Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday June 24 2015, @02:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the he-hasn't-been-right-yet dept.

A professor famous for predicting the imminent demise of the human race at regular intervals since the 1970s has predicted the imminent demise of the human race.

Paul Ehrlich, who is the Bing Professor of Population Studies at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, says it's definitely on this time. In a tinned statement issued on Friday, the arm-waving prof lays it on the line:

There is no longer any doubt: We are entering a mass extinction that threatens humanity's existence ... the window of opportunity is rapidly closing ...

"[The study] shows without any significant doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event," Ehrlich said ...

"If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover, and our species itself would likely disappear early on," said lead author Gerardo Ceballos.

The original article can be found at The Register, with coverage of the cited study coming from ScienceMag.org


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Informative) by MrGuy on Wednesday June 24 2015, @02:22PM

    by MrGuy (1007) on Wednesday June 24 2015, @02:22PM (#200390)

    A professor famous for predicting the imminent demise of the human race at regular intervals since the 1970s has predicted the imminent demise of the human race.
    (snip)
    "[The study] shows without any significant doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event," Ehrlich said ...
    "If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover, and our species itself would likely disappear early on," said lead author Gerardo Ceballos.

    As I read that quote, he's not saying "We're Doomed" or that our demise as a species is inevitable.

    He's saying that IF things continue on their current course, and we don't take drastic action, then our species may well be doomed. And he's not exactly alone in that sentiment.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Interesting=1, Informative=2, Total=3
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Adamsjas on Wednesday June 24 2015, @03:56PM

    by Adamsjas (4507) on Wednesday June 24 2015, @03:56PM (#200437)

    But he's been JUST as fanatic in the 70's when I was in college, and he was the darling of the doom crowd then as well.
    The guy's been saying the same thing for decades, and wrong his entire adult life.

    Look around you! The change is everywhere, electric cars, solar power, wind power. The only place you saw a windmill in the 70s was in Holland for gods sake. We feed more people with LESS farm land today than ever in history.

    Things aren't being allowed to continue. So entire premise = WRONG.

    There comes a point when this kind of doom saying becomes counter productive and just silly.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday June 24 2015, @03:58PM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Wednesday June 24 2015, @03:58PM (#200440) Journal

    The article is biased, and snarky about it. The danger that we will all die is real, always has been. An asteroid strike could do us, just like the dinosaurs. A supervolcano eruption could be another way. The initial disaster doesn't have to kill us all off immediately to doom us. If it destroys our civilization and reduces us to a pitiful remnant hanging on in some barely hospitable corner of the planet, we'll be right on the edge and too weak to deal with any further trouble. If at that point a problem of our own making overwhelms the last few survivors, whose fault is that? It nearly happened about 75,000 years ago with the eruption of Mt. Toba, but in those long past ages we hadn't the numbers or power to degrade the environment. We pulled through, though the population bottleneck cost us some genetic diversity.

    We can't do much about some disasters. But those we can do something about, we should. Fools dismiss the warnings with sneers and mockery. What's happening now on Earth, what we are doing, is, as far as we can tell, unprecedented. We are blindly charging into unknown territory. Be afraid isn't good enough, isn't right. Should we fear to tread so much that we pull back? No, we should press on, but we must keep our eyes open.

    But also, it's not good to jump at shadows. The population bomb, as feared by Malthus and his intellectual followers, one of whom apparently is Ehrlich, is, I suspect, not as serious a problem as they think. Life has always had the capacity to expand faster than it can reach new space. That's a fundamental fact of the universe. Moving at a fixed speed, even light speed, increases the volume that life can reach by n^2, per unit of time. But population can grow exponentially, c^n, and so is always be able to fill all available space very quickly. How then is it that we don't see constant overpopulation followed by collapse? Some populations are held in check by predation. If not for carnivores, many herbivores would do exactly that, grow until all resources are exhausted, then collapse. So what stops apex predators from doing it? What mechanism has, for perhaps 2 billion years, stopped life from inflicting this particular disaster on itself over and over? There are a number of factors, of which we find most ugly, and so through prejudice have not studied as carefully and thoroughly as we ought. Infanticide is one. Males are especially likely to kill the infant offspring of other males, then mate with the now childless female. Many of us get real bent out of shape over mere abortion, and some even harbor hate for contraception. Then there's plain old abstinence, which females seem to be much better at. Females aren't in the mood if the environmental conditions don't look good. I suspect evolution has given all life this instinct, that life forms which did not exercise restraint found themselves disadvantaged after a collapse, and easily wiped out by competitors who restrained themselves. A problem with that is that if a patriarchal society arises, it is likely to not only silence women, but actively if somewhat covertly sanction rape.

