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How Humans Cause Mass Extinctions
Authored by Paul and Anne Ehrlich, originally posted at Project Syndicate,
There is no doubt that Earth is undergoing the sixth mass extinction in its history – the first since the cataclysm that wiped out the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. According to one recent study, species are going extinct between ten and several thousand times faster than they did during stable periods in the planet’s history, and populations within species are vanishing hundreds or thousands of times faster than that. By one estimate, Earth has lost half of its wildlife during the past 40 years. There is also no doubt about the cause: We are it.
We are in the process of killing off our only known companions in the universe, many of them beautiful and all of them intricate and interesting. This is a tragedy, even for those who may not care about the loss of wildlife. The species that are so rapidly disappearing provide human beings with indispensable ecosystem services: regulating the climate, maintaining soil fertility, pollinating crops and defending them from pests, filtering fresh water, and supplying food.
The cause of this great acceleration in the loss of the planet’s biodiversity is clear: rapidly expanding human activity, driven by worsening overpopulation and increasing per capita consumption. We are destroying habitats to make way for farms, pastures, roads, and cities. Our pollution is disrupting the climate and poisoning the land, water, and air. We are transporting invasive organisms around the globe and overharvesting commercially or nutritionally valuable plants and animals.
The more people there are, the more of Earth’s productive resources must be mobilized to support them. More people means more wild land must be put under the plow or converted to urban infrastructure to support sprawling cities like Manila, Chengdu, New Delhi, and San Jose. More people means greater demand for fossil fuels, which means more greenhouse gases flowing into the atmosphere, perhaps the single greatest extinction threat of all. Meanwhile, more of Canada needs to be destroyed to extract low-grade petroleum from oil sands and more of the United States needs to be fracked.
More people also means the production of more computers and more mobile phones, along with more mining operations for the rare earths needed to make them. It means more pesticides, detergents, antibiotics, glues, lubricants, preservatives, and plastics, many of which contain compounds that mimic mammalian hormones. Indeed, it means more microscopic plastic particles in the biosphere – particles that may be toxic or accumulate toxins on their surfaces. As a result, all living things – us included – have been plunged into a sickening poisonous stew, with organisms that are unable to adapt pushed further toward extinction.
With each new person, the problem gets worse. Since human beings are intelligent, they tend to use the most accessible resources first. They settle the richest, most productive land, drink the nearest, cleanest water, and tap the easiest-to-reach energy sources.
And so as new people arrive, food is produced on less fertile, more fragile land. Water is transported further or purified. Energy is produced from more marginal sources. In short, each new person joining the global population disproportionately adds more stress to the planet and its systems, causing more environmental damage and driving more species to extinction than members of earlier generations.
To see this phenomenon at work, consider the oil industry. When the first well was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859, it penetrated less than 70 feet into the soil before hitting oil. By comparison, the well drilled by Deepwater Horizon, which famously blew up in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, began a mile beneath the water’s surface and drilled a few miles into the rock before finding oil. This required a huge amount of energy, and when the well blew, it was far harder to contain, causing large-scale, ongoing damage to the biodiversity of the Gulf and the adjacent shorelines, as well as to numerous local economies.
The situation can be summarized simply. The world’s expanding human population is in competition with the populations of most other animals (exceptions include rats, cattle, cats, dogs, and cockroaches). Through the expansion of agriculture, we are now appropriating roughly half of the energy from the sun used to produce food for all animals – and our needs are only growing.
With the world’s most dominant animal – us – taking half the cake, it is little wonder that the millions of species left fighting over the other half have begun to disappear rapidly. This is not just a moral tragedy; it is an existential threat. Mass extinctions will deprive us of many of the ecosystem services on which our civilization depends. Our population bomb has already claimed its first casualties. They will not be the last.
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"I also entertain the idea that we live in some sort of computer simulation "
And you said people that believe in God are delusional. pfft. You think we're actually in The Matrix. Are you Neo or just a nutbag?
You can entertain an idea without accepting it.
