Most Of The Earth's Species Are About To Be Destroyed In A Giant Mass Extinction

Yahoo Finance ^ | 7/25/14 | Lauren F Friedman - businessinsider.com

[NormsRevenge]

Approximately 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs went extinct, 75% of the planet's many species went with them. It was the world's fifth, and most recent, mass extinction event.

Now, according to a July 25 review in the journal Science, the Earth seems to be at the cusp of a sixth mass extinction. Only this time, an asteroid is not to blame. We are.

"Human impacts on animal biodiversity are an under-recognized form of global environmental change," the team of ecologists and biologists warn in Science. "Among terrestrial vertebrates, 322 species have become extinct since 1500, and populations of the remaining species show 25% average decline in abundance."

A third of all vertebrates, the scientists write, "are threatened or endangered."

There are several long-time drivers of what researchers call "defaunation" — the decline of various animal species. The study points to " overexploitation, habitat destruction, and impacts from invasive species" as continuing threats, but notes that soon, human-caused climate change will be the number one driver of defaunation. Diseases that come from pathogens introduced by humans are another growing threat.

The good news? We're not yet totally doomed.

As David Biello writes in Scientific American:

To avoid the sixth mass extinction we will probably have to employ more aggressive conservation, such as moving species to help them cope with a changing climate . Think re-wilding: reintroducing species like wolves or beavers that were once present in a given ecosystem but have since disappeared. Aggressive conservation might also mean killing off newcomer species to preserve or make room for local flora and fauna.

[dfwgator]

I always liked the line from “A Bug’s Life”

“It’s a bug eat bug out there, Princess, it’s one of those ‘Circle of Life’ kind of things.”

[Dusty Road]

What newcomer species?

[MaxMax]

The animals who survive are the ones I want to eat, not those weak species.
Spotted owl are survivors and I bet they taste great served with Baby seal salads.

[dforest]

Hells bells, our overlords are going to be thrilled they don’t have to rely on Obamacare. This is probably how they will explain all the dying going on.

[ETL 2]

“The environment is suffering damage that could be irreversible — global warming, the greenhouse effect, the melting of the polar ice caps, the rising sea level, hurricanes — with terrible social occurrences that will shake life on this planet.”

“I believe this idea has a strong connection with reality. I don’t think we have much time. Fidel Castro said in one of his speeches I read not so long ago, ‘tomorrow could be too late, let’s do now what we need to do’.”

“I believe it is time that we take up with courage and clarity a political, social, collective and ideological offensive across the world — a real offensive that permits us to move progressively, over the next years, the next decades, leaving behind the perverse, destructive, destroyer, capitalist model and go forward in constructing the socialist model to avoid barbarism and beyond that the annihilation of life on this planet.”

—Hugo Chavez, at the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students, held in Caracas on August 8-15, 2005

[ETL 2]

Bin Laden blasts US for climate change

CAIRO – Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming, according to a new audiotape released Friday.

In the tape, broadcast in part on Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden warned of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring “the wheels of the American economy” to a halt.

[ETL 2]

“Charles Manson, the notorious cult leader, has broken a 20-year silence in an interview from his prison cell to warn the world of an impending apocalypse due to global warming.

[snip]

“Everyone’s God and if we don’t wake up to that there’s going to be no weather because our polar caps are melting because we’re doing bad things to the atmosphere,” he said. “The automobiles and fossil fuels are destroying the atmosphere and we won’t have air to breathe.

[blueunicorn6]

“Re-wilding”? .....you introduce me to Marie Osmond and you’ll see some re-wilding.

Yeah, I saw her Grandma commercial. I’d sit with her on the front porch swing any day.

[TomGuy]

These scientists are probably related to the Population Zero advocates of 50 years ago.

==

[ETL 2]

What newcomer species?

Obama Zombies?

[Halgr]

Do a study of Agenda 21....this is not harmless.

[Hot Tabasco]

Aggressive conservation might also mean killing off newcomer species to preserve or make room for local flora and fauna.

Despite what many think, man isn't God......It's best to let nature take its course........

[MHGinTN]

I’ll take Rachel Welch, sir.

[Boogieman]

About darn time. What do we need 732 different kinds of jellyfish for anyway? If you can’t get the job done with one, forget it.

[GingisK]

I’ll take Rachel Welch, sir.

I admire your taste. I clearly remember the first time I saw her in a movie.

[oldtech]

Firstr,somebody is going to have to prove to me that there WERE dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

[DJ MacWoW]

LOL!

The libs write it but don't understand it.

[Safetgiver]

Do you remember her first appearance on Johnny Carson’s Tonight show? I thought back then, “What a hot babe, (in a few years)” Johnny looked liked he was gonna do the nasty with a juvenile. I left the country soon after to hide in the banana bushes and bamboo and when I got home I saw her on TV and said to myself “My whole life has been wasted”. Her and Valeri Bertineli are two orchids God put on earth, never to be messed with.

[dfwgator]

Hopefully Spotted Owls will be among them.

[pfflier]

No, the cockroaches always survive.