The Human race

[Grassland Blue]

Humans, human existence etc has only benefited other humans.

Humans becoming extinct would benefit pretty much everything else.

You are wrong.
There are many people who work with animals and vets who look after their well being.
Then there are naturalists and conservationists.
The problem with much of the human race stems from greed and selfishness.
Thankfully, not everyone is motivated by these base urges.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

I was discussing this earlier following a discussion that started about climate change, we then moved onto various other subjects but the crux of the conversation was what positives if any has there been about the evolution of the Human race. The more i thought about this the harder i found it to find any positives.

If you consider what we are doing to the planet through industry, the decimating of the rain forests, the pollution of our Oceans and the impact we have on other species would the world have been better off if we had never evolved?

Anyone give me any examples of how our presence has actual made the world a better place?

Why should it?

 

[denislawsbackheel]

Climate change is bunkum earth has been around four and half BILLION years! Humans around 200 thousand years! Earth through it history has cycles! The earth will kick us of its surface at some point and end up like it used to be before humans.

Ironi or moronic?

 

[denislawsbackheel]

There was a great programme on Radio 4 recently. Apparently there have been about 3 or 4 mass extinction events over the lifespan of the earth. Each time the human race has come back from near extinction. I can't remember what the show was called so I'm unable to find a link to iplayer.

We need another one soon. This rate of "progress" just isn't sustainable.

Great post by the way.

There have been 5 mass near extinctions.
End-Ordovician, Late Devonian, End-Permian, End-Triassic, and End-Cretaceous.
We weren’t here for any of them.

 

[1.618034]

There was a great programme on Radio 4 recently. Apparently there have been about 3 or 4 mass extinction events over the lifespan of the earth. Each time the human race has come back from near extinction. I can't remember what the show was called so I'm unable to find a link to iplayer.

We need another one soon. This rate of "progress" just isn't sustainable.

Great post by the way.

Well done for half-remembering the facts.

There have been 5 previous mass-extinction events. The last one was 66million years ago which did for non-avian dinosaurs. There were no humans back then so to say the human race has come back from previous extinction is incorrect.

1. Ordovician–Silurian extinction events (End Ordovician or O–S): 450–440 Ma (million years ago) at the Ordovician–Silurian transition. Two events occurred that killed off 27% of all families, 57% of all genera and 60% to 70% of all species.[8] Together they are ranked by many scientists as the second largest of the five major extinctions in Earth's history in terms of percentage of genera that became extinct.
2. Late Devonian extinction: 375–360 Ma near the Devonian–Carboniferous transition. At the end of the Frasnian Age in the later part(s) of the Devonian Period, a prolonged series of extinctions eliminated about 19% of all families, 50% of all genera[8] and at least 70% of all species.[9] This extinction event lasted perhaps as long as 20 million years, and there is evidence for a series of extinction pulses within this period.
3. Permian–Triassic extinction event (End Permian): 252 Ma at the Permian–Triassic transition.[10] Earth's largest extinction killed 57% of all families, 83% of all genera and 90% to 96% of all species[8] (53% of marine families, 84% of marine genera, about 96% of all marine species and an estimated 70% of land species,[3] including insects).[11] The highly successful marine arthropod, the trilobite, became extinct. The evidence regarding plants is less clear, but new taxa became dominant after the extinction.[12] The "Great Dying" had enormous evolutionary significance: on land, it ended the primacy of mammal-like reptiles. The recovery of vertebrates took 30 million years,[13] but the vacant niches created the opportunity for archosaurs to become ascendant. In the seas, the percentage of animals that were sessile dropped from 67% to 50%. The whole late Permian was a difficult time for at least marine life, even before the "Great Dying".
4. Triassic–Jurassic extinction event (End Triassic): 201.3 Ma at the Triassic–Jurassic transition. About 23% of all families, 48% of all genera (20% of marine families and 55% of marine genera) and 70% to 75% of all species became extinct.[8] Most non-dinosaurian archosaurs, most therapsids, and most of the large amphibians were eliminated, leaving dinosaurs with little terrestrial competition. Non-dinosaurian archosaurs continued to dominate aquatic environments, while non-archosaurian diapsids continued to dominate marine environments. The Temnospondyl lineage of large amphibians also survived until the Cretaceous in Australia (e.g., Koolasuchus).
5. Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event (End Cretaceous, K–Pg extinction, or formerly K–T extinction): 66 Ma at the Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) – Paleogene (Danian) transition interval.[14] The event formerly called the Cretaceous-Tertiary or K–T extinction or K–T boundary is now officially named the Cretaceous–Paleogene (or K–Pg) extinction event. About 17% of all families, 50% of all genera[8] and 75% of all species became extinct.[15] In the seas all the ammonites, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs disappeared and the percentage of sessile animals (those unable to move about) was reduced to about 33%. All non-avian dinosaurs became extinct during that time.[16] The boundary event was severe with a significant amount of variability in the rate of extinction between and among different clades. Mammals and birds, the latter descended from theropod dinosaurs, emerged as dominant large land animals.

But it's fine, your prayers have been answered because we're in the middle of the 6th one. Mostly caused by humans. Yay!

6. Holocene extinction: Currently ongoing. Extinctions have occurred at over 1000 times the background extinction rate since 1900.[21][22] The mass extinction is a result of human activity.[23][24][25] The 2019 global biodiversity assessment by IPBES asserts that out of an estimated 8 million species, 1 million plant and animal species are currently threatened with extinction.[26][27][28][29]

 

[malg]

All fine by me. My life is fine. S'all good......

 

[MellowJoe]

Given how much needless suffering humans inflict on the biosphere, it's sort of funny that we are the only species capable of putting this shit show in order, or to rest.
If humans poofed out of existence tomorrow, it would not be a wonderful thing.. For who knows how long, animals will blindly continue to do what they do, which of course means mass predation, disease, starvation etc
We might soon have the technology to civilize nature, but I reckon there are gonna be many more hundreds if not thousands of years of humans fucking about and perpetuating the horror..

 

[City Hobgoblin]

The irony is that we are intelligent enough to know the damage we are doing but we plough on regardless. Which is actually the opposite of intelligent.

 

[dronefromsector7G]

We are a virus and we will be gone sooner or later.

 

[kippaxking79]

We are parasites.

We take over a host (earth), live off it and destroy it.