MASS EXTINCTION

[STIX]

THIS IS NOT A JOKE

"Five mass extinctions have occurred since life began on earth. Are humans causing the next mass extinction? And what does evolutionary theory predict for the world we will leave to our descendants?

First, you must educate yourself.

the links below should be sufficient

PBS

"As our panelists debate the issue, they also consider how one species -- Homo sapiens -- may be triggering a modern mass extinction"

http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/eldredge2.html

There is little doubt left in the minds of professional biologists that Earth is currently faced with a mounting loss of species that threatens to rival the five great mass extinctions of the geological past.

CNN

"It's the forests, the oceans, the coral reefs, the marine fish, the algae, the insects that make up the living world around us and which we couldn't do without,"

most scientists agree that human activity is causing rapid deterioration in biodiversity. Expanding human settlements, logging, mining, agriculture and pollution are destroying ecosystems, upsetting nature's balance and driving many species to extinction.

now, if you believe the geologist and biologists then:

Next you must look for a solution, what can we do to stop this horrible event?

How can we do it? It doesnt matter how, the fact is we must!! it is for the very essence of our planet and of our souls.

Vhemt : This may seem radical at first, but all I ask is to read the "About the movement section". It makes sence. Im not asking you to join, im not a member by any standards, but it has some good ideas.

You hold the key to our future, you have the power to make a difference, and that difference can be made by example, "After we've seen a few hundred TV dramas where the good guy kicks the bad guy's butt, it's tempting to look at the real world with this same knee jerk, zero-sum mentality." This is true, our collective goals in life are to be popular and rich, this is so conceeded and igorant its not even funny, to change this attitude, you must show people that you do not agree with it and that will in turn cause them to question it.

so what do you think? is this a pressing issue? or should mankind ignore this possiblity and thrust the future of intelligent life into the hands of fate?

[dmgspycat]

What was different then was man didn't have huge militarys blowing up nuclear bombs in the Van Allen Belt destroying the earths atmosphere allowing UVa and UVb rays to wreak havok. Or factories of industrialisation pumping filth over the land and releasing heavy metals and other toxins into the environment...no volcano or meteor could compare with the amount of damage we have done in the last 100 years! We are about to pay for our carelesness in a very bad way. Sorry but it is just common sense speaking.

[Essan]

Actually, mankind would have to go it sime to cause as much long term damages as whatever caused the Perimian-Triassic extinction 250 million years ago - when 95% of all living species became extinct.

I guess we could do it if we really tried though......

Good news though is that we know from experience that life will eventually bounce back.

[STIX]

so you two agree that we are causing the next great extinction?

sign some petitions, get involved, let people know you are concerned.

Its not just extinction, its our environment as a whole we should be concerned about.

http://www.nirs.org/

http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/index.php?se...ne:billpetition

(UK residents)

http://action.nwf.org/campaign/pledgeesa20...ce=action_index

(US I believe, mabye anyone Im not sure)

http://www.undoit.org/

SIGN THIS ONE!!

more info:

http://www.cec.org/home/index.cfm?varlan=english

This one is just plain cool.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/g...rming/index.cfm

"global warming is real and underway" - more evidence

Unfortunatley, because of the way the world works and since america is full of imbecils (no offence, but ive been there many a time, viewed comparatively you have about the same ammount of "smart" people as canada (not according to your high school grades), yet you have about 10 times the people) a change or realization will not come soon AND, it must happen internally, no outsider can change the United States, even though their pollution and exploitation affects every person on this globe, they just dont care.

[Conspiracy]

the end of the world will most likely be our doing yes.

[Cadetak]

We cant stop it, no one can. you think a petition is gonna stop every industry in the world to stop polluting and using too much of the earth's resourches? Or do you think the U.S. will just throw away there nuclear arms? Come on. Were a flawed race. Agent Smith form The Matrix says it best "humans are parasites". We take and take and never give back. Every begining has an end, nothing lasts forever.

[Michelle]

Well STIX, you lost all credibility with me on that last paragraph. (no offence)

[STIX]

I have hope, I will always have hope and faith in the goodwill of mankind, and Im sorry michelle for losing my credibility, its just my oppinion...one which comes from frustration, a frustration which begins with ignorance.

but alas, these are not my ideas I am putting here, the websites speak for themselves.

There is no quick fix, and that seems to discourage people from trying...

