The Great Dying wiped out at least 90% of the species on Earth due to an abrupt rise in global-average temperature about 252 million years ago. The vast majority of complex life became extinct. Based on information from the most conservative sources available, Earth is headed for a similar or higher global-average temperature in the very near future. The recent and near-future rises in temperature are occurring and will occur at least three orders of magnitude faster than the worst of all prior Mass Extinctions. Habitat for human animals is disappearing throughout the world, and abrupt climate change has barely begun.
Having grown up on Long Island, from the late forties until the mid seventies, I've long been an environmentalist, since I got to see the natural world disappear firsthand, as New York City spilled over and across the island. (Read my bio and you'll see more on why "I am what I am.")
I quote myself from two previous articles, that seem germane to this video. The first is from my article, "Bulldozing the Garden" click here:
Doom and destruction are what we have been bringing large scale to that largest garden around, the only known garden in the universe--Planet Earth--ever since we dropped or slithered from the tree tops, at an ever accelerating and now furious pace. Someone not long ago asked Jane Goodall why she thought that chimps were not as advanced as humans. Her answer, paraphrased: Actually, they're considerably more advanced, if you look at how they relate to their environment without destroying it.
Bring humans on stage and what do you get? Self-multiplying bipedal wrecking machines, diligently working to fry the planet, dam rivers, destroy lakes, pollute oceans, mutilate coastlines, decimate forests, eliminate fisheries, erode and poison farmlands, build vast waste dumps, deplete resources of every description, inject chemicals into the air, do what we can to wreck our own bodies, scam one another ad infinitum, numb our brains and senses, and, as if that's not enough, do our damndest to make our progeny even dumber-as if to assure that they'll be even more incapable of saving the planet than we are.
Here is another quote, from my article "Why Have Kids?" click here:
I come from a family of seven, good Catholic that my mother was, and I can't even count how many families I've known who've have four or more children. My present very competent dentist has nine kids. One of my favorite authors has nine kids. A good friend of mine has five kids. There were nine kids in my mother's family. I have over 70 first cousins. Here in Utah we breed kids like rabbits (though there has been some positive change in the past two decades or so, due to necessity and education).
I have no doubt that you could rattle off many folks you know who have done their share to add to the six billion plus humans on the planet. Religious leaders of all stripes encourage propagation of the faith through propagation of the species, causing untold environmental damage and human suffering around the globe. Politicians are loathe to even talk about the problem, much less attempt to do anything about it.
I grew up on Long Island, and in my lifetime witnessed the destruction of forests, fields, marshes, streams, productive farmlands, and coastlines, as they were converted into Levittowns, condominiums, industrial parks, shopping malls, parking lots, and freeways. I moved to South Salt Lake and saw the same thing all over again, in even less time.
I moved to southeast Idaho and watched monoculture farms creep up the mountainsides, out into riparian habitats, over sand dunes, through sage brush, over patches of trees, and not uncommonly, over bulldozed buildings. Rabbits, foxes, badgers, weasels, skunks, raccoons, countless birds of many varieties-pelicans, white herons, sand pipers, meadowlarks, ibises, golden and bald eagles, barn swallows-salamanders, frogs, snakes, small lizards, and who knows what other plants and animals were rapidly dwindling while my kids were growing up. Flood controlling marshes with eons old ecosystems were eliminated to straighten out the flow of the Snake River. Elk and deer populations diminished as four wheelers and hunters roamed and wreaked havoc in the hills.
When noisy dust cropper planes flew overhead dumping insecticides and herbicides that blew with the wind across and into our house, I imagined I was in Vietnam. Farm chemicals were undoubtedly leaching into our 60 foot well. Farmers were complaining of wells running dry, even as they continued enlarging their farms (a common joke among them was, "I ain't greedy! I just want the land that's next to mine!).
I trust this conveys my interest in what I consider the world's leading climatologist has to say, about near term extinction. There are many others out there speaking the truth, but of the many I've listened to (all most relevant to live on earth), Guy has truly done his homework, paid huge personal sacrifices, and speaks truth, grounded in serious research. Thus I post this video, which gives us "something real to think about."
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