It's All Over But The Crying
Posted on 06/21/2015 5:22:50 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The planet is dying. Or at least the animals on it are. That’s the conclusion of “a team of scientist” as reported in the San Francisco Gate. This is some dire news to be sure. With all the animals gone, we’re going to be in a lot of trouble, and it’s really all your fault.
Mammals, birds and reptiles are disappearing from the planet so rapidly that a team of scientists concluded Friday that Earth is in the midst of a sixth mass extinction, one so dire that it could threaten the existence of humanity.
The scientific study, published Friday in the journal Science Advances, determined that animals are going extinct at a rate 100 times faster than normal if nature was on its regular course.
The joint study by scientists from the UC Berkeley, Stanford University and other research institutions said humans are polluting the ecosystem, destroying habitat and killing off species at a rate so rapid that the demise of animals like elephants, tigers, rhinoceros and others could occur within three human lifetimes.
“In real terms, we’re in trouble,” said Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford professor and president of the Center for Conservation Biology who co-authored the study. “This is another indicator that we are sawing off the limbs that we are sitting on.”
You’ll note that a chief member of of that “team of scientists” was Paul Ehrlich, a professor at Stanford. Fairly impressive credentials to be sure, so we should probably give him a listen. Unless, of course, he had some sort of history of not being terribly good at prognostication. Let’s just say, for instance, that he had been spectacularly wrong on some of his previous predictions. Is it possible?
Over at National Review, Wesley Smith takes us for a brief trip down memory lane, to a time when Paul Erlich was writing a wildly popular book (at least wildly popular among the green warriors) titled The Population Bomb. Ehrlich was issuing some dire warnings then as well.
So, let’s take a look at some of his predictions, made in 1968:
1) “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate,” he said. He predicted four billion deaths, including 65 million Americans…
What actually happened: Since Ehrlich wrote, the population has more than doubled to seven billion – but the amount of food per head has gone up by more than 25 per cent. Of course there are famines, but the death rate has gone down. I don’t think a significant number of Americans have starved.
3) “By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people … If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.”
What actually happened: I’m not hungry. I just ate. Are you hungry? Were you hungry in 2000, especially? Does England exist?
Let’s be clear… the climate is changing as we’ve said many times here. And some species are going extinct. Considering that many of these examples are taking place because seven billion people take up a lot of room, one wonders what Ehrlich proposes to counter that? Of course, there are other animal populations which are adjusting in the other direction and their populations are exploding. The number of alligators in the American southeast has gotten to the point where people are barricading themselves in their homes. Up here in the northeast, despite two brutally harsh winters in a row, the population of whitetail deer has gone through the roof. I chased two out of my yard in the middle of the suburbs recently and they are wrecking cars right and left.
The climate changes. The animal populations shift in response. As I understand it, the number of species fell off a cliff during each ice age. It’s definitely something to keep an eye on, but I’m not sure if Ehrlich is our go to guy on this one. Unless, of course, England is gone. Has anyone checked recently?
Yes. It’s true....but it is not NOW....but from the late Pleistocene till now.
Call it what you will, ....but we are doing more for species NOW, then in the past 10000 years....we’ve turned a corner. Species like gators were hunted almost to extinction. White tail deer were rare in many areas. Now both of the species are numerous and becoming pests, and through conservation can be maintained through careful hunting programs.
Did they ever consider it was because of modern classifications of animals we have 1,000s more “species” then we did in the past and most of these species have only superficial differences that cannot be determined by fossils.
Scientists and enviros have been saying this for decades.
I just finished a book called The Skeptical Environmentalist, published back in 2001. The author analyzed these claims, using their own data, and showed them to be utter hogwash. Highly recommended.
Haven’t read this particular paper. It’s possible they have startling new data to prove their point, but I doubt it.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Skeptical-Environmentalist-Measuring-State/dp/0521010683
When they first came up with this “Earth Day” crap (which by just a random chance coincides with Lenin’s birthday) in the early 70s, they were teaching us that by the year 2000 the world would be so polluted and over populated that people would be cannibals, you wouldn’t live past 40 and we’d be in a new Ice Age.
