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Note that the human caused Holocene Extinction[1], among the 7 largest mass extinctions in the entire history of multi-celular life on Earth, is ongoing. [1]:

Note that the human caused Holocene Extinction[1], among the 7 largest mass extinctions in the entire history of multi-celular life on Earth, is ongoing. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

pfdietz 2y ago
> among the 7 largest mass extinctions in the entire history of multi-celular life on Earth I strongly dispute this. Mass extinctions in the fossil record are typically measured at the family level, yes? Most of the then-extant species wouldn't even have been recorded. If we were in the equivalent of one of the major mass extinctions it would be a "put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye" situation. We wouldn't be worried about the survival of uncommon animals. We'd be worried if rats were going extinct.
- _yb2s 2y ago
  "That can't be true, because if it were that would be really bad" doesn't seem like a good way to reason about things like this IMO
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    You misunderstand. It can't be true because if it were, the current situation would be vastly worse than it actually is. Ancient mass extinctions were almost unimaginably terrible. It's not that the current situation is ok.
    - _yb2s 2y ago
      The current human caused ecological catastrophe is obviously slower than, e.g. a meteor impact or supervolcano blocking out the sun caused global ecological catastrophe, but that doesn't mean the ultimate effects won't be just as bad, even if we're not fully experiencing them yet.
      - pfdietz 2y ago
        Yes, the current situation could become much worse. But it's not committed to that, and it's not yet in that state. If it were, we wouldn't be having this conversation, as the game would already be over.
        _yb2s 2y ago
        The effects of these type of events take a while to be fully realized, even when you are past the point of no return, e.g. where the species populations are too low to overcome the genetic bottleneck and survive long term, but aren't yet extinct. If you were actually in most historical mass extinction events, I'd also say they seemed "not that bad yet" for quite a long time after the point of no return, much longer than all of human history even in some cases.
        pfdietz 2y ago
        This is mere presumption, then, that the current experience will turn into something that is as bad as a mass extinction. It's also defeatism of the rankest kind. That outcome cannot both be inherent in the present and also avoidable.
        _yb2s 2y ago
        It already is a large extinction event. It is also still possible to massively affect how much worse it gets, and the chances that our species is ultimately included in the extinction. It’s not defeatist to acknowledge reality- it is necessary to choose a realistic course of action. "If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle" -Sun Tzu Here is a more technical treatment of what is actually happening: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09678 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09678 Look at Figure 2 to see where we are now compared to past mass extinction events. We're well below the 75% of all species threshold, but that criteria is for a time frame of 2 million years in length. We can only guess at the future, we can't for example say for sure which species are already past the point of no return when they aren't yet extinct.
    - horsawlarway 2y ago
      This is a really poor counter. Are you not familiar with the timespans of these previous events?
      - pfdietz 2y ago
        Are you not familiar with the difference in meaning between the words "largest" and "fastest"?
      - adrianN 2y ago
        Do we know the time spans with sufficient accuracy? How long did the great oxygenation take for example? Surely longer than civilization so far?
      - bena 2y ago
        People have a really hard time with things that exist on cosmic scales. We tend to think within the frame of a single human lifetime. 100 years is a long time for us. 1000 is so long that we don't even expect to have much information. 10,000 years might as well be 1 million for all we distinguish. There is about as much time between the Tyrannosaurus Rex and humans than between the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Stegosaurus. If we took the entirety of the planet's existence and mapped it out on a single year, all of humanity takes place in the last 25 minutes of the last day. All of recorded history takes place in the thirty seconds before midnight on December 31st. The Triassic/Jurassic extinction event took place "in less than 10,000 years". That's longer than recorded history. The KT extinction took place over 5000 years. So "quick" is relative. We think in terms of weeks or months or years. But we're talking about a process that takes centuries or millennia.
    - yongjik 2y ago
      Other than the infamous K-T extinction, most (all?) other mass extinction events unfolded over millions of years. Humanity managed to wipe out most of large animals in, like what, 10,000 years? It's like watching a two hour horror movie and, thirty seconds in, you exclaim "Oh come on nobody died yet! I'm sure this will be very boring."
      - pfdietz 2y ago
        As opposed to watching a movie in which no one has died and saying "this movie has the most deaths I have ever seen."
- excalibur 2y ago
  > If we were in the equivalent of one of the major mass extinctions it would be a "put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye" situation. Gestures broadly.
  - blooalien 2y ago
    Amazing to me how your simple two-word response could conjure such a vivid vision in my mind of the absolutely dumbfounded look on your face as you "gesture broadly" as if to say "Do you not have eyes?" You could not have painted a more appropriate and apt picture there if you had tried. ;)
- slibhb 2y ago
  I think you're right. Even worst cases of climate change and habitat destruction won't match historical mass extinction events. But there are a lot of people who are weirdly invested in humanity causing a mass extinction. I think for transparent psychological reasons.
  - HelloMcFly 2y ago
    > Even worst cases of climate change and habitat destruction won't match historical mass extinction events. Probably true, but it may just be the timescale is different. > But there are a lot of people who are weirdly invested in humanity causing a mass extinction. Well, we are causing mass extinctions! Just because it's not as bad as the dinosaurs got it doesn't mean it's not bad. And I love the natural world, why would I be anything other than invested in this ongoing tragedy, even if the eventual ceiling of our destruction isn't quite meteor-level outcomes?
    - slibhb 2y ago
