Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Konglishman]

People have been so incredibly focused on global warming? But right or wrong, global warming is really just a small part of a bigger picture... And that bigger picture is the sixth extinction. I suppose that it is accurate to say that this extinction can be classified in three phases.

Hunter/Gather Phase:
The sixth extinction started perhaps 100 thousand years ago people first left their original habitat for other places around the world. Needless to say, everywhere that people appeared, many of the large game species such as mammoths, mastodons, ect. went extinct.

Agricultural Phase:
With the advent of agriculture, people proceeded to cultivate just a few species of plants and actively got rid of anything else considered to be a weed. In many places, this led to a great deal of deforestation.

Industrial Phase:
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the human population has soared especially in the last century. As a result, the rate of extinction has greatly accelerated. From oil spills to plastic waste, the damage to the environment has been immense.
http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/eldredge2.html
http://www.well.com/~davidu/extinction.html


But of course, we already knew all of this. It is just something that we rarely wish to admit to ourselves. After all, if this sixth extinction goes far enough, our own species Homo Sapiens may well go extinct as well in the not too far distant future.

So, the real question is not whether we are the cause, but rather, what are we going to do about it?

[Underwaterbob]

Who how in the what now?

See this from the quote unquote Global Warming thread.

[Senior]

There is no doubt that humans are driving many species to extinction.

However it is impossible to tell which species wouldn't have died out anyway. Further more, humans have probably saved many species. Can you imagine sheep surviving without human intervention? They are pretty much walking meat bags.

Extinction is a sucky thing, and we should try our best to stop it. But honestly, I would trade 1000 Madagascar pygmy marmosets for one starving African (or any continent's human) child.

[Konglishman]

[Senior]

[Junior]

[itaewonguy]

All things come to AN END!

[Senior]

[madoka]

We are already doomed to extinction according to these guys:

Two eminent scientists say the human race is likely to become extinct at its own hand within the next 100 years as it exhausts resources through a population explosion and unbridled consumption.

�It�s an irreversible situation. I think it�s too late,� said 95-year-old Australian microbiologist Frank Fenner, who helped eradicate smallpox from the planet. �I try not to express that because people are trying to do something, but they keep putting it off.�

Britain�s astronomer-royal and president of the Royal Society, Martin Rees, questions whether humans are smart enough to use what they have learned to save themselves.

He warns that the promise of extended life-spans through medicine, and prosperity through economic growth, could easily lead to oblivion by using up Earth�s resources and changing the planet�s climate.

The planet has existed for 45 million centuries, Lord Rees said on BBC radio. �But this is the first when one species, ours, can determine � for good or for ill � the future of the entire biosphere.�

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And another article:

As the scientist who helped eradicate smallpox he certainly know a thing or two about extinction.

And now Professor Frank Fenner, emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University, has predicted that the human race will be extinct within the next 100 years.

He has claimed that the human race will be unable to survive a population explosion and 'unbridled consumption.�
Fenner told The Australian newspaper that 'homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years.'
'A lot of other animals will, too,' he added.
'It's an irreversible situation. I think it's too late. I try not to express that because people are trying to do something, but they keep putting it off.'
Since humans entered an unofficial scientific period known as the Anthropocene - the time since industrialisation - we have had an effect on the planet that rivals any ice age or comet impact, he said.

Fenner, 95, has won awards for his work in helping eradicate the variola virus that causes smallpox and has written or co-written 22 books.
He announced the eradication of the disease to the World Health Assembly in 1980 and it is still regarded as one of the World Health Organisation's greatest achievements.

He was also heavily involved in helping to control Australia's myxomatosis problem in rabbits.

Last year official UN figures estimated that the world�s population is currently 6.8 billion. It is predicted to exceed seven billion by the end of 2011.
Fenner blames the onset of climate change for the human race�s imminent demise.
He said: 'We'll undergo the same fate as the people on Easter Island.
'Climate change is just at the very beginning. But we're seeing remarkable changes in the weather already.'
'The Aborigines showed that without science and the production of carbon dioxide and global warming, they could survive for 40,000 or 50,000 years.
�But the world can't. The human species is likely to go the same way as many of the species that we've seen disappear.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1287643/Human-race-extinct-100-years-population-explosion.html#ixzz0vEAtoxD8

[Junior]

[Seoulio]

He's not though hes more proud of humanity's right to exploit and make money for personal gain, he makes no secret of it.

He's a guy who thinks he knows a lot, but he understands very little. (he'd accuse me of the same thing, but whatever)

[Underwaterbob]

[Senior]

[Junior]

[Senior]