PlaneShift
Fan Area => The Hydlaa Plaza => Topic started by: Idoru on March 20, 2007, 10:23:27 pm
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Animals are becomming extinct because of us.
This is a fact, the rate of extinction is running at 10,000 times the natural rate that has been observed from fossil records. one third of amphibians are expected to become extinct in the coming years, 20 percent of insects are in the same situation. Ecological diversity is essential for the eco-system to function (as wikipedia would say, Citation needed :)).
Anywho, what are we going to do about it? We could clone them, this would still lead to a deminished gene pool. A small gene pool basically means a species is doomed to die out. Maybe artificial breeding programs (artificial insemination and the like) This would bolster the gene pool but is difficult to accomplish at large scale and would be virtually impossible to do outside captivity.
This subject interests me alot and it worries me an equal amount. I would like to know what you think we can do, what we should do, what we cant and what we shouldnt do.
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Stop cutting down trees. And just that, focus on that. Destroying their habitat. Taking away the thing that creates oxygen for them aswell as us which also adds to global warming (if the theory is correct) because carbon dioxide isnt being taken out of the atmoshpere. Animals being hunted to extinction is natural selection. Creating a world in which only humans can exist... and not even that after a while is pure everyingicide.
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Someone else watched "An Elephant's Guide to Sex" today, didn't they. ;)
I loved those little sand cats. I can't believe people think them as vermin and kill them. Just look!!
(http://www.breedingcentresharjah.com/images/Mammals/Sandcat%20with%20kitten.jpg)
I found that program very sad, because most of their attempts to enseminate the animals failed. Especially those rhinos... the last chances we'll ever have to save the species and it all fails every time, and what else can you do but watch them disappear forever? How many did they say were left of those rhinos in the wild... 5, 6 maybe? :( Six left in the entire world, and given the chance, someone would hunt down and kill them too. It is so shameful.
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Extinction is a fact of life more species became extinct before man came on the scene than since.
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Only because man is only a recent introduction to life on earth...
It IS still a fact that the extinction rate since man entered the scene has exceeded ten thousand times the 'natural' rate. That's terrifying. :(
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Perhaps we should become extinct then, I hear the Mil-Ind-Comp is working on making it happen.
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Environmental problems won't be solved completely as long as social problems and the brutality that permeates mankind continue to exist.
In other words, in a world where there are people who don't care even about human lives, how could extinction of animal life as a whole be prevented before the factors that create such monsters on society are eliminated(In my opinion no one is born "evil")?
Perhaps we should become extinct then, I hear the Mil-Ind-Comp is working on making it happen.
Perhaps the progress of the worldly average human consciousness and ethics is better than extinction.
And perhaps the social structures existing today share a significant part of the guilty for what happens.
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Extinction is a fact of life more species became extinct before man came on the scene than since.
*sigh*
Animals are becomming extinct because of us. This is a fact, the rate of extinction is running at 10,000 times the natural rate that has been observed from fossil records.
Perhaps we should become extinct then...
The only logical answer.
Quit yer trollin'.
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Perhaps capitalism, neoliberalism and the big monopolistic corporations should be extinct.
Perhaps nationalism, which in excess leads to racism and xenophobia should be extinct.
Perhaps the alienating mass media should be extinct.
Perhaps the forces that drive people to consumerism should be extinct.
Perhaps the hypocrites that do most of the dirty work and put the blame on all of us instead of admitting their fault should be extinct.
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Well if man is causing all these problems perhaps he has no right to continue living. If you want to fix these problems first you will have to give society a makeover because there is no economic incentive to stop trashing the planet. I know I'll be dead long before the planet becomes uninhabitable and for most people and most certainly the ones who run things "I am the only one that matters." Can you change human nature?
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Human nature is not independent from the social structure where one lives.
A structure that encourages greed, egotism and ruthless competition will form different types of individuals as common from one which encourages cooperation and mutual aid.
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Perhaps the hypocrites that do most of the dirty work and put the blame on all of us instead of admitting their fault should be extinct.
You mean politicians?
Well if man is causing all these problems perhaps he has no right to continue living.
