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This is precisely why Dr. Guy McPherson has predicted human extinction on earth by 2030. Methane clathrates coming from the Arctic sea floor and from Canadian a

This is precisely why Dr. Guy McPherson has predicted human extinction on earth by 2030. Methane clathrates coming from the Arctic sea floor and from Canadian and Siberian permafrost. This is the most serious threat we face now.

derrickdirge 10y ago
So is it time to kill myself yet?
- WalterSear 10y ago
  We are.
ams6110 10y ago
So, this sort of thing must have happened in past warm periods. Yet life survived.
- chunkstuntman 10y ago
  Life certainly has a good chance given the existence of deep-sea bacteria, tardigrades, and cockroaches, but the human species has a relatively narrow set of conditions that must be met for any sort of longterm survival.
- xoa 10y ago
  I can't believe there are people willfully obtuse enough to still be putting out this strawman. No one credible is or has ever claimed "the end of life" or even "the end of multicellular life". Humanity could get wiped out entirely and "life" would be fine for a few billion years until it really would get wiped out completely without intelligence. But even a few tens of millions let alone hundreds let alone billions is something we might reasonably want to avoid don't you think? Is this really such a hard concept for you to grasp? When "life survived" previous mass extinction events you should read that as "SOME life survived, and often not the big complex types."
  - zyxzkz 10y ago
    Another fun angle to consider. Ocean acidification leading to a die-off of phytoplankton (the oxygen tank of the Earth, basically). This could cause a global asphyxiation event.
    - mirimir 10y ago
      Archaea are tough.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- lordCarbonFiber 10y ago
  Life != human life. That's the fallacy many in the green-movement miss. It's not about saving the Earth, Earth will be largely fine. Climate management is about saving humans.
  - fellellor 10y ago
    Reminds me of a Louis CK bit.
    - AznHisoka 10y ago
      George Carlin.
- jamesblonde 10y ago
  Not always - there have been 5 mass extinction events on earth. 250 million years ago 96% of species died due to runaway greenhouse gases from volcanic eruptions in siberia. A positive feedback mechanism kicked in. Eventually negative feedback stabilized the earth - but in a new climactic equilibrium. Reference. https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/big-five-extinctions https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/big-five-extinction...
- antognini 10y ago
  Violent releases from methane clathrates are one of the suspected causes of the Paleoecene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which led to an increase in global temperatures in excess of 5 degrees C. The PETM was not really associated with any mass extinction events on land (to the contrary, it drove rapid specification in mammals). But the oceans are a different story. The ocean is generally extremely stable, so ocean life generally does not respond well to rapid environmental changes.
- Oletros 10y ago
  Happened at such rate like the one we are having?
dwaltrip 10y ago
Even if we get a 5° - 10° Celsius increase, wouldn't there be plenty of opportunity for millions of humans to survive closer to the poles? Not that it would be easy or desirable. Some of the worst scenarios might result in 99% (or higher) of humans dying - obviously an unspeakably immense tragedy. Yet that would still leave tens of millions of people to carry on. It seems to me that it would be extremely difficult to extinguish human life entirely, given our cleverness, adaptability, and very strong survival drive. I haven't seen much talk about projections that would make the entire planet completely uninhabitable for humans. That would require an increase significantly higher than 10° Celsius, I'm guessing? Of course, this would likely delay our transformation into a space-faring civilization by a few thousand years, as well as significantly damage social progress.
- ivoras 10y ago
  Depending on what exactly happens. If the composition of the atmosphere changes enough, only the simplest life forms will survive.
  - m_mueller 10y ago
    You need to find what are the stable equilibriums with - or in the worst case without - a biosphere. +7C-8C, if it's the peak, is most probably survivable for the biosphere as a whole, because we know that this happened before (permian triassic boundary). However, there's a very important distinction here: The permian triassic boundary conditions did not arise coming abruptly out of an ice age. An ice age after a warm period leads to lots of methane being stored, and it's reasonable to assume that the current methane storage is much larger than at the permian triassic (oh, did I mention that that was already an extinction event, probably the worst we know about?). All in all it's not completely out of the question that an abrupt release of enough methane could lead to a Venus syndrome, and thus the complete sterilisation of the planet.
- tremon 10y ago
  Even if we get a 5° - 10° Celsius increase, wouldn't there be plenty of opportunity for millions of humans to survive closer to the poles? Probably not. That amount of increase will likely disrupt every food chain on the planet, and larger lifeforms will not be able to adapt fast enough. That means extinction time for everything larger than a mouse or unable to migrate. Even if some arable land remains around the poles, the most you will find growing there is moss and grasses. Wheats require a very rich soil, which will either not be there or be exhausted after a few crops.
teslaberry 10y ago
yes anyone predicting this by 2030 is a complete fucking moron. dr. fucking moron. it's not that people , even doctors don't make mistakes in their predictions. but this is an unexcuseable predictably stupid mistake that is either so stupid this person deserves to be called a fucking moron or is he deliberately taking advantage of the thousands of fucking morons who might believe him and he is quite clevely making use of the reality that a significant number of fucking morons can be made to follow a person predicting fear based end of times religious fanatatical apocolyptical scenarios. we know facturally throughout history many clever end-of-times cults have been created and led by this all too frequent clever and personality type. so this docotr of end =times is more like practicing his psychological prowess upon a large group of fucking morons who will listen to him. yes, if you believe the world will end YOU ARE A FUCKING MORON. sorry but all you global end of tiems folks........FUCKING MORONS.

derrickdirge 10y ago

So is it time to kill myself yet?