    Niven and Pournelle's work "The Mote in God's Eye" hypothesizes aliens without that restraint. Some of the characters, including some of the aliens, realize that the aliens will be completely helpless after a collapse, easy prey for mankind should we wish to exterminate them. But the aliens are still unable to restrain themselves and avert the collapse. Quite a Malthus love fest, that book, but I think improbable. Niven's work is full of that thinking, with the Ringworld mentioned as a solution to a population problem and at least 2 aliens species that deal with population pressure through war-- the Kzin through personal combat, and the Pak through very destructive total war. And that's another population reducer, fighting, and not the sort of relatively harmless contesting for mates in which neither contestant is seriously hurt, but all out war. A World Out of Time also grapples with the problem, with the main character being told he can't have female companionship because the State doesn't need more children, there is an overabundance of testicles, and why is he complaining anyway since his sex drive is low? Epidemics are another, becoming more virulent and powerful as a population concentrates. Increased risk taking has to be another. Young adults with no prospects may have exploration and searching for new territory as the only option, the "go West young man" approach to the problem. So they undertake an exodus, and some of them die for taking what turned out to be a bad direction, or they had to take risks and didn't make it, or perhaps no direction was good.

    • (Score: 2) by Adamsjas on Wednesday June 24 2015, @04:07PM

      by Adamsjas (4507) on Wednesday June 24 2015, @04:07PM (#200445)

      What a wall of words to say very little, and very obvious. And nice reach to tie in sifi stories. You aren't helping.

      The Sun will nova someday too. The idea is to not live ONLY on this rock by then.

      • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday June 24 2015, @05:48PM

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Wednesday June 24 2015, @05:48PM (#200489) Journal

        Is it so obvious? Apparently Malthus and Niven didn't find it so.

        What's your diagnosis and suggested cure? Do you have any, or is it that you aren't going to be helpful, as you accused me? Oh, get off this rock before the sun goes nova, huh? Well, that's at least a billion years out. We have many more urgent matters than that. Maybe you mean spread out from this rock so we can once again indulge in total war and letting our greed run wild, without having to worry about killing off everyone? Make Einstein's saying "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones" not sound so eerily probable? Or perhaps you don't have a cure because your diagnosis is that we don't have any big problems, so we need not worry about anything? If so, that's lazy.

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2015, @08:18PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2015, @08:18PM (#200566)

        No, it won't--unless it somehow acquires a twin star.
        A nova is an accretion phenomenon associated with binary stars exchanging mass.

        Sol won't supernova either.
        That requires a star of at least 3.2 solar masses.

        What Sol will do [wikipedia.org] is run out of hydrogen fuel, expand enormously to become a red giant (engulfing Mercury, Venus Earth, and Mars[1]), go through a helium-burning phase, then collapse to become a white dwarf.

        [1] So, Mars isn't a long-term colonization solution either--even with e.g. inexhaustible fission power sources.

        -- gewg_

    • (Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Wednesday June 24 2015, @04:55PM

      by The Archon V2.0 (3887) on Wednesday June 24 2015, @04:55PM (#200469)

      > The article is biased, and snarky about it. The danger that we will all die is real, always has been.

      Heat death of the universe. Time and entropy make dust of us all. That, at least, is not news.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 24 2015, @09:34PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 24 2015, @09:34PM (#200617) Journal

      The initial disaster doesn't have to kill us all off immediately to doom us. If it destroys our civilization and reduces us to a pitiful remnant hanging on in some barely hospitable corner of the planet, we'll be right on the edge and too weak to deal with any further trouble. If at that point a problem of our own making overwhelms the last few survivors, whose fault is that?

      "If". And if the unicorns bring a cure for aging we could all live forever. The problem with this is that even in the event of a global disaster what could possibly "overwhelm" us? You're speaking of multiple low likelihood global disasters which is a completely different issue than the evergreen and greatly overstated concerns of Ehrlich. I might as well plan for winning the lottery. And there's no limit to how big the disaster can be that we're supposed to plan for. A large enough flyswatter will kill any bug. Why should we worry about such things (particularly, given how difficult it is to plan for the really ludicrous disasters) when we have more important priorities?

      What's happening now on Earth, what we are doing, is, as far as we can tell, unprecedented. We are blindly charging into unknown territory.