Edited April 6, 2005 by STIX

[STIX]

We cant stop it, no one can. you think a petition is gonna stop every industry in the world to stop polluting and using too much of the earth's resourches? Or do you think the U.S. will just throw away there nuclear arms? Come on. Were a flawed race. Agent Smith form The Matrix says it best "humans are parasites". We take and take and never give back. Every begining has an end, nothing lasts forever.

559882[/snapback]

Thats the saddest most tragic and pathetic post I have ever read, are you not concerned? doesnt that scare you? like damn...comeon, where is your compassion, we all once had compassion when we were children, hope seems to decay through time.

EVER HEARD OF FREE WILL? yes, we can stop it.

You think a different intelligent life will come again to this planet? our existance is only chance, we are so lucky to exist and yet we are so ignorant of this fact, we think its a right to exist not a privelage, I am so happy for being on this planet, I love every second of it, and people who take it for granted are wasted on it.

[Neo2005]

Mass Extinction is a touchy subject becuase of all the horrible things we've done to the earth and the earth hasn;t really responded in a cataclysmic way.YET!

But i'm still not sure if i'll live long enough to see the end i've always wondered though.

[STIX]

I dont think the end will come in our lifetime, I think that the ancient monuments surrounding the globe, built on ley lines, are healing mother nature, yet not as fast as we are destroying it. The ancient cultures have been destroyed, our past is lost to us, we have blindly cast our sails to the wind and who knows where our destination lies.

One thing is forsure, In my lifetime, I have the chance at affecting the future, at shaping it into something better...and I will not waste this chance.

[Neo2005]

Ancient monuments on lay lines heal the planet.

Please explain.

[marduk]

Sounds like your common garden blavatsky mumbo jumbo.

Ley lines are still scientifically unproven.

In either case the total locations in the world for ancient monuments numbers less than 20. And with thousands of lines just in the U.K. maybe we should build some more pyramids to cover the ones that need them ?.

See cos pollutions never going to stop as its part of the natural process of the earth. and when you think that we are ruining the planet for our future then we aren't really. We don't have a future on this planet and the sooner we get out of here the better.

Oh and those Mass extinctions you're so worried about are also part of the circle of life on this planet. If they hadn't happened we wouldn't be here talking baout them in the first place.

Edited April 7, 2005 by marduk

[JOSHUA MAGE]

ok-scifi time here. What if every planet with civilized life reaches a turning point, after which they either destroy themselves, or bring about peace, true space exploration, etc.Hmmm?

[Adramaleck]

Hmm let's see.

Mass extinction huh?

Ever heard of Darwin?

And yeah, we may be messing up our planet, but it is not beyond repair.

Nanotech is around the corner, which will cut down on a lot of pollution from factories.

Mars will be terraformed soon after the moon is developed.

*shrugs*

Yes, we may ruin this planet, as we already are ruining it. Is it sad? Yes. Will it lead to the end of humanity? Probably not.

If anything, a nano war will wipe all humans off the planet, and leave the animals and nature undisturbed.

[Michelle]

Forty years ago my city was mainly industrial. If you worked downtown, as my Father did, you would have to take extra clothes because by lunch they would be so covered with soot your a white shirt would be grey.

Since new regulations have been put into place things are remarkably better. Creeks are being cleared of pollutants that factories dumped into them from the 1800's to 1940's. Regulations have become so strict that most of factories have moved out of the area to less restricted ones.

We were the first city to have electric shuttle buses. We restored the downtown area from a vacant slum to a vital, thriving community with condos, schools and major tourist attractions. People that work downdown now can live there and many walk to work, ride bicycles, or take the shuttle as can the university's students.

I realize that there is still a lot of room for improvement but we are on the right track and that STYX is why I was personally put off with your attitude about the US. There is still a lot you need to learn about this particular subject.

Edited April 7, 2005 by Michelle

[STIX]

Ancient monuments on lay lines heal the planet.

Please explain.

560364[/snapback]

just a theor, not my own.

JOE PARR

^^ check out some of his work ^^

[Michelle]

I love being ignored...

[STIX]

I love being ignored...

561614[/snapback]

sorry, you have valid points, mabye I am just paranoid and ignorant...If so, this is why I have created this thread, to argue my points and concerns in hope of better understanding...

In my opinion we should not be polluting at all!

I live in canada, its very clean here, and I love it, I love nature, it is my favourite part of life, and when I think of places like Los Angeles I realize that its just as bad as your city used to be, except instead of soot there is brown air and there are toxic rivers.

