4 ms·

Regardless of whether humanity caused this or not, we ought to be sequencing the DNA of all of these species in the event that we survive the climate shift. If

Regardless of whether humanity caused this or not, we ought to be sequencing the DNA of all of these species in the event that we survive the climate shift. If the conservative talk radio is right that humans aren't causing a shift or that there isn't a shift at all, great! We'll still want to be able to study the DNA of these extinct species to improve our understanding of living systems.

notfromhere 7y ago
I mean, its definitely humans. No one legitimate is disputing that.
- root_axis 7y ago
  "legitimate" doesn't have much meaning in today's policy circles. Conservatives control the government, if we want any progress on this front it's probably a good idea to avoid agitating them with attacks on their legitimacy. edit: I don't mind the downvotes, but I'm curious what is so objectionable about what I've written.
- fastball 7y ago
  So plants don't go extinct without human intervention?
  - esailija 7y ago
    They do but 500 times slower.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - RosanaAnaDana 7y ago
    Sure. But thats a false equivalency and you know it. When pretend that because species do go extinct in nature, and humans are currently causing extinction, that the two are even remotely close to the same thing is a clear attempt at disinformation. There have been other times when plants have gone extinct at the current rate. They usually involved city+ size asteroids.
  - inscionent 7y ago
    Plants, animals, humans are just a disaster for biodiversity. > Most extinctions have occurred in the last 114 years (that is, since 1900; Table 1). > modern extinction rates for vertebrates varied from 8 to 100 times higher than the background rate > for example, that under the 2 E/MSY background rate, 9 vertebrate extinctions would have been expected since 1900; however, under the conservative rate, 468 more vertebrates have gone extinct than would have if the background rate had persisted across all vertebrates under that period. Specifically, these 468 species include 69 mammal species, 80 bird species, 24 reptiles, 146 amphibians, and 158 fish. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/5/e1400253?utm_source=pulsenews&utm_medium=referral https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/5/e1400253?utm_sou...
  - politician 7y ago
    All that matters is that unlike during the age of the dinosaurs, this time around there are humans that can catalogue dead and dying species for analysis in some potential future. It doesn't matter if the climate is or isn't shifting. It doesn't matter if humans did or didn't cause this. It doesn't matter if the species will go extinct or will evolve to survive in some form.
- fromthestart 7y ago
  >https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_who_disagree_with_the_scientific_consensus_on_global_warming https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_who_disag... Depends on how you define legitimate. Also, given today's research "climate", I imagine publishing a dissenting opinion is tantamount to career suicide. Good luck getting funded to prove anything. Particularly considering how politicized climate science has become. Which is unfortunate, because skepticism should be a part of healthy scientific practice - and I think it'd be a stretch to say that climate science isn't subject to the same problems, like p-value abuse and selective publishing, that plague other non-experimental, purely model and statistics based fields. No one is going to publish negative results when they can tweak any of hundreds of model variables to force agreement with data. I think a valid proxy for bias is the relative lack of publications discussing possible benefits of climate change.
  - lostcolony 7y ago
    The problem is that skepticism, to lay people, has been equated to "it's not true! Ergo, we don't need to do anything". Meaning that it -should- be career suicide. Because the evidence in favor is so large, that it's incredibly unethical to give climate change deniers more credibility
  - iak8god 7y ago
    > I imagine publishing a dissenting opinion is tantamount to career suicide. Opinions are not publishable. It is so damaging to propagate the idea that some guys over there have one opinion, and then some other guys have a different opinion, and there's really no way to tell which is correct, and that this is what science is about. Discussions about climate science in the public sphere are politicized, but only because of massive disinformation campaigns by those who stand to profit less if reasonable countermeasures were implemented. > I think a valid proxy for bias is the relative lack of publications discussing possible benefits of climate change. We might go extinct but if we don't, it might be pleasant to vacation in the arctic? Is this the sort of scientific claim you have in mind?
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
- ArchReaper 7y ago
  Sure, but stupid people don't understand the concept of scientific legitimacy. That's a large part of the problem with modern politics.
rgbrenner 7y ago
The problem with that idea is that we haven't cataloged all of the plant and animal species. There are many species that are going extinct before we've even identified them.
- politician 7y ago
  Agreed, but let's save what we can.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- nitrogen 7y ago
  How do we know they exist if we haven't seen them? Is this based on an estimate of the rate of extinction of known species and the rate of discovery of new species?
DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
How many who call themselves "rational thinkers" or "scientific minds" are unable to agree that humanity is essentially a parasite/virus which has taken over its host (mother nature). If you accept that premise then it's not difficult to conclude that the only way to buy time is to reduce the disease (number of us). Obviously acting (or even talking) like that might be illegal, and anyone who propagates such ideas is an outcast. Prominent example are the protesters from the extinction rebellion in London that have been labelled as radicals by the media. Desperate times will require desperate measures so obviously saying "we need to reduce our numbers" doesn't go down well. Those who care will ultimately end up behind bars or labeled terrorists (if they act). There are solutions which yield results because they will reduce our numbers, but as the threats increase, speaking about it becomes more dangerous (naturally security will tighten as "radicalization" happens as a response to events): 1) anti-natalism. The best way to reduce your carbon footprint is not to have kids 2) suicide: instead of expanding life expectancy we need to increase life quality and that requires understanding that as we get older we should have the right to leave on our own terms. governments and societies should allow us and assist us with that decision the moment we want to depart from this world. most importantly we need to discuss quality of life not life expectancy. 3) create safe spaces for nature: instead of national borders we need borders that are off-limits to humans and that belong to nature. but these borders need to be policed with the same strictness as the current nation states police against immigrants 4) ... [use your imagination. history has many examples] The ugly truth and why I hinted at this being illegal is that none of this will happen peacefully. The only way to get there is via measures that utterly uproot the status-quo. Forget any technological solution (geo engineering, moving to mars etc ...). They are just another dystopia and distraction. Instead learn how to prep, grow things, live in the wilderness, hunt, and most importantly defend yourself from the biggest danger to your safety: other humans. I understand I sound like a total nutjob but if you read Ted Kaczynski[1][2] (currently rotting in a cell) you might realize he was far ahead of his time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski [2] https://www.singularityweblog.com/bill-joy-at-ted-we-cant-pick-the-future-but-we-can-steer-it/ https://www.singularityweblog.com/bill-joy-at-ted-we-cant-pi...

