Posted on 03/06/2007 8:56:51 AM PST by presidio9
Some times I swear some of these "scientists" just disregard known history and just say things off the cuff. The biological sphere is in constant flux. The rate of extinction is extremely hard to estimate and many of the criteria for what constitutes a species is very flimsy. While I'm all for being a good steward of the environment and the animals and plants that live in it there is one simple fact that will not change no matter how much we wish for environmental and biological stasis and that is that the biosphere is constantly changing just as the climate is. Mass extinctions have occurred and what is interesting is that after such events explosions of biodiversity occur to replace those creatures that are lost. This is something that is still not understood.
The rate of species replenishment, if the fossil record is to be accepted, is much higher than should be expected given standard models of evolution but of course there are few willing to discuss this. Instead we hear more hysteria, hand wringing, and gnashing of teeth. What has led so many otherwise rational people to so need to overstate and search for an apocalypse?
The world would be a much better place if all the attention focused on these surreal catastrophic human contributed crisis on the natural world was channelled to solve problems like the starving people in the world - but why do that when if less humans were alive, the world will be a better place for animals.
My family who is not into the news as much as I am is so afraid of global warming, and I'm sure it won't be long before they are worried about all the animals dying. Then, of couse they will be resigned to agree to eat cloned meat. The left has created such a depressive fear that is totally unwarranted and unhealthy for this world.
I believe you are correct.
Freepers will predictably crack jokes and write it off as leftist hysteria. The fact that leftist environmentalists can be hysterical and fascist does not mean that conservatives should completely ignore everything they have to say or accept as perfectly normal and tolerable the harm humanity is wreaking on global ecology.
Well, that's a relief!
I was wavering at the lastest bombshells about the Gore Dacha debacle and his carbon credits" company scam, and needed a new a new devil to haunt my sleep and a new set of apocalyptic priests to worship...
I don't want to guess, but it may be single digits...
I'll believe them when they spend all day walking around with sandwich signs... :)
In the 70s, that's how long we had before the population explosion and mass starvation would save Gaia...
I think I need a ride in my SUV... and look for some "endangered" species.
For those of you with good memories, my Prius bumper sticker reads, "My Other Car Is An SUV..."
It's a pleasure to see that we have dcided to stop demonizing Ann Coulter and get down to some serious business...
Anybody got thoughts on massextinctions.net and the half-dozen nutcases that run it?
Who funds them?
Which groups are they crosslinked to? ( prozac.net? )
Sweet! Guess I'd better open me up a few more credit cards...
Well, I remember a hysterical DU type a few years ago announcing that 1000 species are going extinct every year.
15 more years and our troubles are over...
OK.
Mass extinctions an't it.
Can you be more specific?
Last time I checked, homo sapiens sapiens is part of the global ecology, and has been so for over 5 million years...
wacky!
That still doesn't explain what the hell you are doing driving a Prius.
I really liked that bumper sticker and needed an appropriate place to stick it...
: )
As a side benefit, I can counter all the crap the Prius worshipers dish out... with authority, dammit!
So what kind of mileage do you get?
Careful...
People see you asking that question and you'll be shunned.
commuting in the San Joaquin Valley, typically 47; female driver, 32; 100 mile trip to San Francisco, 52...
"massextinction.net" redirects you to "http://www.well.com/user/davidu/extinction.html" .
Seems to be a lone nutcase, who was featured in a national magazine 7 years ago.
From the redirected site:
About the webmaster of this site:
David Ulansey is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University, and has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Boston University, Barnard College (Columbia University), the University of Vermont, and Princeton University. He is the author of a book published by Oxford University Press (and is now completing a second book which will also be published by Oxford), and has published articles in Scientific American and numerous other scholarly journals. He is the Executive Producer of a new documentary film on the extinction crisis-- "Call of Life: Facing the Mass Extinction"-- forthcoming from the Species Alliance, where he is Project Director.
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