      It depends how you define "mass extinction." That aside, ask yourself why so many people are aghast at the idea that humanity isn't causing a mass extinction. Is it really because they love nature? Does ranting about how awful humanity is help? Anyway, if you really want to conserve nature, you should be positive. Some conservation efforts have succeeded. Focus on those and build on them; don't spend time ranting about how awful humanity is. I'm not saying you're doing that, but it is common to see.
      - filoeleven 2y ago
        > ask yourself why so many people are aghast at the idea that humanity isn't causing a mass extinction. For the same reason that flat-earthers aren’t taken seriously?
      - HelloMcFly 2y ago
        > It depends how you define "mass extinction." Okay, sure. I'll define it as species going extinct at 50x or more the typical background rate. We're somewhere in the 100-1000x space. You want to define it differently and come to a different conclusion then so be it. > why so many people are aghast at the idea that humanity isn't causing a mass extinction I'll answer for me: it's the shock and dismay that the evidence is so abundant and multifactorial as to momentarily deprive me of hope that we'll take action on a timescale that prevents such destruction. > Anyway, if you really want to conserve nature, you should be positive. No, I (and you) should be active. I don't have to plaster a smile on my face as the ocean warms because "some" conservation efforts have succeeded, for now, while we're still under 2 degrees warming. But I volunteer frequently, I financially support the causes I believe in, I canvass for issues and candidates that give a shit about this, and I call my representatives when I've got a specific policy or concern even if that I feel is mostly theater. > ranting Look, if someone is "ranting" about this topic while making no material change to their lives to help then fine. But this is an emotional topic for people, it gets to true passions, and ranting (anger) is one way people process grief. I used to watch monarchs by the thousands - this season I saw maybe 15. I'm grieving their loss, and will be for many years to come as the reminder of their decline seasonally returns. Maybe they'll rebound, but I wouldn't count on it. Maybe people need to rant a bit to get to a more productive place. But patronizing people with "well just stop complaining, dummy!" is as good as telling Hacker News commenters to stop fixating on the potential promise of open source software.
- GrantMoyer 2y ago
  Some particularly harrowing quotes from the linked Wikipedia article which make clear the scale of the current situation: > The contemporary rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than the background extinction rate, the historically typical rate of extinction (in terms of the natural evolution of the planet); also, the current rate of extinction is 10 to 100 times higher than in any of the previous mass extinctions in the history of Earth. > A 2018 study published in PNAS found that since the dawn of human civilization, the biomass of wild mammals has decreased by 83%. > The World Wide Fund for Nature's 2020 Living Planet Report says that wildlife populations have declined by 68% since 1970 > A 2023 study published in Biological Reviews found that, of 70,000 monitored species, some 48% are experiencing population declines from anthropogenic pressures, whereas only 3% have increasing populations. And finally, with regards to rats: > Bramble Cay melomys were declared extinct in June 2016.
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/land_mammals.png https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/land_mammals.png https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fx891ae81g3b71.png https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fx...
Lammy 2y ago
[flagged]
- dmonitor 2y ago
  It's actually survival of the fittest unless you happen to destroy the ecosystem in which you live, in which case you starve to death.
  - Lammy 2y ago
    Everyone needs their preferred brand of fear-porn I guess, but this one doesn't work on me. I believe in the ingenuity of Humanity to keep itself alive no matter the environmental challenges.
    - twirlip 2y ago
      It's the "ingenuity of Humanity" that's causing the collapse, is it not? Our intelligence, or ingenuity, has outpaced our wisdom. Surely the advent of thermonuclear weapons, biological weapons, poisoning ourselves and our ecosystem, is a hint that our little branch of the evolutionary tree is beset with peril of our clever little hands and brains.
      - JacobThreeThree 2y ago
        We're pretty far from starving ourselves to death.
        dmonitor 2y ago
        That's fair, we're living pretty luxuriously right now. It's worth securing the current state of luxury while we can, though.
        nojvek 2y ago
        Slow death is the worst kind. We'd have wonderful lives, our grandchildren may too, but their grandchildren is a ??? I am still amazed that modern fossil fuels only really took off in 20th century. We found Pandora's box of cheap portable energy. That could be our slow demise. But who cares, we'll be long dead before it becomes a problem for us.
moffkalast 2y ago
We join the excusive club of mass extinction causing species: cyanobacteria, methanogenic microbes, flowers, moss, and trees. And now humans. Meetups are on Saturdays, flowers bring the honey, trees bring the table.
- culi 2y ago
  I've heard of the others, but... Flowers? Trees? Moss? Maybe by flowers you meant landplants in general? And shouldn't moss be grouped into this event?
  - aardvark179 2y ago
    Moss may have caused the late Ordovician mass extinction, trees, and flowering plants both likely caused huge ecological changes when they evolved and spread, but I don’t know if they caused the mass extinctions that are roughly correlated to their rise.
  - moffkalast 2y ago
    As trees first appeared there was no organism that would have the adaptation to eat wood, so dead trees just piled and piled on for millions of years forming what we now dig out as coal. I think that roughly correlates with the Devonian extinction. Flowers were supposedly one of the many factors wiping out the dinosaurs (aside from asteroid impacts and Deccan Traps), reducing the food supply for herbivores by outcompeting existing flora.
    - bondarchuk 2y ago
      That's amazing, imagine all that wood and it doesn't rot. Wouldn't it quickly become a problem for the trees themselves too, though?
    - culi 2y ago
      I love this hypothesis but it's mostly been disproven recently. Fungi were able to degrade it almost immediately I did some reading and it seems the actual potential mass extinction caused by trees was this: Their roots/mycorrhiza dug deep into the earth and brought up large amounts of phosphorus. Occassional mudslides or other events would then cause this soil to slide into the ocean and create an algae bloom which deprived the ocean of oxygen. Very similar to what's happening today with agricultural runoff of fertilizers
whitehexagon 2y ago
I've just finished watching the 'Planet Earth III' series, and it was quite shocking to see our impact on our planets biodiversity. I knew it was bad, but seeing, and hearing it told, in the amazing way only Sir David can deliver, was quite another level of shocking.

