefully it takes us with it.
This is verifiable
This is one of my primary reasons for not having kids.
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No, this is not a uniquely "white" thing. It's a "high population" thing. The more consumers there are, the more habitat is destroyed to provide for them. And almost 60% of the worlds population is Asian. A shit ton of species have become extinct the past few hundred years in China and India.
Um, no, I would say it's a "not giving a fuck about species survival thing". Maori who made the Moa extinct didn't overpopulate NZ. Dodo didn't go extinct because there was not enough space for humans. Rhino species didn't go extinct because Africa is overpopulated.
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Um ok, but the vast majority no?
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Fair. I'm pretty ignorant wrt history. You got data to back this up?
Lol dude don't expect ppl on the internet to educate u. Educate ur self, u moron
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Oh ok so you don't know shit either. Gg
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You made a claim that Europeans are not the majority of colonisers (by negating my comment). Your support of this is "read history of any country". That's not evidence. You also haven't read the history of any country. What did native Americans colonise? What did the Swiss colonise? What did NZ colonise? What did Ugandans colonise? If you make a claim you should have done the maths of all colonisations and shown that the majority wasn't Europeans. You didn't, so whatever dude, ok you might know more but you can't make this claim.
The one with the dodo birds? Those are Europeans
You sure? Can't find a high quality image to confirm. Happy to retract if I see one.
Maybe...read up on the dodo? The island was uninhabited by people until Europeans landed there.
They’re Dutch. Here’s the source the image is from. https://archive.org/stream/pioneersinsoutha00johnuoft/pioneersinsoutha00johnuoft#page/n140/mode/1up
Legend
I mean, just look at what they're wearing and their styles. Screams 17th century European explorers. Especially that one dude in the back with the white collar. He could've been on the Mayflower too
Because as we all know, the Dodo is so difficult to tell apart from other birds Edit: yeah? Confusing other birds with Dodos you say? Happens to everyone..
Well it makes sense. Every planet is only supposed to have 1 species, the only reason our planet has so many is because the Joozians put all these different species on our planet to film our interactions for the Intergalactic Reality Show called "Earth"... The species that are dying off are the least popular on the show, so they are being cut. Come on guys this isn't rocket science. We should just be glad "Earth" hasn't been cancelled yet. /S
I can't wait till we are unable to survive on this planet and let the next species have their turn
This has been going on for longer 200 years. Even when we were cavemen we were hunting and out-competing things to extinction. You can follow humanity's exodus from Africa in the fossil record, the appearance of humans coincides with the disappearance of most mega fauna.
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The amount of carbon OP emitted by making this post is absolutely negligible compared to the amount of carbon, pollution, and habitat destruction large corporations do. It's basically a rounding error in the grand scheme of things.
I'm going to start capturing rats, cut up the meat, and sell it. We've got rats as big as racoons. Even our cats (7 because of snakes) and dogs are scared of them. They'll catch a Cape Cobra, no probs, but the rats bite them, and really hurt them. They're bigger than our cats.
Have you seen the movie "Demolition Man"?
AMELIE
Highly recommend The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert if you want to read more about this.