Brink - The Sixth Great Mass Extinction Event is here and it’s us
When is a given species in most danger? At the top of its dominion of a given ecosystem.
Humanity currently dominates, with a few exceptions, directly or indirectly virtually all ecosystems on this planet.
Once again, we get to know for ourselves the obvious truth that civilization is organized insanity. This isn’t a matter of doing some limited «conservation» or fixing a few serious problems concerning release of pollution like climate gases or poisonous chemicals. It’s about human society, about civilization itself. What has been more than obvious for a long time has recently become even more so: It must go!
Rachel Carson with her book Silent Spring made a splash with its stark warnings about human produced chemicals more than sixty years ago, but it didn’t really make an impact, not even approaching one necessary in order to deal with the issue at hand.
The dire warnings about climate breakdown have been with us for at least twenty-five years now, but even though we talk a little about it, there is no real impact on our society. Even if virtually all solutions currently on the public table are implemented it will do us little good.
Nuclear power plants continue to bombard all life on the planet with the deadliest poison in existence.
We are screwing with life and nature on all levels. Frankenstein products, like genetic modified organisms, are numerous and pervasive, their proponents wealthy and influential, with all mainstream politicians in their pockets.
And now, these days we get the beyond dire warnings of the final nail in our coffin, the facts about what we have wrought.
There has been some limited debate whether or not the Sixth Great Mass Extinction is on its way or already is here. Now, more and more reports make it clear that the latter is true. The report, led by the universities of Stanford, Princeton and Berkeley in the United States confirms and exceeds the findings in earlier studies. Vertebrates are disappearing at a rate at least 114 times normal. The species going extinct in the last century would have normally taken thousands of years to do so, and would probably not have without humanity’s pervasive dominion. The total loss of biodiversity is a reality and is fast approaching an irreversible state that will take nature millions of years to recover from.
The culprit is human civilization, is practically everything we, humanity are currently doing and humanity is also one of the species that will go early, in about hundred years or so. «Conservation» is a joke and has always been. We save one or two tigers, for instance while the species are heading for extinction, and we do nothing about the actual cause. And as stated; this isn’t about a few species, but about all of them, except perhaps cockroaches and similar.
If we manage to kill off the cockroach, one of the most adaptive creatures on Earth, there is really no hope for us.
We are destroying the foundation of our own survival. Urban «development», destruction of ever more wilderness, habitats and the ever-stronger level of pollution and chemicals soaking ecosystems are choking all life. We seek cheaper and «cleaner» energy, but don’t realize that it’s the use of energy that must go way down, not the access to energy that must go way up.
To make it totally clear: the extinction isn’t due to a few limited factors, but to the beyond excessive presence of humans on the planet and our equally excessive capacity and penchant for destruction. Our tools become ever more «improved and effective». A small group of humans can remove or have removed a given large forest or destroy huge chunks of wilderness with a snap of fingers. Such groups are numerous and widespread, are everywhere, really. Advanced technology can not help us. Advanced technology is a huge part of what got us into this mess and a major part of the vast wrongness surrounding us. The claim that what is causing the problem can help solving it is definitely yet another proof of the ongoing insanity. The massive priorities of our totally unsustainable society are pushing all other life forms out. The depopulation of all life, along with all the other factors threatens our own survival in countless and massive ways. «Our way of life» is horrendously wrong. We have long since become like a cosmic disaster, a force of unparalleled horror and devastation in this world.
To repeat: all current human activity is grossly unsustainable, and must be scaled back in drastic ways. Civilization itself must go if we want to survive as a species.
You think this is pessimistic and/or drastic? Then, quite frankly you are just one more dangerous idiot refusing to acknowledge reality.
One more concern, among many is that even if humanity returns to being hunter/gatherers, like we should, there won’t be enough left of nature and wildlife, making our changes of surviving even slimmer. The longer we wait, the less likely our survival.
Human society is going in the wrong direction, in all areas, going from bad to worse to horrible with practically everything we do, with every new act and «invention», bringing us ever closer to the brink.
We don’t need more capitalism, more inequality, more injustice, more «free trade», more technology, more destruction of lives and nature, but that’s where we are heading. We are headed for a totally unprecedented destruction, a tailspin collective suicide run of our own making. We are fading, heading for death with a pitiful whimper, and we’re taking life on Earth with us.
As always, the links are gateways to crucial background material and are important for better understanding of the issue at hand.