![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Sixth Mass Extinction
Jun. 1st, 2005 01:18 amCurrently, the earth is experience its sixth great mass extinction of species. A lot of folks are up in arms about this, concerned about the future biodiversity of the planet and questioning even the possibility that earth will be able to sustain human life and civilization into the distant future.
The Pegritzian response to this? Who the fuck cares.
Years ago, I was a fairly-dedicated environmentalist who truly cared for the fate of life on this planet. I wasn't a green-freak, mind you, wearing only ecologically-conscious clothing knitted from special "more natural than natural" cottons or bombing powerplants that vented sulfides into the atmosphere, but I was certainly concerned with biodiversity and sustainability issues--so much so that I began to research them in depth...and eventually realized that there was no reason for me to be concerned at all.
Extinctions happen. Species go extinct daily--and new species, eventually, replace them. Life is unbelievably resilient, and "biodiversity" really doesn't mean shit in geological terms. We could irradiate this planet's surface so badly that even the bacteria buried deep in the soil would all die off, leaving the only life a handful of strange extremophile organisms clustered around volcanic vents in the deepest depths of the ocean, and guess what? In a billion years, the entire world would be crawling with lifeforms again. Life is nothing more than complex chemical reactions involving carbon and hydrogen and nitrogen, usually taking place in an aqueous solution. Carbon-based chemistry is incredibly malleable. "Genetic diversity" is just a measure of the complexity of a certain self-replicating C-based chemical system. You could reduce that measure of complexity by 99%, but as long as you leave some kind of carbon chemistry active on the planet, it will rebuild and recomplexify itself. The Earth is not Mars: frozen, dry as hell, and nearly atmosphereless. We could render the atmosphere toxic to all aerobic lifeforms and it wouldn't mean shit: within a few million years, flourishing anaerobes would already be rebuilding the O2 levels. We can poison the oceans and there will be archaebacteria (which have been hanging around virtually unchanged for over A BILLION YEARS) that just fucking love it. We could pummel the planet with asteroids and something would bounce back. The only way we humans could completely destroy the planet would be to blow off all the atmosphere and freeze the planet solid, or induce a "Venus effect" in the atmosphere and bake it. Those are possibilities, but right now...a little greenhouse effect ain't nothing this planet hasn't dealt with a few thousand times over the past four billion years.
Species go extinct for one reason: they can't adapt fast enough to changing conditions. Human civilization has put a HUGE stress on virtually every biome present, and of course things are dying off left and right. It happens. I heartily applaud scientific efforts to preserve the DNA of threatened or soon-to-be-extinct species for future study or cloning, because any and all information learned about how life works on this planet is good info--it could help us rebuild if we really fuck up in the future. Remember the Great Lesson of Computer Science: ALWAYS BACK UP. So backing up current elements of the biosphere is always a good idea. But humanity has to face something: we are the top species on this planet. This doesn't give us carte blanche to destroy everything we encounter out of some stupid manifest destiny, god-given-right-to-fill-the-planet egotism. To do so will just lead to our very-much deserved extinction. But we have to face that some species are just too specialized or too weak to survive just our basic presence here on this planet. Or perhaps they're going extinct due to climate change, like Australia's megafauna, which just couldn't deal with the drying out of the subcontinent. Extinction is a natural part of life. Sometimes it can be stopped, sometimes it can't. Remember those who are gone, but always remember: every extinction leaves a little hole that some other lifeform is going to rush in an eventually fill. Welcome to the wonderful world of evolution.
The major issue at the heart of all environmental concerns, however, should always be: How to we keep from extincting ourselves? This is a much toughed question. At present, humans are still biological entities who require a sustained biosphere around them to feed them, give them O2 to breathe, and maintain climate. Fighting to preserve a stable environment for humans to live in should be paramount...at least until we all become robots, at which point the biological environment of earth will become irrelevant to our survival. But while we're still primarily organic, we must concern ourselves with organic needs. Therefore, I highly support any kind of action leading to cleaner air, cleaner water, habitat conservation, climate stabilization, and so forth. But again: the lessons of raw nature cannot be ignored. And no matter how much we maintain our environment, there is one fundamental problem that needs to be addressed or all environmental maintenance laws and efforts will be for naught. There are simply too goddamned many humans.