pfdietz 2y ago

> among the 7 largest mass extinctions in the entire history of multi-celular life on Earth I strongly dispute this. Mass extinctions in the fossil record are typically measured at the family level, yes? Most of the then-extant species wouldn't even have been recorded. If we were in the equivalent of one of the major mass extinctions it would be a "put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye" situation. We wouldn't be worried about the survival of uncommon animals. We'd be worried if rats were going extinct.

_yb2s 2y ago
"That can't be true, because if it were that would be really bad" doesn't seem like a good way to reason about things like this IMO
- pfdietz 2y ago
  You misunderstand. It can't be true because if it were, the current situation would be vastly worse than it actually is. Ancient mass extinctions were almost unimaginably terrible. It's not that the current situation is ok.
  - _yb2s 2y ago
    The current human caused ecological catastrophe is obviously slower than, e.g. a meteor impact or supervolcano blocking out the sun caused global ecological catastrophe, but that doesn't mean the ultimate effects won't be just as bad, even if we're not fully experiencing them yet.
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      Yes, the current situation could become much worse. But it's not committed to that, and it's not yet in that state. If it were, we wouldn't be having this conversation, as the game would already be over.
      - _yb2s 2y ago
        The effects of these type of events take a while to be fully realized, even when you are past the point of no return, e.g. where the species populations are too low to overcome the genetic bottleneck and survive long term, but aren't yet extinct. If you were actually in most historical mass extinction events, I'd also say they seemed "not that bad yet" for quite a long time after the point of no return, much longer than all of human history even in some cases.
        pfdietz 2y ago
        This is mere presumption, then, that the current experience will turn into something that is as bad as a mass extinction. It's also defeatism of the rankest kind. That outcome cannot both be inherent in the present and also avoidable.
        _yb2s 2y ago
        It already is a large extinction event. It is also still possible to massively affect how much worse it gets, and the chances that our species is ultimately included in the extinction. It’s not defeatist to acknowledge reality- it is necessary to choose a realistic course of action. "If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle" -Sun Tzu Here is a more technical treatment of what is actually happening: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09678 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09678 Look at Figure 2 to see where we are now compared to past mass extinction events. We're well below the 75% of all species threshold, but that criteria is for a time frame of 2 million years in length. We can only guess at the future, we can't for example say for sure which species are already past the point of no return when they aren't yet extinct.
  - horsawlarway 2y ago
    This is a really poor counter. Are you not familiar with the timespans of these previous events?
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      Are you not familiar with the difference in meaning between the words "largest" and "fastest"?
    - adrianN 2y ago
      Do we know the time spans with sufficient accuracy? How long did the great oxygenation take for example? Surely longer than civilization so far?
    - bena 2y ago
      People have a really hard time with things that exist on cosmic scales. We tend to think within the frame of a single human lifetime. 100 years is a long time for us. 1000 is so long that we don't even expect to have much information. 10,000 years might as well be 1 million for all we distinguish. There is about as much time between the Tyrannosaurus Rex and humans than between the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Stegosaurus. If we took the entirety of the planet's existence and mapped it out on a single year, all of humanity takes place in the last 25 minutes of the last day. All of recorded history takes place in the thirty seconds before midnight on December 31st. The Triassic/Jurassic extinction event took place "in less than 10,000 years". That's longer than recorded history. The KT extinction took place over 5000 years. So "quick" is relative. We think in terms of weeks or months or years. But we're talking about a process that takes centuries or millennia.
  - yongjik 2y ago
    Other than the infamous K-T extinction, most (all?) other mass extinction events unfolded over millions of years. Humanity managed to wipe out most of large animals in, like what, 10,000 years? It's like watching a two hour horror movie and, thirty seconds in, you exclaim "Oh come on nobody died yet! I'm sure this will be very boring."
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      As opposed to watching a movie in which no one has died and saying "this movie has the most deaths I have ever seen."
excalibur 2y ago