But, I know you were programmed to say that.
"Charles Moore - the Great Pacific plastic trash island" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/en4XzfR0FE8
There is a lot of junk science out there regarding climate change, the environment, and other natural sciences. But, it's intellectual dishonesty to say humans don't have an impact on some things. Some are deniers just to be cotrarian toward progressives. Some are deniers because they are fools. Quit dumping your shit on the ground and in the waterways. The fucking line recycling receptacle at the boat dock is overflowing with trash, not waste fishing line. Take out what you bring in, fucking polluters.
Yea, what's interesting about that plastic trash island bullshit is, I watched this Discovery documentary of some douchebag that was convicned that shit is true so he went in search of. Was straining the Pacific looking for that shit and guess what. It's Atlantis...
I don't have to search the Pacific. I can see the trash in and on the shores of the local lakes and rivers. Fucking garbage everywhere. Pop/beer cans and bottles, bait containers, food packaging, cigarette butts, car tires, large appliances like washers and dryers, etc.
Choose to believe what you want. That is how the mind works. We believe what we want to hear and ignore what we don't want to hear.
If they're making this shit up, they're putting a lot of effort into it. For now, I believe the story because I see it with my own eyes right here at home. But like everything else in this fucked up world, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be staged.
"Garbage Island: An Ocean Full of Plastic (Part 1/3)" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/D41rO7mL6zM
Well said. It's hard to stand up for the environment when GW alarmists fake temprature readings to put the spotlight on themselves.
I'd love to see them drag a gieger counter under the pacific instead. Or measure pesticide residue in rivers. Real issues even if they don't get grant money for doing so.
Is Paul Erlich writing for ZH now?
This is alarmist drivel.
Some perspectives from Wiki: There are currently about 10-14 million species on Earth, but only about 15% of them have been studied.
It is estimated that 99% of the 5 billion species that have ever lived on Earth are now extinct.
The arrival of human beings on Earth is laughably recent in the big picture of things.
Earth abides.
It is estimated that 99% of the 5 billion species that have ever lived on Earth are now extinct.
Most of this happened before humans arrived.
It's what Nature does.
Which is exactly what Amish said.
I was agreeing with him. The quotation marks are really small. :)
If you believe in evolution, just go find all the 'new' species being created.
And if you believe in God, don't worry, he will handle it.
Evolution of new species generally takes a little bit longer than the life span of a human.
Which version number of God are we talking about?
i reckon the push for economic growth comes from the banks whose debt creation has to constantly grow to survive. if we abolished the debt based money system and returned to the gold standard then there wouldn't be the same constant push for growth
Really! If you really care about the environment, you need to care about Ending The Fed and their growthaholic ponzi.
I think I saw like one bird this year. The butterflies are gone, the bees are about gone, and the frogs are just about history. BUT!
We have our boats, atv's, campers, (or should I say houses on wheels) nascar races and foozball games. Thats all that matters. Right?
WTF good is a bee or butterfly or frog or bird or fish or any other living breathing thing when we have plastic and fun and excitement to worry about?
I thought we were causing Global Warming and that warming was causing all this. I guess since that bullshit hasn't panned out...skip the middleman.
96% of all species have been wiped out in the past. Somehow, earth survived without man and will survive with man. We need to get over outselves.
If Erhlich believed his own dogma he'd off himself and do us all a favor. Having been proven wrong many times over. This a**hole, now in his eighties, still thinks he is right, but his theory of the population "bomb" has just been deferred.
Reminds me of the GW morons. Prove them wrong three ways to Sunday and they are just too stupid to get it.
While the wealthy live a life of leisure and ease, the average Joe on the planet has it better than at any time in human history. It is human creativity allowed to flourish within stable free societies in just a hand full of countries that have been able to improve the lives of all human beings.
Hey - Don't pick on us octogenarians just because we told the truth 40 years ago, and you have allowed yourself to be brainwashed by greedy special interest groups.
