3 ms·

Headed for a 6th mass extinction? MIT geophysicist warns oceans are on the brink

16 points by makerofspoons 5y ago

runnerup 5y ago
I'd settle for just having the the little bugs of my 90's childhood back: fireflies, swarms of monarch butterflies, dragonflies, and large amounts of crickets and grasshoppers and bumblebees. I go back to my mom's 1950's-built suburban home and go to the same schoolyard and don't see these anymore.
- bigyellow 5y ago
  Do you honestly believe this evidence of mass extinction? Or perhaps this MIT geophysicist is a human like the rest of us, trying to make a name for himself, secure grants in academia, make social connections, and maybe ... just maybe being hyperbolic to get attention? It's not like we haven't had these boogey-man "extinction" headlines pollute news sites for the last decade.
  - runnerup 5y ago
    I should probably delete my comment, and almost certainly shouldn't have posted it in the first place. I hadn't read the article. I just posted an aside which I probably believed would be well received on HN because I've seen it expressed around here previously. Additional discussion of my top-level comment will probably de-rail a productive conversation about this particular article. To engage with your presumably good-faith prompts: While I personally believe that something I would call a mass extinction event is occurring right now, I'm not sure how it compares in severity to other past events which we've labeled "mass extinction". Now that I've read this particular article, I don't think it's a good catalyst for discussion on the topic. It's not clear why they chose to write this particular article at this time -- usually there's a linked study or at least press release or something but there's nothing like that mentioned in this article, or I missed it. Perhaps I could find such a kernel if I DDG'd around. Taken in isolation, this particular article seems to provide little substance of anything.
stefantalpalaru 5y ago
We're in the middle of it, already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
- runnerup 5y ago
  Not sure why this flagged so I vouched for it. Your comment admittedly doesn't add much but it seems like good context to correct an article title which implies "we might be headed for a 6th mass extinction" to "There is already a designation for an official 6th mass extinction which is considered to be ongoing".

16 points by makerofspoons 5y ago

I'd settle for just having the the little bugs of my 90's childhood back: fireflies, swarms of monarch butterflies, dragonflies, and large amounts of crickets and grasshoppers and bumblebees. I go back to my mom's 1950's-built suburban home and go to the same schoolyard and don't see these anymore.

bigyellow 5y ago
Do you honestly believe this evidence of mass extinction? Or perhaps this MIT geophysicist is a human like the rest of us, trying to make a name for himself, secure grants in academia, make social connections, and maybe ... just maybe being hyperbolic to get attention? It's not like we haven't had these boogey-man "extinction" headlines pollute news sites for the last decade.
- runnerup 5y ago
  I should probably delete my comment, and almost certainly shouldn't have posted it in the first place. I hadn't read the article. I just posted an aside which I probably believed would be well received on HN because I've seen it expressed around here previously. Additional discussion of my top-level comment will probably de-rail a productive conversation about this particular article. To engage with your presumably good-faith prompts: While I personally believe that something I would call a mass extinction event is occurring right now, I'm not sure how it compares in severity to other past events which we've labeled "mass extinction". Now that I've read this particular article, I don't think it's a good catalyst for discussion on the topic. It's not clear why they chose to write this particular article at this time -- usually there's a linked study or at least press release or something but there's nothing like that mentioned in this article, or I missed it. Perhaps I could find such a kernel if I DDG'd around. Taken in isolation, this particular article seems to provide little substance of anything.

stefantalpalaru 5y ago

We're in the middle of it, already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

runnerup 5y ago
Not sure why this flagged so I vouched for it. Your comment admittedly doesn't add much but it seems like good context to correct an article title which implies "we might be headed for a 6th mass extinction" to "There is already a designation for an official 6th mass extinction which is considered to be ongoing".