> If we were in the equivalent of one of the major mass extinctions it would be a "put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye" situation. Gestures broadly.
- blooalien 2y ago
  Amazing to me how your simple two-word response could conjure such a vivid vision in my mind of the absolutely dumbfounded look on your face as you "gesture broadly" as if to say "Do you not have eyes?" You could not have painted a more appropriate and apt picture there if you had tried. ;)
slibhb 2y ago
I think you're right. Even worst cases of climate change and habitat destruction won't match historical mass extinction events. But there are a lot of people who are weirdly invested in humanity causing a mass extinction. I think for transparent psychological reasons.
- HelloMcFly 2y ago
  > Even worst cases of climate change and habitat destruction won't match historical mass extinction events. Probably true, but it may just be the timescale is different. > But there are a lot of people who are weirdly invested in humanity causing a mass extinction. Well, we are causing mass extinctions! Just because it's not as bad as the dinosaurs got it doesn't mean it's not bad. And I love the natural world, why would I be anything other than invested in this ongoing tragedy, even if the eventual ceiling of our destruction isn't quite meteor-level outcomes?
  - slibhb 2y ago
    It depends how you define "mass extinction." That aside, ask yourself why so many people are aghast at the idea that humanity isn't causing a mass extinction. Is it really because they love nature? Does ranting about how awful humanity is help? Anyway, if you really want to conserve nature, you should be positive. Some conservation efforts have succeeded. Focus on those and build on them; don't spend time ranting about how awful humanity is. I'm not saying you're doing that, but it is common to see.
    - filoeleven 2y ago
      > ask yourself why so many people are aghast at the idea that humanity isn't causing a mass extinction. For the same reason that flat-earthers aren’t taken seriously?
    - HelloMcFly 2y ago
      > It depends how you define "mass extinction." Okay, sure. I'll define it as species going extinct at 50x or more the typical background rate. We're somewhere in the 100-1000x space. You want to define it differently and come to a different conclusion then so be it. > why so many people are aghast at the idea that humanity isn't causing a mass extinction I'll answer for me: it's the shock and dismay that the evidence is so abundant and multifactorial as to momentarily deprive me of hope that we'll take action on a timescale that prevents such destruction. > Anyway, if you really want to conserve nature, you should be positive. No, I (and you) should be active. I don't have to plaster a smile on my face as the ocean warms because "some" conservation efforts have succeeded, for now, while we're still under 2 degrees warming. But I volunteer frequently, I financially support the causes I believe in, I canvass for issues and candidates that give a shit about this, and I call my representatives when I've got a specific policy or concern even if that I feel is mostly theater. > ranting Look, if someone is "ranting" about this topic while making no material change to their lives to help then fine. But this is an emotional topic for people, it gets to true passions, and ranting (anger) is one way people process grief. I used to watch monarchs by the thousands - this season I saw maybe 15. I'm grieving their loss, and will be for many years to come as the reminder of their decline seasonally returns. Maybe they'll rebound, but I wouldn't count on it. Maybe people need to rant a bit to get to a more productive place. But patronizing people with "well just stop complaining, dummy!" is as good as telling Hacker News commenters to stop fixating on the potential promise of open source software.
GrantMoyer 2y ago
Some particularly harrowing quotes from the linked Wikipedia article which make clear the scale of the current situation: > The contemporary rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than the background extinction rate, the historically typical rate of extinction (in terms of the natural evolution of the planet); also, the current rate of extinction is 10 to 100 times higher than in any of the previous mass extinctions in the history of Earth. > A 2018 study published in PNAS found that since the dawn of human civilization, the biomass of wild mammals has decreased by 83%. > The World Wide Fund for Nature's 2020 Living Planet Report says that wildlife populations have declined by 68% since 1970 > A 2023 study published in Biological Reviews found that, of 70,000 monitored species, some 48% are experiencing population declines from anthropogenic pressures, whereas only 3% have increasing populations. And finally, with regards to rats: > Bramble Cay melomys were declared extinct in June 2016.
jiggawatts 2y ago
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/land_mammals.png https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/land_mammals.png https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fx891ae81g3b71.png https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fx...

