Earth on the verge of Mass Extinctions

[SS-18 ICBM]

I didn't say they did.

I just like having cats as pets.

"Keystone species" is pretty much what I said.

 

[Berzerker]

We already caused the majority of the megafauna to go extinct back when we only had stone spears.

that theory's in trouble, the evidence so far shows "we" didn't fare well either... The Clovis culture effectively disappeared right along with the larger mammals and was eventually replaced with the Folsom culture.

 

[TheLastOne36]

I don't think that it's some sort of projection of self-importance but recognition that humanity really has been killing things since the rise of civilization. The only dispute I'd think of is whether or not the "megafauna" extinction was really caused by humans or due to other factors outside of human control (edit: e.g. climate change in this case).

Only in Australia we are certain humans caused the extinction of megafauna. (which makes sense, as there isn't really much else to eat there. )

 

[Perfection]

that theory's in trouble, the evidence so far shows "we" didn't fare well either... The Clovis culture effectively disappeared right along with the larger mammals and was eventually replaced with the Folsom culture.

Maybe the Clovis culture disappeared because they killed all the larger animals...


Anyways, the past 10,000 years represents global loss of a vast quantity of megafauna all over the world, from the Mammaths to the Sabre-Toothed tiger to the Moa. The climatic hypothesis just doesn't bear much fruit.

 

[civ_king]

that theory's in trouble, the evidence so far shows "we" didn't fare well either... The Clovis culture effectively disappeared right along with the larger mammals and was eventually replaced with the Folsom culture.

maybe they drove the megafauna to extinction and then the Clovis people slowly died as they kept working down the size chain until they just were't getting enough calories for the calorie expenditure

 

[choxorn]

Domesticated cats have a critical role in maintaining ecosystems?

Oh, of course. Without the presence of lolcats, all life on the internet will die in under 9000 days.

that theory's in trouble, the evidence so far shows "we" didn't fare well either... The Clovis culture effectively disappeared right along with the larger mammals and was eventually replaced with the Folsom culture.

In North America, something happened around 12,000 years ago that killed just about every large mammal that lived there- and killed most of the humans living there.

Anyways, the past 10,000 years represents global loss of a vast quantity of megafauna all over the world, from the Mammaths to the Sabre-Toothed tiger to the Moa. The climatic hypothesis just doesn't bear much fruit.

The Megafauna were already gone by 10,000 years ago.

 

[Glassfan]

Well, considering the current mass extinction is likely caused by us....

Makes me sort of proud...

 

[Ekolite]

Frankly I have no interest in any of this appocalyptic rubbish. There really is nothing we can do about it, so if it happens it happens. Human kind will survive, regardless.

 

[GoodGame]

Oh, of course. Without the presence of lolcats, all life on the internet will die in under 9000 days.



In North America, something happened around 12,000 years ago that killed just about every large mammal that lived there- and killed most of the humans living there.



The Megafauna were already gone by 10,000 years ago.

Ignoring the exact date, the concept is still the same, that from the Megafauna extinctions to the present there's a "Holocene Extinction" event.

Question: If the start of the Holocene is kind of variable, is its start at least de-marked by the date of the Megafauna extinctions?

 

[Perfection]

The Megafauna were already gone by 10,000 years ago.

No, there was still some megafauna to go extinct, for instance the Moa. The reason, of course being that humans hadn't yet shown up where they live.

But yeah I shoulda said 15k, I was a little sloppy.

 

[NedimNapoleon]

OMGWTFBBQ so as I understand it we are going to run out of Fishsticks

Seriously I think its a bit A LOT exaggerated

 

[Perfection]

Seriously I think its a bit A LOT exaggerated

Why do you think that?

 

[Tommy Vercetti]

I don't believe doomsday BS like this. They have been saying this for years.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I don't believe doomsday BS like this. They have been saying this for years.

Ecological things take a bit longer than human lifespan. Didnt it take a buncha years for the dinosours to die?

 

[Akka]

Hu, of course they have been saying it for years.
Decades are PEANUTS on the evolutionary scale. Something changing the whole fauna & flora in 200 years is basically a cataclysmic blink.
It's only idiots with no sense of scale that feel "it's been like this forever" because they have heard it for some decades.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Ecological things take a bit longer than human lifespan. Didnt it take a buncha years for the dinosours to die?

Aimee is right. Dinosaurs didn't disappear off our planet in one day. It took many years for the majority of them to go extinct. It had to for atleast a few of them to evolve into birds.

 

[deanej]

Except the asteroid did kill the majority of life on Earth in a matter of hours. From the descriptions of the impact I've read, I'm not sure how any life survived, though obviously some did.

I suspect the definition of "mass extinction" has been revised to include global warming just a "pandemic" was revised to include swine flu (under the definition that was used until last year, swine flu would never had qualified as a pandemic).

I'm not even sure this is bad. Even the wildest predictions from climate scientists are still cooler than the medieval warm period. Did you know that Greenland is called Greenland because it was green when the Vikings discovered it. The climate scientists certainly don't want you to know that. How about the fact that England was once a major producer of champagne? And the temperatures in the medieval warm period don't even come close to what temperatures used to be before central america formed. Earth has actually been in a cold period since then; global warming just brings us closer to business as usual as far as the planet if concerned. The real problem is that we don't want to spend the money to adapt to a warmer climate. I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything, but we should be doing these things for the sake of doing them, not because of global warming doomsday predictions.

 

[Abaddon]

The "verge" is so wide it is hardly worth worrying about. On a human time scale we will be long dead.

I also beleive that the rate of technology is now so great that science will solve all problems!

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Aimee is right. Dinosaurs didn't disappear off our planet in one day. It took many years for the majority of them to go extinct. It had to for atleast a few of them to evolve into birds.

Actually, the dinosaurs that evolved into birds did so long before the Cretaceous extinction.

 

[Narz]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience...extinctionthreatearthonvergeofhugeresetbutton

Haven't they been saying this for years now?

Yeah, and they've been talking about global warming & the necessity of transitioning to renewable fuels for years (decades) too.

The "verge" is so wide it is hardly worth worrying about. On a human time scale we will be long dead.

Maybe living fast like you. I suspect we'll be feeling the beginning of the wrath of climate change within less than a decade, many are already on the front lines.

I also beleive that the rate of technology is now so great that science will solve all problems!

I kinda wish I shared your optimism.