Ocean life on the brink of mass extinctions

[enterthemadness]

Mass extinction within a million years? Uh I don't think homo sapiens will be alive on Earth in a million years.

Overpopulation is suppose to wipe us out in the 2100's or 2200's...and I agree.

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

Does that mean I don't get anymore Filet o Fish?

 

[Lighthouse]

Overpopulation is suppose to wipe us out in the 2100's or 2200's...and I agree.

Two words: Soylent Green

 

[enterthemadness]

two words: Soylent green

what a twist!!!!!!

 

[Bubonic]

Overpopulation is suppose to wipe us out in the 2100's or 2200's...and I agree.

How will overpopulation wipe us out?
We'll probably just have a league of Hitlers come out of the woodwork, goodness I'm glad I'll be dead by then.

 

[enterthemadness]

How will overpopulation wipe us out?
We'll probably just have a league of Hitlers come out of the woodwork, goodness I'm glad I'll be dead by then.

No food, no people, duh.

 

[SuperFerret]

Starvation is a rare way for a species to be wiped out. Especially an omnivorous one. Honestly, we could use a sharp drop in population.

 

[Anubis]

Plus, we'll probably become cannibals if it ever got that bad, and a cannibal in an over populated world is....well....a kid in a candy store.

 

[Paroxysm]

That's an assumption.

LOL Yeah right man, get real.

Humans have had a HUGE effect on our environment, more than any other species on the planet.

 

[SuperFerret]

LOL Yeah right man, get real.

Humans have had a HUGE effect on our environment, more than any other species on the planet.

And?

 

[Paroxysm]

And?

Don't get smart with me.

We are speeding up the process more than other species.

 

[HaloCod27]

The day gasoline and oil is replaced by something else is the day Humans actually made a right decision regarding the environment.

 

[The Question]

I admittedly am not nearly as knowledgeable as I would like to be on this topic, but I really don’t understand why the global community doesn’t push for more solar, wind and wave-generated power. These things are infinite and clean. And would help immensely. There’s been so much talk over the years, and yet not much has been done (comparatively speaking).

Because they're not that reliable or environmentally friendly. Solar power just doesn't collect enough energy, wind can be a crapshoot and you need to use up a lot of land to create a usable windfarm (plus loads of birds die by getting caught in the turbines), and wave generated power has the same problems as solar.

 

[Spider-Who?]

Solar power doesn't collect enough energy? Don't buy it. A friends father runs his house solely on solar power and it generates enough power that Dominion Power pays him for use of the excess. I also don't see how wave power would have the same issue. That's a lot of force, even more so than the Hoover dam. I totally see your point on wind farms, though.

 

[Dr. Evil]

Overpopulation is suppose to wipe us out in the 2100's or 2200's...and I agree.

We wil all be dead by then, except Charlie Sheen.

 

[SuperFerret]

Don't get smart with me.

We are speeding up the process more than other species.

More than any of our contemporaries, yes. I fail to see how we're the "bad guys" here though.

 

[Paroxysm]

More than any of our contemporaries, yes. I fail to see how we're the "bad guys" here though.

Years of thoughtless exploitation of nature by man has resulted in the effects staring right in our face now. The truth, that in the quest to improve our lives, we have ****ed this planet up in ways no other species could.

 

[Anubis]

F**k the planet. The Planet killed my uncle!

 

[redhawk23]

Boo friggin' hoo. The ocean has undergone more mass extinctions than you'd think and life is still around.

Except this one is very much caused by our actions, and regardless of if life in general carries on, billions of people are dependent upont ocean life to survive. Regardless of if you care about nature or not, we can act now to stave off and increase in starvation and suffering in the world. Is that not a worthy goal?

 

[redhawk23]

Overpopulation is suppose to wipe us out in the 2100's or 2200's...and I agree.

It doesn't have to though. Its just a matter of how we organize ourselve and how we distribute resources.

Even if the global population hits 9 billion the average population density will be that of modern day France. Is France reall all that hellish?

The reality of the situation though is millions more people crammed into horrible urban living conditions, but it does not necessarily have to be this way.

 

[SuperFerret]

Except this one is very much caused by our actions, and regardless of if life in general carries on, billions of people are dependent upont ocean life to survive. Regardless of if you care about nature or not, we can act now to stave off and increase in starvation and suffering in the world. Is that not a worthy goal?

Depends on how you're looking at it. I don't want my friends and family to starve, but that's a tiny fraction of the 7 billion humans on the planet.

Looking at it realistically, you'll see that 7 billion is far too many people to exist, and something like starvation is indiscriminate and works better to control population than war or genocide.

 

[twylight]

This post is probably going to meander off into I don't know where. And if I replied to you and went on a tangent it probably isn't aimed at you just me ranting.

The TL: DR version is: Humans suck. The only answer is to have mass killings, human sterilization and go back to living in 'harmony' with nature (I think we all know how the first two ended up). Because no matter what we do, we still negatively impact the Earth. Can we overcome and 'fix' what we've already done? Questionable. I do think the Earth will survive and evolve due to our abusing it, but the reality is we're only looking after our 'own' interests when it comes to being ecologically friendly.