Written by two authors who live in an air conditioned house, each driving their own car (using gas or coal-fired electric), on a computer full of rare earth minerals, shipped from China on a ship powered by Diesel engines, delivered by a UPS truck powered by diesel fuel, and using electricity from a natural gas fired power plant.
If you want to save Cecil and other endangered critters then don't issue $50,000 hunting licenses for lions. Instead, issue a $50,000 bounty on lion hunters!
Maybe the liberals should stop paying the single welfare mothers more government money every time they make another baby?
I agree. Only certified married mothers should be able to indulge in the act of procreation. Males can do whatever the fuck they want.
/s
Bringing a baby into this world and leaving it for the community to take care of is an ongoing disaster, whether the mother is or is not a licenesed baby maker.
Somehow I think the endangered critters will out live the U.S. Dollar!
I was on the Global Warming bandwagon, nagging freinds and family to do their part. Then I found out AL Gore bought a big mansion withing 20' of sea-level. Then the IPCC said the north pole would be free of ice by 2013(remember Russia, Canada and US arguing about ownership of the arctic in 2010? I do.), it turns out that every prediction the IPCC made since 2001 has fallen flat. They even sailed to Commonwealth bay to show the dramatic warming since 1908 (remember two ice-breakers got froze in? I do.)
Global warming is little more than a new religion, using fear to control us. Now in the last two months we've been bombarded by GW even more.!!!
Wake the F up. We are still technicaly in an ice age. These things cycle.
I hope you won't reoffend.
I guess my anger shows. When I was a GW alarmist I had to justify my position when reality went the other way. Being lied to is something I only expect from politicians, not scientists. (although IPCC alarms come from buracrats, their scientist views don't reflect that.)
I still want off oil addiction, and I want population control. But enough lies. Everyone trying to rule us, lies to us about the problem, and their solution usually means our obedience.
I woul;d have up voted you but:
So far the best form of population control is to get per capita income above about $4K to $6K a year.
Indirectly, yes. Its actually education. Especially in Africa. You educate African women and they immediatly have fewer kids.
When cheap energy runs low, the human race will thin out - drop in food production, wars over energy, wars over water, oceans poisoned, ...
We are but a blip in time and not even a grain of dust in the universe.
But but but, energy will be too cheap to meter in 20 years. Won't it?
If we get this to work:
http://protonboron.com/portal/
To be a vegan to reduce damages to environment is your daily duty on Spaceship Earth. Be kind to fellow animals.
"If there is no God, then everything is prohibited." — Jacques Lacan
I have to admit. Tyler is good at "open thread" comments.
This is the guy who famously lost the natural-resources bet 'way back. He is a disgrace; he himself should disappear rapidly.
Didn't you get the memo? The earth can comfortably host 20 billion people..... eating cockroaches... and eachother.
Say it with me....
Soylent green is people.... cue Pastoral.
Tell it like it really is. It's no one but crackers (and that includes the chozenites), who destroy everything they touch. It wasn't the indigenous people of any continent that as FUBR everything on this planet. Can't drink the water, or breathe the air without filters and fragrance. The food chain is fucked up, "disposable" should be a curse word, and the beat goes on...crackers try to play God, but are more akin to a virus or cancer, they will use and abuse every natural resource until it's either depleted or unusable, and then move on to another location, only ro repeat the cycle over again. Then try to proclaim how great they are and everyone else is an animal. Even animals know how to live in harmony with it's surroundings.
The Earth is capable of shaking off the human infection like a bad cold. If we are in an extinction phase, there is nothing that humankind can or will do to in time stop this runaway locomotive.
CORRECT.
we are the CAUSE of the Sixth Extinction.
And we are also a PART of the event.
Isn't it great when we realize - we're not just watching a video? we really do live on Planet Earth. Or something?!
"Mommy, there's a "mass extinction" under my bed, and a "climate change" in my closet. Can you check? Please?!"
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
Next time a gun and badge thug is behind your car, ponder what might be a bigger concern, that this thug for tyranny may torture, maim, or kill you in the name of extracting a few bucks from you, or that "mass extinction" might one day overwhelm humanity. If you need help, you can call a friend. May I suggest calling Eric Garner.
