RE: The Holocene Extinction Part 1: Death by Human
Over 10% are facing extinction???
That's an understatement if ever there was one. The world's more badly polluted than it will ever have been and probably more inhospitable than it has been for most of its history save for the earliest conditions and when the asteroid hit the Yucatan that probably led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.
We're doing well. A relatively small number of pest species / species that thrive in urban areas are also doing well / very well for themselves. Domestic animals are doing fantastically. But the rest of life?
The seas are full of plastic and warming. They're over-fished. Amazonian rainforest is being slashed and burnt so that McDonalds can raise cattle. The increasing human population forever encroaches into areas of natural beauty as more people need more places to live. Idiots carry guns on the plains of Africa and shoot large mammals for fun.
This is a MASS EXTINCTION up there with the previous 5. Once - an extinction you refer to - 95% of species went extinct. Every other day, there'll be species as yet undiscovered being lost forever. There's thought to be several million species (a million beetles alone, for example). There won't be anywhere near that amount left by the time the planet's finished with the human species.
Of course, fine post otherwise. I just don't think we should be beating around the bush - so to speak - where predicted casualties are concerned.
It's in the same order of magnitude- double digit percentages- but it's thankfully not as bad as the previous extinctions. The Permian, the one that killed 90% plus of all species? That involved large sections of the crust ripping open, pouring magma across tens of thousands of square miles, polluting the atmosphere with toxic gases to a far worse degree than we have, and rendering all but the very top layer of the ocean entirely oxygenless. Even if we detonated all our nukes at once we wouldn't be anywhere close to that.
This extinction event really got moving when? A hundred years ago? Two hundred at most? Geologically speaking, if the history of the planet lasted a day, man's mission to exterminate life would be barely a fraction of a second in length, would it not?
No biological entity could ever come close to humankind's destructiveness. We're attacking life on every front. Seriously, you're underestimating the effect of our greed. And it's science-fiction hippy-bullshit if you can predict a greener human 100 years down the road. That'll never come to be whilst capitalism is king.
Of course, I hope you're right and I'm wrong. I just have no faith in humans pulling their heads out their asses whilst people like Donald Trump (and the rest) are in the world.
Also...
Imagine if the impoverished half of the world demand the trappings of wealth that the rich half have enjoyed for so long. As their nations eventually stop warring / their nations' economies begin to grow. If the developing world was no more and all nations could be regarded as being developed.
Is it racist to say they must not be allowed to develop their economies? (Is that what Western governments have been plotting against for so long?)
Because we're fucked if every African wants a fridge, a laptop, a telly and a car. And a nice house to live in.
Maybe trickle down economics will save the planet in the end? ;) ;) ;) (I personally hate the concept, ordinarily.)
I'm hardly predicting a greener future- merely pointing out that our destructive capabilities are still outmatched by the Earth's destructive powers. I- and extinction researchers of all stripes- have taken into account the insane speed at which we spread extinction. (We actually started arpund 10k years ago). The numbers still don't even approach the big extinctions. In fact, the speed at which we're moving is the main reason why we're causing these extinctions- if human pressures had been applied slower, far more species could have adapted.
As for whether your claim is racist- well, you were the one who brought that into the conversation, so I think that's one you probably have the answer to already.