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Thread: The Return of Doctor Doom

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    The Return of Doctor Doom

    I see Paul Erlich, predictor of the starving seventies, is back on “Sixty Minutes” telling us mankind is unsustainable. You would have thought they could have come up with a more updated prophet of doom.

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    Senior Member Rogar's Avatar
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    The concept of a sixth extinction is not uncommon among some scientists. I read the book by Elisabeth Kolbert and David Attenborough is pretty big on it in his nature shows. I'd certainly not rule it out based on what I've seen and think I know. I'd admit Erhich had a bit of a vendition gloat now that it's become popular concept again.

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    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    Is that guy still alive?whoah.

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    Senior Member littlebittybobby's Avatar
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    Okay----Yah, Paul Ehrlich has got to be "Up there" in years. But hey---I don't doubt that there will be at some point some cataclysmic event(s) that cause extinction of the human species or at least greatly reduce our numbers. I figure we can do SOME things that will help avoid immediate hazards, and extend life, as we know it. But, there are things that are beyond our control. Way it is. The Religionists attribute this factor to the will of God, see? But yeah----change is constant, in the universe. It may be barely perceptable, but it is always changing. That said, you've got sky-is-falling zealots, appealing to people who are looking for SOMETHING to believe in, if they are not by nature a Church person. See? Hope that helps you some. Thankk Mee.

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    Senior Member bae's Avatar
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    David Wallace-Wells had a pretty good article the other day:

    ...
    Now, with the world already 1.2 degrees hotter, scientists believe that warming this century will most likely fall between two or three degrees. (A United Nations report released this week ahead of the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, confirmed that range.) A little lower is possible, with much more concerted action; a little higher, too, with slower action and bad climate luck. Those numbers may sound abstract, but what they suggest is this: Thanks to astonishing declines in the price of renewables, a truly global political mobilization, a clearer picture of the energy future and serious policy focus from world leaders, we have cut expected warming almost in half in just five years.
    ...
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...ing-world.html

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    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    I love David Wallace-Wells, and I got another one of his articles in my inbox the other day: The World is Losing its Biologic Complexity. Unfortunately We Can't Fix that with Decarbonization Alone.

    There does not seem to be a similar shift coming for biodiversity, whose story remains largely the one we know already from “Silent Spring” to “The Lorax,” from “The Sixth Extinction” to “The End of Nature.” Even the most ambitious proposals — preserving 30 percent of the planet’s surface, protecting the Amazon from further deforestation — seem to point to a future defined as much by normalization as by conservation. We may well look around at that denuded world a generation from now and blithely conclude that “everything is fine.” But we’ll still probably marvel in wondrous disbelief that the planet was ever as full of life as it was in 2023.

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    Senior Member bae's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by catherine View Post
    I love David Wallace-Wells, and I got another one of his articles in my inbox the other day: The World is Losing its Biologic Complexity. Unfortunately We Can't Fix that with Decarbonization Alone.

    ... We may well look around at that denuded world a generation from now and blithely conclude that “everything is fine.” But we’ll still probably marvel in wondrous disbelief that the planet was ever as full of life as it was in 2023.
    I read Farley Mowat's "Sea of Slaughter" some years back, I'm not sure folks living in most of the coastal regions of the USA understand what has been lost.

    I've talked to ~100 year old folks here about the quantity and variety of sealife that used to exist in the Salish Sea, and this pristine-looking-to-our-eyes ecosystem here is almost a desert by comparison. I went up the coast to the Haida Gwaii about 10 years ago, and the (still-diminished) ecosystem there was so rich and productive by comparison that it made me quite sad. (You could have harvested dinner by simply scooping your dinner pot in the water off the dock...)

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    And then we are back to Paul Ehrlich, because his focus was population, and that's not the immediate issue with climate change (it's not the most urgent thing to address to address it), but with the loss of biodiversity it plays a part.

    Meanwhile on climate change apparently Europe is experiencing the worst heat wave for this time of year ever recorded. That is what 1.2 (some climate scientist say it's really at 1.3 now) looks like. Another thing the numbers like degrees hide is that climate scientists did not predict the degree of destruction we are seeing at this degree of warming to happen at this degree of warming. They thought it would have to be much more warming to see some of the things we have seen (like the heat dome). So might be things are more sensitive to a given degree (celsius) of climate change than expected.
    Trees don't grow on money

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    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    I've talked to ~100 year old folks here about the quantity and variety of sealife that used to exist in the Salish Sea, and this pristine-looking-to-our-eyes ecosystem here is almost a desert by comparison. I went up the coast to the Haida Gwaii about 10 years ago, and the (still-diminished) ecosystem there was so rich and productive by comparison that it made me quite sad. (You could have harvested dinner by simply scooping your dinner pot in the water off the dock...)
    I agree--we're losing our benchmark for what the ecosystem used to be. As you said, I've also seen pictures of people standing in the waters in your part of the country, with salmon so thick the people are just standing there, watching the fish swim past them by the hundreds.

    When I think about how the miracle the world has given us has simmered to life so slowly and so elegantly over millions of years, and then I think about how, in such a brief time--especially recently, maybe 3-4 generations--we have managed to destroy so much of it, I do fear that one day we will be living in a world of a paved paradise and fake plastic trees because there will be nothing left.
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
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    Senior Member JaneV2.0's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bae View Post
    David Wallace-Wells had a pretty good article the other day:



    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...ing-world.html
    When they harken back to panics past, I think of The Population Bomb and how we were all supposed to run around with our hair on fire, and now the world population is constricting and we're worrying about under-population. I lean toward the "Pollyanna" view, myself.

    "...the United Nations predicted that a world more than two degrees warmer would lead to “endless suffering.” "
    Yeah--WHO is going to enforce global veganism. (I hope I'm kidding...)

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