In 1 billion years, the Sun begins it's red giant expansion and life will slowly start to end on planet Earth. But by then, there may be nothing left to die.
it's simple.
at 7 billion people. we will eat ALL large WILD species ( mammals ) to extinction. that's mostly already happened, so we grow livestock.
livestock by far outweighs non livestock mammals on land in biomass.
FARMING WORKS. problem is it land intensive so we move towards farming more efficient animals that are smaller, or , yes , even lab cultured meat.
finally, we start expanding our appetite to other FARMED protein sources such as farmed insect protein and farmed fish.
the age of large animsals, both mammamls, and large sea creatures (mammalian sea creatures, and large tuna hunting, large shark meat hunting) are slowly coming to an end.
farming animal protein will replace harvesting wild animal protein. but so FUCKING WHAT. so WHO FUCKING CARES IF THE ONLY LARGE WILD ANIMALS ARE IN ZOOS. this is destiny. human beings are destined to eliminate millions of years of biodiverseity SO FUCKIGN WHAT.
Hey Tylers, the byline is wrong, it should read "Al Gore."
I guess my mommy was right...eat your veggies...
Paul Ehrlich is the same nutjob from 45 years ago. People fall for anything.
https://www.masterresource.org/holdren-john/halloween-hangover/
The 21 st century is heat miser's century!
https://youtu.be/wbfgVEk-mxQ
ZH, please fire this author or at least never let him write on the subject of the Earth sciences again.
This is patent nonsense based in no fact whatsoever.
You're head is deeply buried in the sand, if it comes to ecological questions. And yes, it is that bad out there for many many species.
No shit.
Drink Coca-Cola
Drink Pepsi
& Bless America
For the next mass extinction
Burn trainloads of coal , get co2 , put it in water , sugar & color it
viola, you get a (satanic) brew for Mass Extinction
and dont you worry , let your children inherit all the worries
Enjoy!!
Drink Coca-Cola
Drink Pepsi
Hey Ehrlich! You first.
Should we try to wipe out all life on earth, we would fail. It would endure, deep in undiscovered caves and at the bottom of the sea. Eventually it would return to the surface and evolve all over again.
All that is needed is a garden in every yard. A Farmer's Market on every corner. If the people on the street shake off that sticky web of deceit they've been caught in, they will see the truth. It does make sense. The wealthy industrialists and their reckless disregard of the environment, in order to save a dollar, has made this mess we see around us. Small town America with a factory in every town. Free disposal of waste products may be better than clean ups. If the world's people knew what was planned for them, that their supply route was being cut off, they'd snap into action in 24 hours and anyone in the way would probably be a memory. Our instinct to survive is as strong as any living creature fighting to live, to not die.
Offer reward for confessions, an offer they cannot refuse. A greek island and all expense paid life vacatoin for them and their extended families...that kind of reward.
The planet just needs an thorough Ehrlichectomy to get rid of the hysterical green nutjobs.
"If in doubt, cut it out!" -- Oncology professor
Dear, Tyler Durden,
It is quite obvious that You Sir have gotten things somehow wrong.
It is indeed arguably truer that not that the diversity of life is suffering on this planet due human activity.
All that is wrong with this post of Yours is the reason why this is happening. You have written: “…rapidly expanding human activity, driven by worsening overpopulation and increasing per capita consumption. We are destroying habitats to make way for farms, pastures, roads, and cities.” which is so obviously wrong as the destruction of nature almost never happens in order for a city to be build or road to be created in common human interests.
It is the case that those grievous acts are almost always done for the profit of corporate entities by those entities and humans or humanity has little or nothing to gain in this process of destructing nature in order to crate value… I guess you can say corporations are creating liquidity out of nature as a collateral… or yet: liquidating nature’s valuable actives in financial terms.
