Are We Riding Out The Sixth Mass Extinction?

The oceans are rising up

A message is being generated from many, many different origins of information.

The message now being generated is that the Sixth Mass Extinction is strongly under way, furthermore, we are all on the ship of petroleum-civilization that is currently going down.

Regular readers know that the Ecocosmology Blog and Dredd Blog have mentioned that particular species of scientific data for years now (e.g. The Damage Cannot Be Undone?-2009, Shadow of Time Governs The Earth-2009, What Do You Mean - World Civilization?-2009, Confusing "Civilization" With "Species"-2010, Embryonic Look At Civilization's Future-2010, Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch, 2, 3, 4).

This debate and discussion is spreading around the Internet:

The point is simply this: you are welcome to analyse the scientific evidence for yourself and make your own assessment of the timeframe and the degree of severity of the threat. Perhaps human extinction will not occur until next century. But whether we define ‘near term’ as 2030, 2040 or even next century, human extinction is now a distinct possibility. And after 200,000 years of our species, calling this ‘near term’ seems reasonable.

So is near term human extinction inevitable?

In my view, human extinction is the most likely outcome. But not simply because we are inflicting too many insults on the planetary environment. Extinction is inevitable because of human fear and, specifically, unconscious fear: The fear in ourselves and others that is not experienced consciously but which often drives three capacities that are vitally important in any context: the focus of our attention, our capacity to adequately analyse the evidence (if we get our attention focused on it) and our behaviour in response to this analysis. For example, if you do not know that your fear is making you screen out unpalatable information, then you won’t even notice that you have turned your attention elsewhere and have now forgotten what you just read. Or your fear might prevent you adequately analysing the evidence and/or responding intelligently to it. See ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

So, if you are one of the people still reading this article, you are probably less frightened than most people. The others gave up before they got to this paragraph. So let me now tell you the primary problem with the fear. It distorts the mental focus, capacity for analysis and the behaviour of national elites, that is, corporate owners and their political, military, media, bureaucratic, academic and judicial lackeys.

(Why is Near Term Human Extinction Inevitable?, or here or here). There are scores of papers and books that inform us of the dangers we face:

The Current Mass Extinction:

Human beings are currently causing the greatest mass extinction of species since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. If present trends continue one half of all species of life on earth will be extinct in less than 100 years, as a result of habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species, and climate change. (For details see links below.)

Scroll Down For Hundreds Of Links:

This website began on April 22, 1998 with the posting of the article below. (The article is still here to provide historical context.) Following the article are more than 300 links to recent authoritative reports and updates about the current mass extinction. New articles are added regularly. (Most recent update December 13, 2014.)

(Mass Extinction Underway, emphasis added). There is no doubt in the consensus of scientists that current human civilization faces what all others before it have faced:

Historically, self-destruction is the common denominator for past human civilization, culture, and society:

"In other words, a society does not ever die 'from natural causes', but always dies from suicide or murder --- and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown."

(A Study of History, by Arnold J. Toynbee). As regular readers know, I have posted Sigmund Freud's writings where he indicated that psychoanalysis of groups, including civilization itself, would not prove unproductive ...

(Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch - 4). The difference is that we humans ourselves are causing this the Sixth Mass Extinction.

The tenets of Ecocosmology would have us avoid this predicament by our always having carefully taken care of the Earth (Tenet Three Basics).

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How do you say ...

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Resource Based Economy

Tenet 3(a) of The Tenets of Ecocosmology relates to how the fittest civilization is the one that conforms to the norms of the ecosystem it dwells within.

Environmental awareness is an essential quality for civilizations fit enough to survive.

A TED talk discusses how economies and cities could work if that were to be accomplished with global implementation:

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Another Way Out Of Here

It is fun to touch upon the countless ways to avoid destroying the home we live in, our home planet the earth.

A German firm builds fully compliant human houses, which they describe as "triple-zero" construction:

Overlooking the city of Stuttgart in southern Germany, a four-story modern glass house stands like a beacon of environmental sustainability. Built in 2000, it was the first in a series of buildings that are "triple-zero," a concept developed by German architect and engineer Werner Sobek, which signifies that the building is energy self-sufficient (zero energy consumed), produces zero emissions, and is made entirely of recyclable materials (zero waste) ... The most recent addition to the triple-zero series raises the bar for energy efficiency: It produces more energy than it uses, Sobek said.

(Scientific American). What an attitude these people have to do it instead of saying it can't be done.

Not only can we can live at peace with the earth, we must, because it is essential to our being able to avoid extinction by passing The Test.

Tenet Three Basics

Tenet 3(a) is not much more than a statement of ecological maturity that we take care of our home world because it takes care of us; that we obviously should not put poison into the area from which we eat and drink; that we need to keep the ecosystem safe and sound for all species; and that we recognize the existence of toxins and ideas contrary to and opposed to that social harmony: such as disease, the corruption of power, and warmongering.

Tenet 3(b) recognizes the great distances to other stars with habitable planets orbiting them. Look at the stellar distances of about the 50 nearest stars, which cover an area from 4.2 to 16.3 light years distance from earth.

Light travels about 670,618,800 miles per hour (186,283 x 60 x 60) . Voyager 2 travels about 38,000 miles per hour.

Light travels about 5,878,644,400,800 miles in a year (670,618,800 x 24 x 365.25). Voyager 2 travels about 333,108,000 miles in a year (38,000 x 24 x 365.25).

Thus for each year that light travels, Voyager 2 must travel 17,647.86 years (5,878,644,400,800 / 333,108,000) to match that distance.

If the nearest star is 4.2 light years distance, Voyager 2 must travel 74,121 years to get there (17,647.86 x 4.2).

Voyager 2 is the longest lasting of our current spacecraft, and it is only about 32 years old in terms of space travel. Would it last 74,000 more years? And what about the return trip?

Tenet 3(c) recognizes that we won't find a habitable planet unless we look for it, which the Kepler Mission is trying to do.

Tenet 3(d) is the next logical step, colonizing a habitable planet after finding it and travelling to it.

Tenet 3(e) recognizes that stars will all die out, so this process of finding, going to, and then colonizing planets orbiting stars must continue as long as we are the human species.

Tenet 3(f) recognizes alternatives to the process in 3(a) - (e), such as the realm of the mystical and the realm of the religious that believe divine beings or some mystery force will help us become a different type of being no longer needing stars and planets in order to survive; and Tenet 3(f) further recognizes the ideology of further evolution into such beings without divine or mystical intervention.

In short, whatever works in order to pass The Test, is fine with the Tenets of Ecocosmology.