notfromhere 7y ago

I mean, its definitely humans. No one legitimate is disputing that.

root_axis 7y ago
"legitimate" doesn't have much meaning in today's policy circles. Conservatives control the government, if we want any progress on this front it's probably a good idea to avoid agitating them with attacks on their legitimacy. edit: I don't mind the downvotes, but I'm curious what is so objectionable about what I've written.
fastball 7y ago
So plants don't go extinct without human intervention?
- esailija 7y ago
  They do but 500 times slower.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- RosanaAnaDana 7y ago
  Sure. But thats a false equivalency and you know it. When pretend that because species do go extinct in nature, and humans are currently causing extinction, that the two are even remotely close to the same thing is a clear attempt at disinformation. There have been other times when plants have gone extinct at the current rate. They usually involved city+ size asteroids.
- inscionent 7y ago
  Plants, animals, humans are just a disaster for biodiversity. > Most extinctions have occurred in the last 114 years (that is, since 1900; Table 1). > modern extinction rates for vertebrates varied from 8 to 100 times higher than the background rate > for example, that under the 2 E/MSY background rate, 9 vertebrate extinctions would have been expected since 1900; however, under the conservative rate, 468 more vertebrates have gone extinct than would have if the background rate had persisted across all vertebrates under that period. Specifically, these 468 species include 69 mammal species, 80 bird species, 24 reptiles, 146 amphibians, and 158 fish. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/5/e1400253?utm_source=pulsenews&utm_medium=referral https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/5/e1400253?utm_sou...
- politician 7y ago
  All that matters is that unlike during the age of the dinosaurs, this time around there are humans that can catalogue dead and dying species for analysis in some potential future. It doesn't matter if the climate is or isn't shifting. It doesn't matter if humans did or didn't cause this. It doesn't matter if the species will go extinct or will evolve to survive in some form.
fromthestart 7y ago
>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_who_disagree_with_the_scientific_consensus_on_global_warming https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_who_disag... Depends on how you define legitimate. Also, given today's research "climate", I imagine publishing a dissenting opinion is tantamount to career suicide. Good luck getting funded to prove anything. Particularly considering how politicized climate science has become. Which is unfortunate, because skepticism should be a part of healthy scientific practice - and I think it'd be a stretch to say that climate science isn't subject to the same problems, like p-value abuse and selective publishing, that plague other non-experimental, purely model and statistics based fields. No one is going to publish negative results when they can tweak any of hundreds of model variables to force agreement with data. I think a valid proxy for bias is the relative lack of publications discussing possible benefits of climate change.
- lostcolony 7y ago
  The problem is that skepticism, to lay people, has been equated to "it's not true! Ergo, we don't need to do anything". Meaning that it -should- be career suicide. Because the evidence in favor is so large, that it's incredibly unethical to give climate change deniers more credibility
- iak8god 7y ago
  > I imagine publishing a dissenting opinion is tantamount to career suicide. Opinions are not publishable. It is so damaging to propagate the idea that some guys over there have one opinion, and then some other guys have a different opinion, and there's really no way to tell which is correct, and that this is what science is about. Discussions about climate science in the public sphere are politicized, but only because of massive disinformation campaigns by those who stand to profit less if reasonable countermeasures were implemented. > I think a valid proxy for bias is the relative lack of publications discussing possible benefits of climate change. We might go extinct but if we don't, it might be pleasant to vacation in the arctic? Is this the sort of scientific claim you have in mind?
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
ArchReaper 7y ago
Sure, but stupid people don't understand the concept of scientific legitimacy. That's a large part of the problem with modern politics.