Overpopulation is the single greatest environmental threat any species can cause and, thereafter, have to face. Species naturally often overpopulate given excellent life conditions: they breed and breed and eat and eat to take advantage of bountiful conditions until one day...there're just too many bacteria in the dish for the agar to support, or too many rabbits in the forest. And then what happens? Mass starvation. Rampant illness as advantageous parasites and pathogens swarm. Huge die-off. Any biome can only support so much of a certain species, and humanity is getting really close to outstripping its environment. The die-off is already beginning: witness the constant famines in Africa.
Sorry folks, but once the die-off starts coming, you can't stop it. This planet needs to lose at least two billion biological humans. Populations can stabilize in an environment by selective breeding and effective use of maintenance strategies and technologies: over time, thanks to cutting back on their own reproduction and properly caring for their surroundings, a species can hammer itself back into a decent equilibrium. But individuals are going to die no matter what happens. Even if the entire planet hit Zero Population Growth tomorrow (which wouldn't be good, because if you stop reproducing entirely you set yourself up for all manner of limiting catastrophes), there's still two billion people who have to go away before things get stable. There are only three ways to do this: 1) They die. 2) They leave and go to the Moon or Mars or anywhere that isn't Earth. 3) They get uploaded into computers.
In the next century, all of these options are going to take place. But let's face it...the only humans with access to options 2 and 3 are going to be those living in First World countries. The Third World will just have to face the big die-off...and so will the poorer populations of First World countries. Biology doesn't care one bit for economics or societal factors: when the plagues start creeping and the planetary food yield just can't take anymore, people will die everywhere. The monied and the technological savvy will probably escape and civilization will go on as always, but just as with extinctions, sometimes things make it, sometimes they don't.
It's high time environmentalists and lawmakers drop their ideologies and take a look at the facts, cold and uncompromising though they be. The world is a harsh place. We can do our best to maintain it so that it isn't as harsh...but no matter what we do, as long as we humans and biological creatures inhabiting a supporting biosphere, we're all still subject to the same laws of extinction and evolution that everything else is. We have a huge leg up on the competition because we're really bright and can anticipate the future and adjust ourselves accordingly. If we choose not to do so, then we can just bend over and kiss a lot of our asses goodbye, because extinction and evolution will take care of us if we don't.
The Pegritzian response to this? Who the fuck cares.
Years ago, I was a fairly-dedicated environmentalist who truly cared for the fate of life on this planet. I wasn't a green-freak, mind you, wearing only ecologically-conscious clothing knitted from special "more natural than natural" cottons or bombing powerplants that vented sulfides into the atmosphere, but I was certainly concerned with biodiversity and sustainability issues--so much so that I began to research them in depth...and eventually realized that there was no reason for me to be concerned at all.
Extinctions happen. Species go extinct daily--and new species, eventually, replace them. Life is unbelievably resilient, and "biodiversity" really doesn't mean shit in geological terms. We could irradiate this planet's surface so badly that even the bacteria buried deep in the soil would all die off, leaving the only life a handful of strange extremophile organisms clustered around volcanic vents in the deepest depths of the ocean, and guess what? In a billion years, the entire world would be crawling with lifeforms again. Life is nothing more than complex chemical reactions involving carbon and hydrogen and nitrogen, usually taking place in an aqueous solution. Carbon-based chemistry is incredibly malleable. "Genetic diversity" is just a measure of the complexity of a certain self-replicating C-based chemical system. You could reduce that measure of complexity by 99%, but as long as you leave some kind of carbon chemistry active on the planet, it will rebuild and recomplexify itself. The Earth is not Mars: frozen, dry as hell, and nearly atmosphereless. We could render the atmosphere toxic to all aerobic lifeforms and it wouldn't mean shit: within a few million years, flourishing anaerobes would already be rebuilding the O2 levels. We can poison the oceans and there will be archaebacteria (which have been hanging around virtually unchanged for over A BILLION YEARS) that just fucking love it. We could pummel the planet with asteroids and something would bounce back. The only way we humans could completely destroy the planet would be to blow off all the atmosphere and freeze the planet solid, or induce a "Venus effect" in the atmosphere and bake it. Those are possibilities, but right now...a little greenhouse effect ain't nothing this planet hasn't dealt with a few thousand times over the past four billion years.
