How Bad Is Global Warming?

[BenDhyan]

^^^ What mass extinction event are you referring to?

The one we are causing right now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

If you believe it, fine, time will tell. My favored prediction is global nuclear war, but it will not result in extinction.

[PufPuf93]

^^^ What mass extinction event are you referring to?

The one we are causing right now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

If you believe it, fine, time will tell. My favored prediction is global nuclear war, but it will not result in extinction.

The extinction event is not a prediction; it is happening and measured by scientists. The vast majority of species going extinct are not that readily apparent because most are small and in the soil, ocean, and wild lands. Any area of great urbanization or intensive agriculture has lost many species and tend to be in the specific areas where species richness was high.

You are ignorant in your statement. The extinction event is not a matter of opinion.

[BenDhyan]

^^^ You can't believe every scientific study has it right, there are only a relatively few scientists who believe one is happening.

[DrEvil]

^^^ What mass extinction event are you referring to?

The one we are causing right now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

If you believe it, fine, time will tell. My favored prediction is global nuclear war, but it will not result in extinction.

The thing about facts is they couldn't care less what you believe. Species are going extinct at an unprecedented rate (in human history anyway), and we are causing it. It's happening right now, it's not some hypothetical future scenario.

[BenDhyan]

^^^ Evolution continues, as the planet evolves, all its living species must adapt or perish. Mankind will most likely survive.

[DrEvil]

^^Well, yes, but the planet isn't just evolving anymore, we're forcibly changing it over a very short period of time, and most species affected simply don't have time to adapt, hence the mass extinction.

[BenDhyan]

^^^ You speak of a mass extinction as though it is an established fact accepted by the scientific community at large?

[Morty]

You can't clear half the Amazon forest, and then continue on clearing the other half - and do the same in Indonesia - without killing off many species of life. Humans are doing an extinction event on the planet. That's the science. Geologists may quibble about the details, but everyone else accepts it as fact. The only debate is over how to accurately quantify the loss.

[BenDhyan]

^^^ You can judge what you think is best for the planet, but at the end of the day it is nature who determines which species will adapt and which won't. Let's not forget, humans are an indivisible part of nature.

[SonicG]

It's a very kabbalistic idea - Man is the Master of Nature...which I can get behind...but man is not the master of divine law...

Is this not true?

Scientists estimate we're now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate, with literally dozens going extinct every day [1]. It could be a scary future indeed, with as many as 30 to 50 percent of all species possibly heading toward extinction by mid-century [2].

Those pesky exponentials...so unknown...

[PufPuf93]

^^^ You can't believe every scientific study has it right, there are only a relatively few scientists who believe one is happening.

I don't mean to be rude, but you are clueless.

[PufPuf93]

^^^ Evolution continues, as the planet evolves, all its living species must adapt or perish. Mankind will most likely survive.

Think of life as a bank of genetic potential. An "extinction event" produces a bottleneck in the species "richness" that reduces (and simplifies) the bank of genetic potential for evolution. The age of dinosaurs was one extinction event and a bottle neck on evolution. But it was more than dinosaurs but also the plant and bacteria and so on complex web of life that was reduced in species richness. In 100 million years species richness recovered. For example redwood forests were once common and had been present for millennia. The petrified forests of Arizona were trees related genetically to redwood. The Ice Age of 10,000 to 13,000 years past removed most of the remaining species and range of redwoods. Now native redwoods only exist in a narrow range of coastal mountains of northern CA and slightly into southern OR (coastal redwoods) and in the southern Sierra Nevada (Giant Sequoia); both in areas spared Ice Age glaciation. But is was not just redwoods, it was insects and other plants and microscopic soil flora and fauna and so on that no longer exist.

Morty mentions below the cutting of the rain forest but urbanization and industrial agriculture impact areas that once had the highest biological productivity and species richness. Mankind will adapt and survive in human terms and human dimension of time. But the survival will be in an ecology of much less species richness (biological potential) that impacts human's ability to adapt and survive. The genetic bank does not recover in anything close to a human scale. The current human caused extinction event is occurring much faster than the other extinction events in the geologic record and is also irreversible in a human sense of time.

[PufPuf93]

It's a very kabbalistic idea - Man is the Master of Nature...which I can get behind...but man is not the master of divine law...

Is this not true?

Scientists estimate we're now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate, with literally dozens going extinct every day [1]. It could be a scary future indeed, with as many as 30 to 50 percent of all species possibly heading toward extinction by mid-century [2].

Those pesky exponentials...so unknown...

Many extinctions occur in the microbiology of the soil. Scientists are far from classifying the species richness of the soil so not possible to quantify except in general terms. We perceive life much higher on the somewhat pyramid shaped web of life.

[minime]

It's a very kabbalistic idea - Man is the Master of Nature...which I can get behind...but man is not the master of divine law...

"Man commands nature only by obeying her." - Roger Bacon

"We cannot command nature except by obeying her." - Francis Bacon

"I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and cannot give it up." - Napoleon Bonaparte

[brainpanhandler]

^^^ You can judge what you think is best for the planet, but at the end of the day it is nature who determines which species will adapt and which won't. Let's not forget, humans are an indivisible part of nature.

To everyone conversing with dear ol' BenD, keep the above in mind. You can pile up mountains of evidence for BenD, but he can always retreat into that final, impenetrable, fact and value free bubble.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go and discuss quantum physics with my dog.