Paging #6 - UCB Study - Current Rates "Tell(s) Us That We Are Moving Into The Mass Extinction Realm"

[hatrack]

With the steep decline in populations of many animal species, from frogs and fish to tigers, some scientists have warned that Earth is on the brink of a mass extinction like those that occurred only five times before during the past 540 million years. Each of these 'Big Five' saw three-quarters or more of all animal species go extinct.

In a study to be published in the March 3 issue of the journal Nature, University of California, Berkeley, paleobiologists assess where mammals and other species stand today in terms of possible extinction, compared with the past 540 million years, and they find cause for hope as well as alarm.

"If you look only at the critically endangered mammals - those where the risk of extinction is at least 50 percent within three of their generations - and assume that their time will run out, and they will be extinct in 1,000 years, that puts us clearly outside any range of normal, and tells us that we are moving into the mass extinction realm," said principal author Anthony D. Barnosky, UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology, a curator in the Museum of Paleontology and a research paleontologist in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.

"If currently threatened species - those officially classed as critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable - actually went extinct, and that rate of extinction continued, the sixth mass extinction could arrive within as little as 3 to 22 centuries," he said.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Has_The_Earths_Sixth_Mass_Extinction_Already_Arrived_999.html

[ladjf]

1. Humans are way too dumb to survive much longer. nt

[ironrooster]

2. which humans?

[ladjf]

3. Not all, of course. Just enough to continue to make terrible decisions

that pertain directly to longterm survival. A big part of the problem is actually greed, rather than stupidity. However, if greed is carried to extremes as it is now in the transfer of wealth from the middle class to the super rich, the disorder can be terminal as it renders the environment unsatisfactory for life.

[txlibdem]

5. Greed should be a punishable offense

Perhaps a 100 year mandatory sentence with no possibility of parole...

[Dead_Parrot]

4. I'll take "duh" for $500 please, Alex.

[guardian]

6. Yeah yeah DOOM DOOM

The the most important quote from the article: "we really have no scale to measure the significance of the impact we are having."

So this bozo doomer professor has no idea of the significance or scale of impact or how to measure it (other than a guess pulled straight from his ass).....but he is sure we are DOOMed. It didn't say in the article whether he applied the crystal ball or Ouija board method to arrive at his conclusions.

I also noticed that he determined that "It's very important to devote resources and legislation toward" his research. Gee what a surprise another DOOMer professor concluding that he needs more grant money.