And perhaps you're grossly oversimplifying things just to cause trouble.
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Perhaps the hypocrites that do most of the dirty work and put the blame on all of us instead of admitting their fault should be extinct.
You mean politicians?
Moguls and other people who could use their power to really change things, but which interests are against a greener form of economy and against a more just distribution of wealth. And add to that many corporations that just use this ecology talk as a marketing strategy to improve the image of their corporations to the public(AKA: Make a dump where no one can see and a preserve where everyone can see among similar), without any intention of really working towards it.
Ignoring things like the proposed Green Economics (http://www.greenhealth.org.uk/GreenEconLonger.htm) where ecological and social impacts aren't just "externalities" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externalities) which may be ignored on a transaction.
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Someone else watched "An Elephant's Guide to Sex" today, didn't they. ;)
I loved those little sand cats. I can't believe people think them as vermin and kill them. Just look!!
(http://www.breedingcentresharjah.com/images/Mammals/Sandcat%20with%20kitten.jpg)
I found that program very sad, because most of their attempts to enseminate the animals failed. Especially those rhinos... the last chances we'll ever have to save the species and it all fails every time, and what else can you do but watch them disappear forever? How many did they say were left of those rhinos in the wild... 5, 6 maybe? :( Six left in the entire world, and given the chance, someone would hunt down and kill them too. It is so shameful.
Yah, It was watching that exact programme that prompted the post :)
And those kitties are sooooooo cute :( how could someone want them dead :'(
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I'm just wondering here, is it just animal extinctions are you against or plants as well? Any kind of life? what about bacteria and virii? I have no real opinion one way or the other as I spend most of my time trying not to become personally extinct (for now) and I admit I am playing the devils advocate. Do you think we should wipe out Measles, Smallpox and the Plague? They have a sort of life, don't they?
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Well, they do have a 'kind' of life, well, bacteria do. Viruses are questionable.
I think that they are not particularly important in the eco-system, yes they thin out the population, remove those with weak immune systems and such. But here we are straying into dangerous territory, would you advocate euthanising people with disabilities? I would think these two are comparable.
As for my opinion, we shouldnt worry about extinction of dangerous pathogens because they dont contribute anything 'positive' to the world.
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bacteria are important
study biology
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Why the hostile 'tone' Zanzibar?
And maybe re-read my post.
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As for my opinion, we shouldnt worry about extinction of dangerous pathogens because they dont contribute anything 'positive' to the world.
And what do we contribute to the world?
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And what do we contribute to the world?
this is heading quickly towards a philosophical arguement which wasnt really my hope for the thread.
Lets just say that people are all here to entertain me, thats a good enough reason as far as im concerned. :P
Really though, I dont personally think that we do anything that contributes to the world, but lets not all decide to do the next mass suicide, it may not be the best image for all of PS's 'beta testers' to kill themselves. Dont think it would be good for the reputation of the project.
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Zanzibar is right about the bacteria. Saying that they are not an important part of the ecosystem is highly short-sighted. In fact I'd have to say they are possibly the single most important living part of the ecosystem. Without bacteria, life couldn't exist. Humans even rely on symbiotic relationships with several types of bacteria, and if they suddenly died in us, we couldn't live without them. They break down decaying matter back into soil and so many other things we couldn't even imagine. If they were gone life would probably cease to exist, at least as we know it.
Also, the euthanasia of people and bacteria naturally picking off the week are NOT good comparisons. Perhaps I misread what you wrote, but there are not many similarities between natural selection by natural bacteria, and choosing to die to avoid suffering. The key is choice.
As for extinction, I think there are tons of sides to this, like a complex dodecahedron with each side in various shades of gray. The only way we could totally take away our impact on the environment would be to all go live in the wilderness again and abandon all technology. No more farming, no more anything except our ancient hunter/gatherer ways. Even then our large population would have a large impact, though all told, we need agriculture and other technology just to support such a huge population on Earth. On the other hand, continual habitat destruction will have consequences that we probably know little of. What happens when many critical portions of the natural food chains go extinct? Will other organisms fill in the blanks or will the food chain collapse? What is known is that we cannot keep exploding the population of the planet without dire consequences in the future. While when it will reach a critical level is unknown, I don't think that anyone can deny it will without a significant change in the way we consume resources. The larger our population we will invariable be forcing out many many species, many of which will go extinct.
