We are going to be the first species that caused our own extinction.

[NewHendoLib]

We hunted the passenger pigeon into extinction. Habitat loss nailed the Bachman Warbler and Ivory Billed Woodpecker.

But - we know what we are doing. We now what we are seeing. The heat dome, the European flooding, the wildfires and on and on and on.

But we are not a species that apparently can move beyond propaganda and profit and greed and politics and save ourselves.

Sad - but we will get exactly what we deserve. Too bad those of us who know better will dragged down by the rest.

[lagomorph777]

1. Well, the first multicellular species.

The Great Oxygenation Event resulted in the accidental self-suffocation of the earliest photosynthetic species on the planet. Oxygen was poison to them, but it was their own exhaled "breath."

[Crunchy Frog]

26. The first photosynthesizers, not the first multicellulars. Big difference.

But yes, they did eliminate most life, including themselves. At least they weren't aware they were doing it.

[lagomorph777]

33. I was meaning we're likely the first multicellular species to destroy ourselves.

Yes, the first photosynthesizers were probably the first species to destroy themselves (or mostly so). But they can't really be 'blamed', per se.

[Doc Sportello]

2. Unfortunately you are correct

Every word is true.

[LifeLongDemocratic]

3. Not the first

According to recently uncovered fossil evidence, metazoans -- the planet's very first animals -- were likely responsible for Earth's most extreme extinction event. The new research out of Vanderbilt University strengthens earlier theories that metazoans caused a mass die-off about 600 million years ago.

Some background: When metazoans appeared on the biosphere scene, they represented an entirely new and different order of life compared to what came before. Unlike the largely immobile marine life that dominated the planet at that time, metazoans could move spontaneously and independently. They also got into the habit of sustaining themselves by eating other organisms, or the materials that other organisms produce.

Researchers refer to metazoans as "ecosystem engineers" in that they gradually commenced to changing the environment to suit their way of life. (Sound familiar?) The subsequent Earth-shaking changes, known as the Cambrian explosion, resulted in the development of most modern animal species -- vertebrates, mollusks, etc. It was a kind of slow motion explosion, mind you. It took 25 million years or so.

Alas, the metazoans' new world order also meant doom for most of Earth's previous life forms. The new fossil evidence from Namibia that more or less confirms the tragedy. Over the next several billion years, Earth would undergo additional life-form overhauls.

[NewHendoLib]

4. can we say we are the first who should have known better?

[lagomorph777]

6. Absolutely.

[LifeLongDemocratic]

11. Yes, without a doubt

[Elessar Zappa]

5. We likely wouldn't go extinct due to even worst case scenario climate change.

A small portion of humanity would survive. But civilization would certainly be gone and we’d be thrown back into the Stone Age.

[NewHendoLib]

7. maybe can deal with the climate - but of the wars and conflicts that will arise?

not sure what that sort of group would end up looking like. Stephen King better get working on some version of what is bound to happen.

[roamer65]

9. He came damn close with The Stand.

[LifeLongDemocratic]

12. Stephen King is such a brilliant writer it's scary

[AngryOldDem]

28. In the late '70s and early '80s, no less.

A template for what’s happening now.

[ck4829]

10. The dumbest thing about this is the people with the most power to prevent this will fare the best

And those with the least power will be harmed the most.

[MoonRiver]

14. Do you think any of the remaining humans will have learned a damn thing?

Or will we still be operating on knee jerk violent and stupid instincts?

[thucythucy]

19. I wonder what happens if

we're no longer able to sustain and contain the hundreds of nuclear power plants around the world.

For instance, the newest containment building at Chernobyl will only last a hundred years or so without being refitted or rebuilt. The radiation it is shielding will be toxic for a long time after that. If the building collapses and that radiation is once more carried on the winds, what will be the affect on the rest of Europe?

Multiply that by hundreds of times and what is the most likely outcome?

We've built machines that will need to be constantly monitored or carefully deconstructed. What happens if the civilization (and I use the term loosely) that sustains such efforts no longer exists?

[Goonch]

8. ;-{)

[MoonRiver]

13. As I've said many times, humans aren't nearly as smart as they think.

[Caliman73]

16. It isn't about "smart" in isolation.

Our intelligence is there, what is lacking is our ethical and moral development. Technology has always outpaced ethics and morality. When our modern ancestors hunted the Great Cave Bear, Great Cave Lion, and Wooly Mammoth into extinction by over hunting, it was because they had the technological means to do so, but not the understanding of the equilibrium of nature and sustainability. Every advancement that we have made, has come at some kind of moral or ethical cost.