rgbrenner 7y ago

The problem with that idea is that we haven't cataloged all of the plant and animal species. There are many species that are going extinct before we've even identified them.

politician 7y ago
Agreed, but let's save what we can.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
nitrogen 7y ago
How do we know they exist if we haven't seen them? Is this based on an estimate of the rate of extinction of known species and the rate of discovery of new species?

DyslexicAtheist 7y ago

How many who call themselves "rational thinkers" or "scientific minds" are unable to agree that humanity is essentially a parasite/virus which has taken over its host (mother nature). If you accept that premise then it's not difficult to conclude that the only way to buy time is to reduce the disease (number of us). Obviously acting (or even talking) like that might be illegal, and anyone who propagates such ideas is an outcast. Prominent example are the protesters from the extinction rebellion in London that have been labelled as radicals by the media. Desperate times will require desperate measures so obviously saying "we need to reduce our numbers" doesn't go down well. Those who care will ultimately end up behind bars or labeled terrorists (if they act). There are solutions which yield results because they will reduce our numbers, but as the threats increase, speaking about it becomes more dangerous (naturally security will tighten as "radicalization" happens as a response to events): 1) anti-natalism. The best way to reduce your carbon footprint is not to have kids 2) suicide: instead of expanding life expectancy we need to increase life quality and that requires understanding that as we get older we should have the right to leave on our own terms. governments and societies should allow us and assist us with that decision the moment we want to depart from this world. most importantly we need to discuss quality of life not life expectancy. 3) create safe spaces for nature: instead of national borders we need borders that are off-limits to humans and that belong to nature. but these borders need to be policed with the same strictness as the current nation states police against immigrants 4) ... [use your imagination. history has many examples] The ugly truth and why I hinted at this being illegal is that none of this will happen peacefully. The only way to get there is via measures that utterly uproot the status-quo. Forget any technological solution (geo engineering, moving to mars etc ...). They are just another dystopia and distraction. Instead learn how to prep, grow things, live in the wilderness, hunt, and most importantly defend yourself from the biggest danger to your safety: other humans. I understand I sound like a total nutjob but if you read Ted Kaczynski[1][2] (currently rotting in a cell) you might realize he was far ahead of his time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski [2] https://www.singularityweblog.com/bill-joy-at-ted-we-cant-pick-the-future-but-we-can-steer-it/ https://www.singularityweblog.com/bill-joy-at-ted-we-cant-pi...