If You excuse me I will allow this little repetition: Human cities, roads, let alone the absurd notion, in the context of life creation, of “overpopulation” are not even remotely connected with said “creation” of liquidity, Sir.
Have a nice life.
What is a corporation without human?
So you say the humans are the corporations? Like which one is the human behind the Royal Dutch Shell which is created 1907... is there one human being which is incorporated into this entity since its beginning? Or does the humans really dont matter for a corporation? What is your take?
Royal Dutch Shell is a Rothschild thing.
There is no corporation or company that is not made of people.
If evil persons create a company to loan script from one to another
Is the corporation to blame? Or is the persons who created the fraud to blame?
The persons who create such a fraud are to blame.
A corporation is nothing without people.
So we should kill the people, to end this destruction? That is your solution? The same as the authors? Right?
It is not the profit motive (corporations got only this – profit – this is the reason for their existence) it is the humans that live by as a temporary part of this machine? Is that what you say?
It is the atoms of iron and carbon that build the metal that is molded into a blade that are responsible for the blood pouring out of the victim’s throat, not the psychopaths murderous intent… Right.. you are truly a smart man with a vision that will save us all… just like the rulers want you to be… I mean that is the propaganda’s point too.
Nonsense. Churches prohibiting use of birth control devices available since the 1950s is the reason there is a people bubble. And this may have been the plan. Cheap Labor. More coins in the collection dish. More people told the story of the day they should hope for, the day their Lord and King returns to take them to a better place. What a gimmick.
In times of early 1900s, women had many pregnancies, miscarried at least one, having 1-2 die in early life from infection or failure to thrive. But today, the reason there is a people bubble is because this is what they wanted.
All in the name of the Holy and the Divine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwhBRJStz7w
The crusade is a charade (Nine Inch Nails - The Hand that Feeds)
I said "in the context of life creation" which means that life for life units creation of human living matter in expense for other living tissue is not wrong. Life is life no mater human or otherwise. The author makes the absurd notion that other non human life is more valuable than human life and increasing in human numbers are bad and are "over population" so he suggests decrease in human numbers... because human life is bad? in comparison to say pig life or cow life or pests life
We have been under Bad Management. Humans have been socially engineered to want New Things. The Latest Fashions. Be adored for having it all. Hoarding the wealth is behind this calamity. The richest people on earth need to be destroyed. Not the people. Their blood lines need to be erased from existence. They have failed in their responsibility to humanity and the planet. The buck stops at the top. Left to our own devices, we get along just fine. Extremists have been given the microphone, a very small group of people. Silent Majority tends to live and let live. But happiness is relative and so maybe we need to get smacked up side the head, but give us a chance to right it. Without that, this becomes mass murder through unconventional means.
Free educated women will limit human population growth.
Free to decide and educated enough to know how to decide.
Ask any educated woman, other than Hitlery, Samantha, Victoria, Caitlyn, or Kim.
Who gave you a down arrow?
Perceptive little paragraph gets my vote, just for the first two sentences..
wut
Through the expansion of agriculture, we are now appropriating roughly half of the energy from the sun used to produce food for all animals
Utter fucking bollocks . Fucking moron, The sun shines on seas 80 % of the time and fucking desert and tundra and other uninhabited non farmed lands and ice more than 80 % of whats left.
Every fucking drop of seawater contains life one way or another and humans do not block the sun shining there
Nothing but green propaganda or the fucking nazizions trying to justify human mass extermination
IDIOT - There is a big difference between mass extermination which is what your little pea brain focuses on and ZPG. We should have been at ZPG decades ago, which would have been responsible. The mass extermination comes later when there are 11 billion on the planet and it will be from starvation.
What you're talking about is that the right to breed supercedes everything else on the planet. You are one mindless moron.
You are quite correct,, MY right to breed DOES supersede every fucking thing on the planet.
That is called Darwinism, the survival of the fittest and that means carrying your genes forward.
If you become extinct whilst I do that then so fucking what, Fucking die out.
It's all down to the human propensity for making flesh. Why post this Ehrlic-dirge after the weekend, when doozies have been at it?