The fact is, we are ignorant by nature, why assume otherwise? we often try to predict effects of certain things by observation under laboratory (micro) conditions...yet these conditions are not on a macro scale such as the earth is...instead we always let these things run their course and observe their effects, thus if an effect only happens once, we will not know it until we observe it...what if this effect is a cataclysm? with an attitude of unacknowledgement we are destined to observe such an effect, since thats the only way we will realize it as fact.

All science is fact, yet not all fact is science.

this illustrates my point, its ok to believe in science as truth but the moment you only believe in truth as science you have made a grave mistake.

[edit, rewording 2nd last and last paragraphs]

Edited April 7, 2005 by STIX

[Michelle]

It would be nice if there were no pollution at all but that's impossible. My husband and I work with several environmental clean-up companies so I know this to be a fact.

Creating anything takes some form of energy which pollutes the air. After these things are created then they have to be disposed of. That either fills up land fills or can be recycled which costs more and still causes pollution from the energy source used to convert it to another use.

Electric cars are a nice thought but they and the electricity still have to be produced.

We've manufactured ground water clean-up tanks that seperate the toxins from the water but they are turned in to a gas that then pollutes the air.

Bottom line is pollutants are never really gone they are just put into another form.

[STIX]

yes, but large scale dumping of toxic matter underground and in oceans is avoidable, it comes down to cost unfortunatley, because in an opprotunists world exploitation and short cuts are profitable, and doing the right thing is costly...this should be the opposite, the environment is the reason for our life, why tax it with pollutants? we should be giving back, creating a heaven on earth, not a hell.

[Michelle]

There are severe penalties for companies that dump toxic matter illegally including fines and or jail sentences. The US cracked down on that in the 50's I believe. The only thing that can be done is to keep it contained to an area in safe containers. There is no way of disposing of it completely.

There are a lot of things we were unaware of until the fifties, such as the batteries that were changed in buoys in the river. For years the Coast Gaurd would change the batteries and just drop them into the river. Many years later acid was leaching into the water and we are still dealing with that.

The US is one of the most regulated countries in the world. That is why unscrupulous businesses go overseas because they aren't so well monitored.

[Adramaleck]

*cheers for Michelle*

Right on.

The one thing our country grossly overlooks, though, is the pollutants spewed every day from SUVs. Did you know that SUVs are classified as light trucks and therefore don't have to meet the same emissions regulations that cars do? *shakes head* more money for the oil companies.

Everyone's so quick to dis america's problems with polluting.

Many people in china and japan have to wear masks because the air is too filthy to comfortably breathe without coughing.

Our country is definatly not the worst.

And LA is somewhat of a joke around the rest of the US, about how much it pollutes. It probably is the worst city. Not only does it pollute so much, but it's just.. well, sin city sums it up.

[STIX]

exactly.

This is why we should not do something if we are unaware of its consequences...The only reason is money, this is why we dont care, this is why certain forms of capitalism allows ignorance to run rampant.

They say that money is the root of all evil and that money cant buy you happiness.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_...v40/ai_14495729

"The 'Conspiracy of Ignorance.' - toxic dumping in Canada's Cambridge Bay" - "by the us military"

http://archive.greenpeace.org/nuclear/ospa...par00/main.html

"On the night of Wednesday 28th June COGEMA - the French nuclear company that owns and operates the La Hague nuclear reprocessing facility - admitted to having cut "by accident" the transmitting cable of the Greenpeace underwater webcam.

This webcam had been filming and broadcasting live footage of COGEMA's radioactive discharges on to the internet and also on to a large screen in the conference centre of the OSPAR Commission in Copenhagen.

The webcam had been graphically demonstrating how every day COGEMA deliberately pump over one million litres of liquid radioactive waste through the pipeline into the sea. "

"Ignorance is bliss"

This is one example, how many other companies do this daily?

[TraJikMaJik]

*cheers for Michelle*

Right on.

The one thing our country grossly overlooks, though, is the pollutants spewed every day from SUVs.  Did you know that SUVs are classified as light trucks and therefore don't have to meet the same emissions regulations that cars do?  *shakes head* more money for the oil companies.

Everyone's so quick to dis america's problems with polluting.

Many people in china and japan have to wear masks because the air is too filthy to comfortably breathe without coughing.

Our country is definatly not the worst.

And LA is somewhat of a joke around the rest of the US, about how much it pollutes.  It probably is the worst city.  Not only does it pollute so much, but it's just.. well, sin city sums it up.

561846[/snapback]

EHHHHH MEXICO CITY???