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Long before the dinosaurs, hefty herbivores called pareiasaurs ruled the Earth
- erikb 11y agoWe have been here for 4 mio years, right? So with their 10 mio years they are still quite ahead of us. Who knows if we can make it that long.
- grondilu 11y ago> We have been here for 4 mio years, right? Depends on what you mean by "we". Our genus is a few millions years old indeed, but our species is only about 200,000 years old.
- leeoniya 11y agoand we've only existed on an industrialized, environment-affecting scale for a few hundred years. our rate of population growth and disregard for sustainable consumption is not gonna work out well for us. i suspect our habits will need to change drastically for humans to make it even another 1,000 years.
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- Aeolos 11y agoYou are being rather optimistic. Current projections have parts of the planet already uninhabitable before the end of the century (uninhabitable as in "you die even in shade and with plenty of water"). We are messing up our grandchildren's lives.
- ssmoot 11y agoDo you have any links to further reading on that? This is the first time I've ever heard anything like that. It's pretty alarming.
- Aeolos 11y agoThis is the first relevant article I read [1]. I've since gone through google scholar and there is lots of relevant research. "Alarming" doesn't begin to cover it. [1] http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/persian-gulf-temperatures-may-be-at-the-edge-of-human-tolerance-in-30-years/ http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/persian-gulf-temperat... Edit: as a summary, researchers claim that parts of the Persian Gulf will reach the "threshold temperature" within the next 30 years, hampering human development in these regions. "Threshold temperature" is the temperature where the human cooling mechanisms shut down, i.e. 35C at 100% humidity or 45C at 50% humidity. Once you reach this temperature, even healthy individuals are at risk of fatal hyperthermia. Note that this doesn't have to be sustained over the whole year - even a few days per year will likely trigger mass-migration. Climate change is likely to be the single most important issue we will have to deal with in the near future (we = human race).
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- ssmoot 11y agoThe scientists that published that paper also produced a video to downplay the media's reporting of it: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/10/27/climate_change_heat_waves_won_t_make_persian_gulf_uninhabitable.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/10/27/climate_c... > "Such conditions (the wet-bulb temperature exceeding 35C) would occur only once per decade" No doubt climate change is an issue, but taking the unique environment of a place that's already pretty brutal to justify such an alarming statement is stretching a bit I think.
- Aeolos 11y agoThat is not the only report. There appears to be a consensus that this will happen at the latest by 2100. This report claimed only 30 years. And all these are not taking into account the record temperatures in the Arctic circle that are currently being recorded (+4C than last century), which increases the chances of runaway greenhouse effects. As I said, use google scholar. This is not a conspiracy, these are changes that are happening right now.
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- willvarfar 11y agoThey are described as "hefty" and "huge herbivores", and yet the scale on the skeletons suggest they are the size of a rabbit?
- ambrop7 11y agoMore like about 1.5m long, I don't think there are rabits that large.
- michel-slm 11y agoyeah, Flemish giant rabbits only seem to get to about half that length - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_Giant_rabbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_Giant_rabbit
- DrScump 11y agoWhere do you live that rabbits get to be 1-3 meters long and up to 600 kg?
- pietro 11y agoThe scale by the drawing is 100 mm (4 inches), suggesting that the skeleton is 1.66 m (5'6") long, nose to tail.
- masklinn 11y ago> yet the scale on the skeletons suggest they are the size of a rabbit? The scale is for 100mm aka 10cm aka 4 inches. The scale is 27px, the skeleton is 482px from snout to tail, for a suggested size of ~1.8m (5ft10). I don't know where you live, but you've got pretty fucking huge rabbits if they're the size of an average bloke. Note that this: http://www.oubler.com/assets/userdata/news_media/1433158298.jpg http://www.oubler.com/assets/userdata/news_media/1433158298.... is not a rabbit
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