These people are FOS eugenicists then and they are now.
I seem to recall Ehrlich in his 1970 book “Population Bomb” assured us that by 2000 we would all be dead from global famine. I doubt his prediction will be right this time either. Given his ludicrous false predictions in 1970 you might think people wouldn’t give much credence to these predictions.
Mass extinctions, ice ages and climate change are natural phenomena. Are they saying that humans are causing the sixth but didn’t cause the other five?
And the sunspot cycle? Did those SUVs cause that?
:: Earth is in the midst of a sixth mass extinction ::
And, of course, the previous 5 were caused by humanity burning fossil fuels to prop up their capitalistic lifestyle.
I wonder if we should “push back” by asking those “doomers”:
if they believe in Evolution?
if so, don’t they also believe that Evolution is the process by which plants and animals ADAPT to changing environments?
if so, isn’t the “doomer” hysteria, now being directed at the PROCESS of adaptation, really a hysterical rejection of Evolution, itself?
Aren’t “doomers” both hypocritical and silly?
To extend your thought process, if humans are simply the process of evolution, as they claim, why is a dam built by humans any less natural than one built by beavers?
I wonder if we should “push back” by asking those “doomers”:
if they believe in Evolution?
if so, don’t they also believe that Evolution is the process by which plants and animals ADAPT to changing environments?
if so, isn’t the “doomer” hysteria, now being directed at the PROCESS of adaptation, really a hysterical rejection of Evolution, itself?
Aren’t “doomers” both hypocritical and silly?
Excellent point. The Florida panther is endangered and protected, but there is not a whit of difference from it and any other cougar/mountain lion.
A large number of these extinctions are simply due to species transported with humans as we expand, whether deliberate introductions of snakes on Pacific Islands to kill rats (and killing native birds via egg consumption) or unknown transfers via ship ballast (invading mussels in the Great Lakes) or unchecked cargo bringing in pests (Asian beetles killing trees in the West, fire ants via cargo / ships).
That said, we are seeing a large scale of extinctions because competitors from plants to animals to pests and diseases are spread world wide via the human transportation network. It is rarely directly people’s fault, such as hunting the passenger pigeon to extinction for dinner.
When I was very young, my mother told me the story of Chicken Little who ran around the barnyard every time it rained squawking, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”
The pigs, wallowing in mud puddles, ignored her.
The cow chewed her cud, refreshed by the chill rain.
The goats played games in the rain.
Each of the other barnyard animals were too busy with their own interests to pay attention to Chicken Little. Besides, they had heard it all before.
All the other chickens ran after her clucking and squawking until the rain stopped and the sun came out. For a while all was quiet until Chicken Little noticed the sun falling in the sky. Off she went again, clucking and squawking, “The sky is falling.”
Chickens are like that, my mother told me. They run around squawking about nothing at all until the sun goes down, then they fly to their roost and sleep until morning.
Paul Erlich is one such chicken, always squawking and clucking about something as normal as rain, trying to instill fear into the other chickens.
animals are going extinct at a rate 100 times faster than normal - what is the normal extinction rate and how was it found?
humans are polluting the ecosystem, destroying habitat - but many areas of the world are less polluted today (Hudson River, for example), so if animals are still becoming extinct in the less polluted areas, then pollution isn't the only cause.
Paul Ehrlich - can Ehrlich explain why all of the things he predicted in his earlier book, The Population Bomb, didn't happen? If he was wrong in 1968, what makes him right now?
Reminds me of a doomsday preacher who said the world will end on such-and-such a date. Then when that date comes and nothing happens, he has to come up with a new scheme to keeps his believers on the line.
The Dawn of the Homogenocene.
“why is a dam built by humans any less natural than one built by beavers?”
Because when beavers build a dam they NATURALLY don’t worry about whether it will flood the homes of humans, or their cropland etc. On the other hand when humans build a dam they must spend years doing an environmental impact study to be sure it causes no harm to beavers or other species.
I hope this clarifies things for you, anytime I can be of help please don’t hesitate to call on me.
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