The Seven Samurai will take care of things going forward -- induced infertility by vaccination and food modification, legalized and compulsory abortion, eco-chemical spermicide, male emasculation, elevated death-rate, homosexuality and lesbianism.
A self-correcting problem, and ain't Nature wonderful?
You can tell a BULLSH!T article when it starts with "There is no doubt..."
The 1st paragraph doesnt even make sense. "No doubt" we are causing the sixth extinction??? Are you kidding me? We werent even around for the other 5, but you know to some unenlightened myopic people...there is no doubt.
The problem is...there is a LOT of doubt. And yes it really could be just another earth cycle.
Everything is going extinct? Ok then, show me the bodies. There must be millions of bodies lying around.
Can't find any? Maybe not as extinct as Erlich says.
Yes i always wonder with these "studies" just who is the person that turned over every single rock on the planet that then declares a species extinct. Fact is this is not science but theory...
Another braindead, clueless person. Just do a google search on extinct species. What, can find any in your kitchen? Or backyard? BRAINDEAD = willful ignorance.
Idiot, Paul Ehrlich has never been right about anything.
The real discussion should be :
"Will this cause a human extinction event?"
I don't mind that we lost species which cause diseases like the fly which carried malaria.
I do mind if we loose honey bees and cannot pollenate crops.
Similar for wolves and mountain lions in areas where humans want to raise meat producing anamals.
I mind that we wiped out the Bison. Turns out the meat is much more healthy than cow meat and its a much lower maintenance animal, and I hate paying $10 per pound to get those health benefits.
But overall its the Human extintion event I will be tuned on for.
i hope my children do not grow up to despise me for bringing them into the world and/or allowing some yahoos to make a real freaking mess of things.
maybe the global warming hoax will go on holiday after we raise taxes, anything is possible in the mind of a mentally ill liberal
Paul and Anne Ehrlich always lead to 'heated' debates but they are right. Species are dying out faster than ever before. Is that bad? Don't these species also have a right to live? Is it just not a case of survival of the fittest? The thing is, species don't fight a fair fight: they cannot adapt fast enough to the changes caused by human whether these changes are habitat destruction or pollution, etc. Less species variability and variety make ecosystems weaker. And ecosystems provide important services of which humans benefit: food, air and water purification, protection against extreme weather events, but also recreation, etc. All these can be valued in ecological, socio-cultural and economic values. Clever management of ecosystems can prevent economic damage to real estate, save lives, etc.
In the end we not just killing other species, we are killing ourselves. The planet will recover cause the planet has the time. People not. And people prefer short term profits over long term interest.
Anybody with half a fucking brain knows that when you add more people to an environment, the quality of life goes down for those that were there before the addition.
Take the US for example. As a 47 year old, I clearly remember the population of the US being 200M when I was a kid in the early 70's. Now it's almost 350M (if you count illegals it is that).
That's nearly double.
When the population doubles, what are some knock on effects?
Higher taxes. More laws. More cops. More fees. More traffic. More congestion. More 'no tresspassing' signs. More lawyers. More lawsuits. More bureaucrats. More permits. More niggers. More crime. More of everthing that annoys the shit out of most of us.
That said, you can look qualitatively at life in these United States and conclude without much disagreement that the quality of life in inversely proportional to the population density.
Do the politically motivated commenters trashing Erlich have any knowledge of human caused deforestation? Over fishing? Desertification? Industrial waste? Nuclear waste? Corexit?
Are those phenomenon science fiction?
Are they helpful or hurtful to earth's other inghabitants?
Wake the fuck up and turn off the poltical filter that colors every assesment you make.
This ain't political. And if you don't understand how humans can ruin an environment then you've got your head up your ass.
AFAIC, those of you with your heads planted firmly in your nether regions belong in the densely populated hives and I hope you stay there forever, or at least until the hives implode.
Wasn't this debunked decades ago?
Compare the population to "decades" ago to what it is today. Notice any difference? Every person alive is a CONSUMER.