Lammy 2y ago

[flagged]

dmonitor 2y ago
It's actually survival of the fittest unless you happen to destroy the ecosystem in which you live, in which case you starve to death.
- Lammy 2y ago
  Everyone needs their preferred brand of fear-porn I guess, but this one doesn't work on me. I believe in the ingenuity of Humanity to keep itself alive no matter the environmental challenges.
  - twirlip 2y ago
    It's the "ingenuity of Humanity" that's causing the collapse, is it not? Our intelligence, or ingenuity, has outpaced our wisdom. Surely the advent of thermonuclear weapons, biological weapons, poisoning ourselves and our ecosystem, is a hint that our little branch of the evolutionary tree is beset with peril of our clever little hands and brains.
    - JacobThreeThree 2y ago
      We're pretty far from starving ourselves to death.
      - dmonitor 2y ago
        That's fair, we're living pretty luxuriously right now. It's worth securing the current state of luxury while we can, though.
        nojvek 2y ago
        Slow death is the worst kind. We'd have wonderful lives, our grandchildren may too, but their grandchildren is a ??? I am still amazed that modern fossil fuels only really took off in 20th century. We found Pandora's box of cheap portable energy. That could be our slow demise. But who cares, we'll be long dead before it becomes a problem for us.

moffkalast 2y ago

We join the excusive club of mass extinction causing species: cyanobacteria, methanogenic microbes, flowers, moss, and trees. And now humans. Meetups are on Saturdays, flowers bring the honey, trees bring the table.

culi 2y ago
I've heard of the others, but... Flowers? Trees? Moss? Maybe by flowers you meant landplants in general? And shouldn't moss be grouped into this event?
- aardvark179 2y ago
  Moss may have caused the late Ordovician mass extinction, trees, and flowering plants both likely caused huge ecological changes when they evolved and spread, but I don’t know if they caused the mass extinctions that are roughly correlated to their rise.
- moffkalast 2y ago
  As trees first appeared there was no organism that would have the adaptation to eat wood, so dead trees just piled and piled on for millions of years forming what we now dig out as coal. I think that roughly correlates with the Devonian extinction. Flowers were supposedly one of the many factors wiping out the dinosaurs (aside from asteroid impacts and Deccan Traps), reducing the food supply for herbivores by outcompeting existing flora.
  - bondarchuk 2y ago
    That's amazing, imagine all that wood and it doesn't rot. Wouldn't it quickly become a problem for the trees themselves too, though?
  - culi 2y ago
    I love this hypothesis but it's mostly been disproven recently. Fungi were able to degrade it almost immediately I did some reading and it seems the actual potential mass extinction caused by trees was this: Their roots/mycorrhiza dug deep into the earth and brought up large amounts of phosphorus. Occassional mudslides or other events would then cause this soil to slide into the ocean and create an algae bloom which deprived the ocean of oxygen. Very similar to what's happening today with agricultural runoff of fertilizers

whitehexagon 2y ago

I've just finished watching the 'Planet Earth III' series, and it was quite shocking to see our impact on our planets biodiversity. I knew it was bad, but seeing, and hearing it told, in the amazing way only Sir David can deliver, was quite another level of shocking.