Dear Pynchme,

You're right that nature is brutal and that species have always become extinct whether or not human's have had a hand in it. However, no one species has ever had the ability to alter the environment to the extent that humans have. Our incredible brain with its advanced neocortex is always at the beck and call of our baser instincts - As Koestler point's out - "our reasoning potentials are obstructed."

In his book "Hegemony or Survival" Noam Chomsky cites the opinion of biologist Ernst Mayr. Chomsky says that Mayr speculated that the human form of intellectual organization may not be favoured by selection.Mayr wrote,: "The history of life on earth refutes the claim that it is better to be smart than stupid, at least judging from the success of beetles and bacteria." Mayr also pointed out that the average life expectancy of a species was 100,000 years.
Chomsky continues on the theme: "We are entering a period of human history that may provide an answer to the question of whether it is better to be smart than stupid. The most hopeful prospect is that the question will not be answered: if It receives a definite answer, the answer can only be that humans were a kind of "biological error," using their allotted 100,000 years to destroy themselves and, in the process, much else...Humans have demonstrated that capacity throughout their history, dramatically in the past few hundred years, with an assault on the environment that sustains life, on the diversity of more complex organisms, and with cold and calculated savagery, on each other as well."

Halt the Sixth Extinction.

"David f re - A population solely made up of optimists would hasten our extinction. We might survive longer if we recognize reality" and Stern, your quite right.
Right now we believe, as some of the best scientists can predict, if not a fact! that this is the fastest extinction rate the planet has ever seen to the best of our scientific knowledge (and yes a nice play on words foxy) but regardless of our fellow religionists, we are a species that comes under the terms and conditions that all creatures as i believe have evolved here on this wonderful blue green planet.

How mankind will end up will depend on the world working as one. And in case, our leaders haven't noticed, we don't have anywhere else to go. I wouldn't mind if we had another blue green planet to exploit and prosper on with mining and industry with extra room for the billions we are going to be in the next 50 years. But unfortunately the human race has no such luxury's in the world of finite resources and places to grow. Mankind needs to grow up and fast. There are dead zones all around the earth where nothing but jelly fish and underwater deserts which China and the US are experiencing right now. These problems will only get worse. As I've said before, we need to control our populations and become smaller and smarter, or all that we see right now will be gone., and this my friends is reality.

I will say it slowly!

S-M-A-L-L-E-R and S-M-A-R-T-E-R.

Thats how we are going to make it.

TTm.

Davidf: "I note the title was population 0. I wish they had written: human population 0".

Way up at the top of the page (might need to scroll up)it reads:
Life After People.

Maybe it's something like the way your new Eden would look.

Nothing lasts forever. Everything has a beginning and everything eventually has an end. This applies to both living and non living matter. There's only one thing surer than the fact that The Beatles were the best band ever ........ and that thing is our species MUST eventually become extinct. It may take 100 years, 1000 years or 1,000,000 years or 100,000,000 years or more but it WILL eventually happen!

Poirot wrote: "However, no one species has ever had the ability to alter the environment to the extent that humans have."

Dear Poirot,

That is special pleading for the destructiveness of humankind. They were more than one species, but the several forms of life that comprise cyanobacteria made a much greater change than humans have or are likely to have.

They thrive in an atmosphere without free oxygen but produce oxygen as waste. They produced enough oxygen so they poisoned the atmosphere for themselves but produced an atmosphere where other forms of life developed. They increased the concentration of atmospheric oxygen from far less than .1% to about 20%. It happened about 2 billion years ago.

Biblical literalism denies that humans come from other life and maintains that humans are above all other life. We are a tremendously destructive species to the environment, but we are not even above all other life when it comes to destructiveness.

david f

>> They thrive in an atmosphere without free oxygen but produce oxygen as waste. They produced enough oxygen so they poisoned the atmosphere for themselves but produced an atmosphere where other forms of life developed. <<

I am wondering what form of life we humans are preparing the planet for.

I'm betting it won't be mammals, but creatures that thrive on high CO2, methane, lots of plastic and enjoys a good oil slick.

Really enjoying this thread BTW. Thank you.