We end up caught in a catch 22, with both ends of the spectrum looking grim. We need to find a balance, try to reduce the footprint of our consumption, waste less, and work to protect what we have left. We can't completely stop our influence on the environment (which we ARE a part of don't forget), but we can lessen our impact. In the end if we want our growth to continue, I'm hoping we can colonize other planets and moons. Perhaps some day in the future Earth could be allowed to fall back to a more natural state as we spread out. I'm not holding my breath, but its the only hope I see.
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/me bangs his head very hard against the nearest wall.
I was trying to avoid quoting myself, but here goes:
As for my opinion, we shouldnt worry about extinction of dangerous pathogens because they dont contribute anything 'positive' to the world.
Maybe I should have used that line 1st. I'm not suggesting we work towards mass extinction of all those bacteria that we certainly would not be alive without, that would be just stupidity, which is frankly why I found Zanzibar's post remarkably offensive.
[EDIT]
When I mentioned euthenasia I wasnt talking about voluntary euthenasia, I was refering to the mandatory form. Eugenics.
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When I mentioned euthenasia I wasnt talking about voluntary euthenasia, I was refering to the mandatory form. Eugenics.
Also Known as: Genocide.
Or: "Cleansing"
Now how could we remove dangerous bacteria if there are even man-made viruses being done in secret laboratories?
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I should say that humans add a philosophical and an emotional part to the world being the creatures with the most developed brains... wouldn’t want some nutter getting the idea of killing everyone in the world to save it.
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@lordraleigh, tenuously on topic, The two are not mutually exclusive.
@Narure, Yes, we do add that, but without it the world would tick along perfectly fine.
I would like to clarify that I am not suggesting that we cleanse the planet of people.
OH, and on the point raised about growth of the population. It would only work for so long, even if we do managed to escape this rock and populate the solar system and later the galaxy, we will eventually reach the point where we cant expand fast enough to escape ourselves. Great theory in a book I read about humans managing this and after several thousand years the population was expanding so fast that we would need to exceed the speed of light to spread out at a sustainable rate. (and IMO I do not believe that faster than light travel is possible)
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Why the hostile 'tone' Zanzibar?
And maybe re-read my post.
It was a reply to Bilbous. I don't have the patience to explain highschool biology to him.
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Then please accept my sincere appologies Zanzibar. :flowers:
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Hmm well bubonic plague is bacterial, smallpox and measles are viral. I do think we would need to sterilize the earth to get rid of all sources of any of these. Your reply was kind of a non sequitur as my question was rhetorical, I certainly was not asking for a biology lesson. Hey lets see what Wikipedia has to say about bacteria
Bacteria are ubiquitous in every habitat on Earth, growing in soil, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste,[1] seawater, and deep in the earth's crust. Some bacteria can even survive in the extreme cold and vacuum of outer space. There are typically 40 million bacterial cells in a gram of soil and a million bacterial cells in a millilitre of fresh water; in all, there are approximately five nonillion (5×1030) bacteria in the world.
Well might be a bit of a chore getting rid of even one kind.
Although the vast majority of these bacteria are rendered harmless or beneficial by the protective effects of the immune system, a few pathogenic bacteria cause infectious diseases, including cholera, syphilis, anthrax, leprosy and bubonic plague. The most common fatal bacterial diseases are respiratory infections, with tuberculosis alone killing about 2 million people a year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa.[5]
Some of these might be worth the effort, but like I said -- sterilize the earth.
EDIT: Fixed superscript in wiki quote.
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I'm sure a good sized meteor strike causes more extinction than mankind. :innocent:
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True, as would many other things out of our control. It doesnt mean that its an excuse to do nothing about the current situation.
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I'm sure a good sized meteor strike causes more extinction than mankind. :innocent:
"Hey everyone, good news! Mankind isn't as dangerous as a cataclysmic meteor strike!"
Dogs incubate the plague. I don't know about you, but I don't kill puppies.