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Vegetation is expanding at high altitudes in the Himalayas
- cs702 7y agoInevitably, reading this makes me think of the well-known quote by Jeff Goldlum's character, Dr. Ian Malcolm, in Jurassic Park: "life finds a way."
- kzrdude 7y agoWe are life, and we'll need find adaptions too.
- bryanrasmussen 7y agoNo we are not life, we are living beings. Life finds a way but living beings die and their species go extinct.
- 8bitsrule 7y agoMegafauna being a fine example. Mastodons, dire wolves ... many theories, but nobody has a lock on what wiped them out ... not long ago. It's been said that many of the surviving non-surficial (unscavenged) bones are found buried in debris. (Alaskan muck, e.g.) We humans are found at the smaller end of the megafauna scale (weight > 40kg). Maybe hiding in the earth was helpful. It may be again.
- apalmer 7y agoI thought it was generally accepted that the die off in megafauna over the last 40k was human related?
- jcranmer 7y agoThe general acceptance is that megafauna extinction is the result of some mix of climate change and human action, and this mix varies in different areas. In Eurasia, the consensus is "mostly climate change." For Australia, it is "mostly human." For South America and Africa, I don't know what the consensus is. For North America, the only strong consensus you will find is for both factors to be implicated, with vehement disagreement over the degree to which factor is stronger. The megafauna extinction event happens to occur at the same time as both the Clovis period and the Younger Dryas onset, which means the timing doesn't really work better for one or the other factor. However, we have since learned more about human migration to the Americas (humans arrived a few millennia before Clovis, although the exact amount is disputed), as well as the nature of the Younger Dryas (sharper than expected [1], with the worst effects occurring in some portions of North America). A more realistic approach would be to view North American megafauna of suffering a variety of negative population pressures, with humans providing more of a coup de grace rather than the primary driving factor of their extinction. [1] 10 degrees Centigrade in less than a century, maybe even a decade. In other words, sharper than the current climate change concerns.
- throwaway5752 7y agoThat is part of the Holocene extinction error. Human overhunting and climate change killed megafauna: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07897-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07897-1
- revscat 7y agoSometimes Dr. Malcolm is wrong, though. Sometimes life doesn’t find a way. Sometimes there are mass extinctions.
- reallydoe 7y agoAnd there were things that lived through those mass extinctions. So he wasn't wrong, since life found a way to continue
- Pfhreak 7y agoLife, in aggregate, still finds a way. Mass extinctions bring down a lot of life but not all of it.
- amylene 7y agoLife, only on earth as far as we know, has previously found a way. Much less catchy, much more accurate.
- michaelcampbell 7y agoWhich could provide an open niche for other life.
- overcast 7y agoMass extinctions is why we're here commenting on HN.
- perfunctory 7y agoYep. Mass extinctions are always fun when they are not happening to you.
- ceejayoz 7y agoSure, but the context of that quote was basically "... to kill you".
- MS90 7y agoThe context was reproduction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oijEsqT2QKQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oijEsqT2QKQ "You're implying that a group composed entirely of female animals will breed?" "No, I'm simply saying that life, uh, finds a way." Then later on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy-6I8f89K4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy-6I8f89K4 "Life found a way"
- ceejayoz 7y agoUltimately, his point is "these very dangerous animals will find a way to escape your control". Breeding becomes a particular problem in the book because the computer system is only programmed to count up to the expected number of animals, and not show an overcount.
- serverQuestion 7y agoGood news everyone, we are gaining new green spaces!
- pvaldes 7y ago> Good news everyone, we are gaining new green spaces! Is not so simple, sadly. This is a well known ecological problem. A huge problem. Big mountains have lots of endemic flowers that evolved for standing very high and cold places and growing very slow. Now they are being pushed literally towards the top of the mountain. They can't compete with the other plants in warmer places. Eventually the entire mountain will go out of their ecological range in the same way as an island that is being slowly sinked in the sea. At this moment the entire ecosystem and thousands of unique species will go extinct. And is happening at a worlwide scale, all at the same time. Himalayan plants could survive but most mountains do not have a upper level devoid of life. This species specially adapted to stand really harsh places could be sorely missed in the future if we want to terraform other planets
- mirimir 7y agoThis is not at all surprising. It's happening in central Mexico too. But there, it's desert that's moving up. Generally, moving inland, poleward, and up are the options.
- aldoushuxley001 7y agoThank god for global warming.
- slumdev 7y agoMost coffee is grown well above sea level. If other organisms start creeping into higher altitudes, we could be in for a rough ride.
- edgefield0 7y agoIf? I think it's safe to say that this will happen and we're in for a rough ride.
- wavefunction 7y agoAccording to the article and other articles it _has been_ happening and is happening right now. It's gonna get very hairy.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jngreenlee 7y agoFortunately synthetics are coming online. This is the new world: https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1214186103931932672 https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1214186103931932672 At least it preps us for space survival as well...without instant folgers packs...?
- slumdev 7y agoI have concerns about this. From their website https://atomocoffee.com/formulation https://atomocoffee.com/formulation > By evaluating the individual compounds in coffee we were able to map the most significant ones contributing to the characteristic aroma and flavor of coffee. More and more, we're learning how micronutrients and chemicals that we wouldn't even class as micronutrients are beneficial to human health. If they've brought over only those compounds most significant for aroma and flavor, what are we missing? I don't think it's alarmist to suggest that this "coffee" might resemble the real thing as far as our senses are concerned, but it might lack all of the health benefits of grows-on-a-tree coffee.
- chrisco255 7y agoCarbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fer...