Honestly, I think it's interesting the 'we's being thrown around in the thread. The reason we're in such dire straits is because of our ancestors. At this point we can fight and rage against the machine or politics and corporations who are for the most part fine with the status quo, or totally unable to shift to 'green' due to years and years of development, money and infrastructure built on the previous less than earth friendly foundation.
Honestly, I can live green all I like, but it's not going to make a huge difference. It's not my fault I am destroying the planet, it's the current structure and expectations that have been placed upon me because of how the previous generations handled the Earths resources. I will do my part to help and be an example of how you can live with nature, but I refuse to take responsibility for the acts of stupid people who were driven by money with no thought to the environment.

Because they're not that reliable or environmentally friendly. Solar power just doesn't collect enough energy, wind can be a crapshoot and you need to use up a lot of land to create a usable windfarm (plus loads of birds die by getting caught in the turbines), and wave generated power has the same problems as solar.

This exactly.

Solar power doesn't collect enough energy? Don't buy it. A friends father runs his house solely on solar power and it generates enough power that Dominion Power pays him for use of the excess. I also don't see how wave power would have the same issue. That's a lot of force, even more so than the Hoover dam. I totally see your point on wind farms, though.

How expensive was it for him to set up though? My family has some solar panels we run for our own personal benefit but when we looked into running it to provide the power company with excess energy it was thousands of dollars. We have friends who did it and it was upwards of $10,000 to set up to the exact specifications the power company wanted. I'm not saying it's not feasible, but the Power Companies are a bureaucracy.

Also, you also have to have batteries to store excess energy for a cloudy day.
Where and how do you think those batteries are going to be made? What waste will making them produce? What natural and finite resources are we pulling from the earth to make them out of? Ditto for the panels.

Nothing, and I mean nothing that will give us power is ever going to be 'ecologically friendly.'

Wind power? Where does the metal come from for the windmills? I don't think you can 'farm' metal, it's one of the finite resources of the earth.

Wave power? Yes, the ocean needs more things being stuck into it that would disrupt the natural migration of animals and be another piece of potential trash floating around in it. (don't get me started on space debris). It's bad enough we're battling Great Pacific Garbage Patch. And do you seriously think the placement of wave power won't effect shipping lanes? Big business won't be happy.

Dam's were supposed to be the 'clean' awesome power, so from the 30's-70's they stuck them all over the United States and in other countries (heck we PAYED other countries to put them in and supplied them with engineers). All its done is decay the river ecosystems which then effect other biomes that surround it; flooded canyons, destroyed habitats and displaced animals. The Colorado river which supplies energy and water to most of the western states doesn't even reach the ocean anymore. But what do we care? Its outlet is in Mexico, they don't have any important ecosystems there.

There's really no 'good' solution for the need for energy. Everything has a drawback, the point is to try to find the one, or combination of ones that work with the least impact on the earth.

The sad fact is that 'less energy' isn't something humans are used to. To use any of the alternate solutions, we would have to think long and hard about that. We aren't conditioned to consider life without cars, most cities and towns aren't set up for public transportation. We weren't conditioned to think about not leaving a night light on for our children (or ourselves), or not using the computer, or taking a moment of thought about how much energy a refrigerator uses.

When push comes to shove, there are a lot of things we can live without when it comes to energy. But energy in most Westernized countries is seen as a 'basic quality of life'. It's taken for granted.

The day gasoline and oil is replaced by something else is the day Humans actually made a right decision regarding the environment.

You make it sound as if it's -just- the choice of energy we've chosen to use that's making such a difference. It's not. The sad fact is that deforestation happening in the Boreal area's of the world is cutting down the earths ability to recycle carbon. The deforestation is happening for wood production for paper, wood, all wood by products. The fix would 'seem' to be tree farming, but even then you're draining the soil of nutrients. Ditto for agriculture, in which saltation appears, there's no way to fight it other than 'washing' the land, which is a waste of fresh water (not exactly an infinite resource), and all the salt from the run-off runs back into the nearest water supply.

And what about the material used to make the computer you're using? Where is that coming from? What areas or the world are being mined and gutted while trampling the surrounding ecosystem with human impact?

Etc, etc. Everything effects something else. It's not just the fault of oil and gas. What about coal? Where do you think your current electricity comes from? It's predominantly either water (ecosystem loss), coal (mining and pollution), or nuclear (just how DO we get rid of that waste?)

 

[Bubonic]

I wish I was a super genius micro-biologist, I'd wipe us all out.

 

[Duke]

LOL Yeah right man, get real.

Humans have had a HUGE effect on our environment, more than any other species on the planet.

I agree with Paroxysm on this. Humanity has had a major impact on what's going on in our enviroment. It can be attributed to pollution, oil spills, over fishing & the list goes on, quite sad.

 

[raybia]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110621/sc_nm/us_oceans

As a result of humanity not living up to our responsibility as caretakers of this planet, we have put a preverbial noose around our necks and it is slowly but surely strangling us. Its the price we will pay for our neglect.