      But "unknown territory" that Earth has been through in the past without significant problems. And current predictions of climate change (the ones based on concrete evidence) just aren't in line with civilizations ending or humanity going extinct. Shouldn't you have to show first that there is a danger rather than merely assume there is one? At least we know that large asteroid strikes and supervolcanoes are bad news.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Thursday June 25 2015, @06:14AM

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Thursday June 25 2015, @06:14AM (#200815) Journal

        The unprecedented part is our intelligence and technology far beyond anything ever seen before on the Earth. Another intelligent species could have evolved millions of years ago, screwed up, and killed themselves off, or could have had the bad luck to appear just before a mass extinction event. There's no evidence to support such scenarios. All evidence found so far suggests that before us, the smartest creatures on Earth were wild animals. With our knowledge and technology, we have far more power in our hands than any animals before us. Thanks to such technology, there is not any other animal that has a chance of beating us in a fight. A lion can beat an unarmed man, but has almost no chance whatsoever against a man with a machine gun or any number of other technologies. Not only can we off any one lion pretty much at will, we can easily kill them all, and even accidentally wipe them out. We also have the power to kill millions of people in an instant. All that is obvious to anyone who gives it any thought.

        We can't carry on like dumb animals, not with that kind of power. If we don't concern ourselves with anything but animalistic competition for food, mates, and territory, certain obvious ideas similar to the "Wag the Dog" variety might be taken seriously, even used. If a man wants more mates, starting a war is a great way to disproportionately kill off males. Blowing up a large men's dorm is another way to improve the odds, if the perp can get away with it. That's a bunch of people conveniently assembled in one spot who happen to be all male and young, a perfect target for such a scheme. What schools are most likely to organize their students that way? Hmm, yes, socially conservative schools. It's almost like they're hoping something happens, trying to tempt that one in a million who would be willing to do it. So why has this never yet happened? Don't tell me it can't be done. McVeigh was caught much faster that he might have been because he pretty much gave himself away, but he could have targeted a men's dorm and covered his tracks better, if sexual conquests had been his goal.

        And that's what just one person can do. Collectively, we most certainly can radically change the environment. We already are. However, it seems there are a lot of denialists out there who insist, without conviction and as if they have an anti-social agenda, that the Earth's environment is permanently fixed in cycles by God, immune to anything mere mortals might do.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @08:15AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @08:15AM (#200840)

          I'm not sure there are many people who think mankind has zero effect on the environment. That sounds like a strawman, those seem very popular these days.

          Personally, I think that no one has yet demonstrated enough predictive skill to indicate they have any idea what the consequences of a given action will be, good or bad. You could say any change is bad since we're on top now, but change can occur due to factors outside human control as well, so it seems we should focus energies on adaptation which will cover more possibilities. Not to mention the horribly misguided focus on CO2 and average surface temperatures.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 26 2015, @12:57PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 26 2015, @12:57PM (#201481) Journal

          Blowing up a large men's dorm is another way to improve the odds

          I find it bizarre that you waste at least a third of your post on this scenario. The obvious rebuttal is that this guy will likely get caught and lose his ability to reproduce. And if he's looking to blow up dorms, he's pretty far out on the tail. Reproduction-wise he probably will end up behind even if he identifies with some group.

  • (Score: 2) by Marneus68 on Wednesday June 24 2015, @04:29PM

    by Marneus68 (3572) on Wednesday June 24 2015, @04:29PM (#200458) Homepage

    > He's saying that IF things continue on their current course, and we don't take drastic action, then our species may well be doomed. And he's not exactly alone in that sentiment.
    Cheer up man, he said that several times already and apparently everyone heard his warning. The fact that we're still there is proof of that. Everything will be just fine.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Open4D on Wednesday June 24 2015, @04:45PM

    by Open4D (371) on Wednesday June 24 2015, @04:45PM (#200462) Journal

    Yes. It sounds like Ehrlich may be an exaggerator. But the basic point is correct, and we shouldn't let the Register use him as propaganda against sustainability goals in general.

    For example, one of the main things that caused Ehrlich's earlier predictions(?) to be wrong was the Green Revolution [wikipedia.org]. But Norman Borlaug, who won a Nobel Prize as the "father of the Green Revolution" was clear that his work only provided "breathing space", and that humankind has to work towards a sustainable population level. (He was on the advisory board of the Population Media Center [wikipedia.org].)

     
    I suspect one reason some people are so vehemently opposed to this line of thinking is they imagine it implies some kind of criticism of people who have had large families (which may apply to them, their parents/grandparents, or other people they care about). But it doesn't, it's just a discussion about the future; the way forward.

     
    Another reason might be the assumption that stabilizing or reducing the population size can only be achieved through drastic measures. But I really doubt that. For example, here [populationmatters.org] is a noticeably non-drastic manifesto from the UK's Population Matters.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2015, @08:31PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2015, @08:31PM (#200572)

      ...which depends largely on petrochemical-based fertilizers.
      The supply of dead dinosaurs is not infinite.

      It also depends on pesticides--some of which are destroying the pollinator species.

      ...not to mention herbicides--some of which were found to be so dangerous they were used as weapons of war.

      Methods of existing on the planet will have to change.

      -- gewg_