WalterSear 10y ago
We are.

ams6110 10y ago

So, this sort of thing must have happened in past warm periods. Yet life survived.

chunkstuntman 10y ago
Life certainly has a good chance given the existence of deep-sea bacteria, tardigrades, and cockroaches, but the human species has a relatively narrow set of conditions that must be met for any sort of longterm survival.
xoa 10y ago
I can't believe there are people willfully obtuse enough to still be putting out this strawman. No one credible is or has ever claimed "the end of life" or even "the end of multicellular life". Humanity could get wiped out entirely and "life" would be fine for a few billion years until it really would get wiped out completely without intelligence. But even a few tens of millions let alone hundreds let alone billions is something we might reasonably want to avoid don't you think? Is this really such a hard concept for you to grasp? When "life survived" previous mass extinction events you should read that as "SOME life survived, and often not the big complex types."
- zyxzkz 10y ago
  Another fun angle to consider. Ocean acidification leading to a die-off of phytoplankton (the oxygen tank of the Earth, basically). This could cause a global asphyxiation event.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    Archaea are tough.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
lordCarbonFiber 10y ago
Life != human life. That's the fallacy many in the green-movement miss. It's not about saving the Earth, Earth will be largely fine. Climate management is about saving humans.
- fellellor 10y ago
  Reminds me of a Louis CK bit.
  - AznHisoka 10y ago
    George Carlin.
jamesblonde 10y ago
Not always - there have been 5 mass extinction events on earth. 250 million years ago 96% of species died due to runaway greenhouse gases from volcanic eruptions in siberia. A positive feedback mechanism kicked in. Eventually negative feedback stabilized the earth - but in a new climactic equilibrium. Reference. https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/big-five-extinctions https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/big-five-extinction...
antognini 10y ago
Violent releases from methane clathrates are one of the suspected causes of the Paleoecene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which led to an increase in global temperatures in excess of 5 degrees C. The PETM was not really associated with any mass extinction events on land (to the contrary, it drove rapid specification in mammals). But the oceans are a different story. The ocean is generally extremely stable, so ocean life generally does not respond well to rapid environmental changes.
Oletros 10y ago
Happened at such rate like the one we are having?

dwaltrip 10y ago

Even if we get a 5° - 10° Celsius increase, wouldn't there be plenty of opportunity for millions of humans to survive closer to the poles? Not that it would be easy or desirable. Some of the worst scenarios might result in 99% (or higher) of humans dying - obviously an unspeakably immense tragedy. Yet that would still leave tens of millions of people to carry on. It seems to me that it would be extremely difficult to extinguish human life entirely, given our cleverness, adaptability, and very strong survival drive. I haven't seen much talk about projections that would make the entire planet completely uninhabitable for humans. That would require an increase significantly higher than 10° Celsius, I'm guessing? Of course, this would likely delay our transformation into a space-faring civilization by a few thousand years, as well as significantly damage social progress.

ivoras 10y ago
Depending on what exactly happens. If the composition of the atmosphere changes enough, only the simplest life forms will survive.
- m_mueller 10y ago
  You need to find what are the stable equilibriums with - or in the worst case without - a biosphere. +7C-8C, if it's the peak, is most probably survivable for the biosphere as a whole, because we know that this happened before (permian triassic boundary). However, there's a very important distinction here: The permian triassic boundary conditions did not arise coming abruptly out of an ice age. An ice age after a warm period leads to lots of methane being stored, and it's reasonable to assume that the current methane storage is much larger than at the permian triassic (oh, did I mention that that was already an extinction event, probably the worst we know about?). All in all it's not completely out of the question that an abrupt release of enough methane could lead to a Venus syndrome, and thus the complete sterilisation of the planet.
tremon 10y ago
Even if we get a 5° - 10° Celsius increase, wouldn't there be plenty of opportunity for millions of humans to survive closer to the poles? Probably not. That amount of increase will likely disrupt every food chain on the planet, and larger lifeforms will not be able to adapt fast enough. That means extinction time for everything larger than a mouse or unable to migrate. Even if some arable land remains around the poles, the most you will find growing there is moss and grasses. Wheats require a very rich soil, which will either not be there or be exhausted after a few crops.

teslaberry 10y ago

yes anyone predicting this by 2030 is a complete fucking moron. dr. fucking moron. it's not that people , even doctors don't make mistakes in their predictions. but this is an unexcuseable predictably stupid mistake that is either so stupid this person deserves to be called a fucking moron or is he deliberately taking advantage of the thousands of fucking morons who might believe him and he is quite clevely making use of the reality that a significant number of fucking morons can be made to follow a person predicting fear based end of times religious fanatatical apocolyptical scenarios. we know facturally throughout history many clever end-of-times cults have been created and led by this all too frequent clever and personality type. so this docotr of end =times is more like practicing his psychological prowess upon a large group of fucking morons who will listen to him. yes, if you believe the world will end YOU ARE A FUCKING MORON. sorry but all you global end of tiems folks........FUCKING MORONS.