Anthropomorphic climate change has been postulated since the late 1800's. Fossil Fuel companies have known about it since the 1960's. It isn't lack of intelligence that has kept us on this path of fouling our environment to the point that it will no longer sustain us. It is greed, desire for comfort, apathy, and indifference to the suffering of others. I suppose you can call that lack of emotional intelligence, or moral or ethical intelligence, I just wanted to clarify.

We could absolutely think and do our way out of the situation we face. We have the brainpower to do it. What we lack is the political, economic, and ethical will to make the changes necessary.

[misanthrope]

30. That's why I prefer to call humans "clever"

"Smart" carries a wider connotation, of wisdom and deeper thinking. "Clever" connotes manipulation and short-term aims with no heed given to the long-term.

[MoonRiver]

32. There are many ways to measure intelligence, and many types of intelligence.

Of course there have been and are truly brilliant and creative humans who have allowed us to become the dominant species on earth. But most people are ruled by very primitive impulses. Even some highly intelligent people are ruled by those impulses. This has caused the destruction of the only world we "know." We are on the brink of extinction because we can't see the forrest for the trees.

[csziggy]

20. Humans are pretty smart - but few of us are wise

And wisdom is what we need.

[roamer65]

15. Bad for humans, good for the planet.

[Caliman73]

21. The planet is indifferent.

Earth has been uninhabitable to life for the VAST majority of its existence. Life that we would call modern (vertebrates) have been around even less of that time, and life that we would call "intelligent" (mammals, apes, and humans) have been around for a blink of an eye in geological time.

Earth was a molten rock devoid of an atmosphere, then it was a barren rock with a thin atmosphere but baking on radiation from the sun, then it was covered in water, then it became more familiar as what we know today, but still devoid of sufficient oxygen to support terrestrial life, then it was a hot house, then it was a ball of ice frozen solid to 2 miles down.

I think that it is better that we stop focusing on and saying things about "the planet" and focus on something closer to reality.

If we don't make changes most of us are going to die and those of us that are left are going to have horrible lives.

The planet will exist, in whatever form it has or will until it is burned up by the expanding sun about 5 billion years from now.

[roamer65]

31. It is what it is.

Good luck and thanks for all the fish.

[Apollo Zeus]

17. Multiple threats now - not just global heating

1. still, nuclear weapons
2. biological agents, both intentional and unintentional
3. rapidly rising infertility rates
4. widespread contamination of ground water

[Hugh_Lebowski]

23. pollution of the oceans and lakes and seas as well (nt)

[ansible]

18. That's why we need to develop space travel tech ASAP

The very survival of our species depends on it. And don't start on any of your misanthropic thoughts about how we should go extinct instead, fuck that!

[Hugh_Lebowski]

24. i have to disagree, i think the resources are better put to use here

no human colony on the moon or mars (the only remotely viable options) is going to survive without inputs from earth and that requires that society doesn't collapse.

we don't know of any naturally habitable planets reachable within the span of a human life even travelling near the speed of light which is never going to happen anyway.

we should absolutely be proceeding based on the presumption that we have only 1 possible home.

[Crunchy Frog]

27. No. If we shit our own nest so badly we can't live with it,

We've got no damned business going around finding other nests to shit in.

I'd much rather we become extinct than that we evolve into the monsters from Independence Day. Fuck THAT!

[SoCalDavidS]

22. You're Assuming Covid Doesn't Kill Us Off First

We've managed to completely fuck up the response to the pandemic, and now variants will likely circulate indefinitely.

Perhaps one will come along even more deadly, and we'll lose even more than 600,000 in a year.

[Crunchy Frog]

29. That won't even come close to killing us off.

Even if something killed off 99% of us (which Covid will not), we've still got very large numbers of us left.

[Crunchy Frog]

25. Very, extraordinarily, unlikely.

Even if we lost 99% of our population, there'd still be close to 100,000,000 of us left. More than enough to "start over".

We're the most adaptable megafauna in the history of the planet, and at least a few of us are likely to survive just about anything.

I'm not saying that it's right, just that, practically speaking, we're pretty much impossible to completely kill.

Maybe society will decide to rebuild itself along more sensible lines. I wouldn't count on it though.

[Agschmid]

34. This is a bit over the top.

We aren’t going to go extinct anytime soon.

[NewHendoLib]

35. where did I say "soon"?