Are the Muslims changing their breeding habits? The Mexicans? The Mormons?
The people with limited intellect will think that the earth is an infinite environment, until the point where our burgeoning numbers have made a titanic impact on it. And even, then, they will pretend that nothing is happening, because the right to breed is paramount.
At first glance I concluded that the author is a jew. So I quit reading.
ZH is reminding me more and more of a Sierra Club Seal needing a baby seal clubbing. Just sayin
Earth First - Rest of the planets later!
(This is sarcasm)
I say all that agree with this article should do the moral and right thing and kill yourself first to show you really believe.
Any takers?
Penn & Teller covered this adequately in the 1st season of "Bullsh*t".
Humans have an impact. We just started studying that impact. We know absolutely nothing, yet. So STFU and stop trying to bilk the marks, you putrescent slimewad.
Species are always going extinct. Cite: dire wolves, giant sloths, mastadons. There exists not one shred of evidence that the rate of extinctions has changed in the past 50,000 years, but there is money to be made from ditsy idiots by campaigning to STOP THE SLAUGHTER.
Come out to my place. I've seen 5 bears in a week. I can't go a mile with out stopping for deer to cross. Flocks of a dozen turkeys are common.Anything I don't mow is a jungle in a month.
Honey bees on the other hand....seen one all summer.
Why would people say this is non sense? It's simple logic that if humans are taking up more land that other species used that they will start to die off. It's like some idiot humans think the species is magical and when all those apartment buildings and other shit get thrown up on previous forested land that the creatures living in the forest don't die off either right away or later on.
Then you throw in all the cunt hunters (seriously, fuck you hunters. I'd LOVE to hunt you idiots and see how you are when something can shoot back at you) and poachers and anyone who doesn't think humans are wiping out the planet's wildlife little by little is a damn moron.
Amazing that some humans are that clueless about their species. Yikes.
There's truth to some of what Ehrlich says. There are more people, less wild space and less animal species that need wild space. Energy usage is way up and the search for additional petroleum drives companies to areas previously unexplored. So what? No one argues with these facts. It's not the claims that these things exist, it's the "solutions" to this problem that people object to. If it was just Ehrlich expressing his opinion, well great, that's what free speach is all about. But Ehrlich wants to control and radically change my life because of his opinion. And the solutions are never free-market; they are shoved down your throat using the threat of government violence if you object. If the truths and solutions are so evident then let them speak for themselves and people will either accept them or they won't. But that is not the way people like Ehrlich function. Elites always know what's good for you better than you do. Always.
The problem with the solutions put forward is not only that they are half-baked and don't work, but that there is always a profit in it for someone behind the scenes. So you not only get screwed by having changes to your life forced on you under pain of death, but you have the privelege of seeing some a**hole making bank on you while it happens.
There are plenty of visions of the future that are well thought out and documented and better match the facts than the one Ehrlich has been pitching for going on 50 years. If you're too lazy to even do a Google search for other opinions, than you are just the man Ehrlich et al. is looking for!
That's the supreme law of nature: adapt or die. Either live with humans, live in places inhospitable to humans, or go extinct.
If concerned humans decide to contracept themselves out of existence, that just leaves a bit more resources for unconcerned humans to fight over.
water: poisoned
air: poisoned
land: poisoned
species: collapse
humans: "can I get that supersized?"
Why don't you mention the greater role poison-based agriculture, chemtrails, HAARP, Fukashima and Roundup have played in making species extinct.
I agree there is an overpopulation problem but the driver has been fiat currency creation leading to a massive population bubble in world economies, by central bankers.
Artificial boom times from counterfeited currencies leads to population booms that we're now going to have to deal with.
I agree with some of the negative comments. However, after watching The Matrix from my doggie bed, I disagree with the idea that mammals self-regulate their numbers (unlike viruses supposedly). Remove predators from an island populated with deer and you will end up with a large number of starving deer. My question to you all is this: Are humans really any smarter in this specific regard?