Species go extinct for one reason: they can't adapt fast enough to changing conditions. Human civilization has put a HUGE stress on virtually every biome present, and of course things are dying off left and right. It happens. I heartily applaud scientific efforts to preserve the DNA of threatened or soon-to-be-extinct species for future study or cloning, because any and all information learned about how life works on this planet is good info--it could help us rebuild if we really fuck up in the future. Remember the Great Lesson of Computer Science: ALWAYS BACK UP. So backing up current elements of the biosphere is always a good idea. But humanity has to face something: we are the top species on this planet. This doesn't give us carte blanche to destroy everything we encounter out of some stupid manifest destiny, god-given-right-to-fill-the-planet egotism. To do so will just lead to our very-much deserved extinction. But we have to face that some species are just too specialized or too weak to survive just our basic presence here on this planet. Or perhaps they're going extinct due to climate change, like Australia's megafauna, which just couldn't deal with the drying out of the subcontinent. Extinction is a natural part of life. Sometimes it can be stopped, sometimes it can't. Remember those who are gone, but always remember: every extinction leaves a little hole that some other lifeform is going to rush in an eventually fill. Welcome to the wonderful world of evolution.
The major issue at the heart of all environmental concerns, however, should always be: How to we keep from extincting ourselves? This is a much toughed question. At present, humans are still biological entities who require a sustained biosphere around them to feed them, give them O2 to breathe, and maintain climate. Fighting to preserve a stable environment for humans to live in should be paramount...at least until we all become robots, at which point the biological environment of earth will become irrelevant to our survival. But while we're still primarily organic, we must concern ourselves with organic needs. Therefore, I highly support any kind of action leading to cleaner air, cleaner water, habitat conservation, climate stabilization, and so forth. But again: the lessons of raw nature cannot be ignored. And no matter how much we maintain our environment, there is one fundamental problem that needs to be addressed or all environmental maintenance laws and efforts will be for naught. There are simply too goddamned many humans.
Overpopulation is the single greatest environmental threat any species can cause and, thereafter, have to face. Species naturally often overpopulate given excellent life conditions: they breed and breed and eat and eat to take advantage of bountiful conditions until one day...there're just too many bacteria in the dish for the agar to support, or too many rabbits in the forest. And then what happens? Mass starvation. Rampant illness as advantageous parasites and pathogens swarm. Huge die-off. Any biome can only support so much of a certain species, and humanity is getting really close to outstripping its environment. The die-off is already beginning: witness the constant famines in Africa.
Sorry folks, but once the die-off starts coming, you can't stop it. This planet needs to lose at least two billion biological humans. Populations can stabilize in an environment by selective breeding and effective use of maintenance strategies and technologies: over time, thanks to cutting back on their own reproduction and properly caring for their surroundings, a species can hammer itself back into a decent equilibrium. But individuals are going to die no matter what happens. Even if the entire planet hit Zero Population Growth tomorrow (which wouldn't be good, because if you stop reproducing entirely you set yourself up for all manner of limiting catastrophes), there's still two billion people who have to go away before things get stable. There are only three ways to do this: 1) They die. 2) They leave and go to the Moon or Mars or anywhere that isn't Earth. 3) They get uploaded into computers.
In the next century, all of these options are going to take place. But let's face it...the only humans with access to options 2 and 3 are going to be those living in First World countries. The Third World will just have to face the big die-off...and so will the poorer populations of First World countries. Biology doesn't care one bit for economics or societal factors: when the plagues start creeping and the planetary food yield just can't take anymore, people will die everywhere. The monied and the technological savvy will probably escape and civilization will go on as always, but just as with extinctions, sometimes things make it, sometimes they don't.
It's high time environmentalists and lawmakers drop their ideologies and take a look at the facts, cold and uncompromising though they be. The world is a harsh place. We can do our best to maintain it so that it isn't as harsh...but no matter what we do, as long as we humans and biological creatures inhabiting a supporting biosphere, we're all still subject to the same laws of extinction and evolution that everything else is. We have a huge leg up on the competition because we're really bright and can anticipate the future and adjust ourselves accordingly. If we choose not to do so, then we can just bend over and kiss a lot of our asses goodbye, because extinction and evolution will take care of us if we don't.
