[wildernessed]

An article about the earths unsustainability, one of the largest reports with contributions from 1,300 international private and public groups. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/03/0331_050330_unenvironment.html Get Outside while you can ! wildernessed

[UGH]

Sobering news indeed. These really are the final days for a large portion of earth's species, and I wouldn't rule out humans being in that number. Couple more articles (sorry I don't have a shortcut link, so will post brief excerpts): Global warming called growing threat to species By The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun Thursday, January 08, 2004 In researchers ranging from northern Britain to the wet tropics of northeastern Australia and the Mexican desert said yesterday that global warming at currently predicted rates will drive 15 to 37 percent of living species toward extinction by mid-century. Dismayed by their results, the researchers called for "rapid implementation of technologies" to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and warned that the scale of extinctions could climb much higher because of mutually reinforcing interactions between climate change and habitat destruction caused by agriculture, invasive species and other factors. "We're not talking about the occasional extinction — we're talking about 1.25 million species. It's a massive number," said ecologist Chris Thomas, of Britain's University of Leeds. ----------------- "Researchers of biodiversity agree that we are in the midst of the seventh mass extinction. Even if the current rate of habitat destruction were to continue in forest and coral reefs alone, half the species of plants and animals would be gone by the end of the 21st century. Our descendents would inherit a biologically impoverished and homogenized world." "Not only would there be many fewer life forms, but also faunas and floras would look much the same over large parts of the world, with disaster species such as fire ants and rats widely spread. Humanity would then have to wait millions of years for natural evolution to replace what was lost in a single century." --Time Magazine, May 2000 special edition

[UGH]

More cheery nooz: WWF: Global Warming May Kill Polar Bears By The Associated Press Published: January 31, 2005 Filed at 7:39 a.m. ET GENEVA (AP) -- Some arctic animals including polar bears and species of seal face the possibility of extinction in just decades because of global warming, the World Wide Fund for Nature said Sunday. Life for indigenous people in the Arctic also would change radically unless the world ``takes drastic action to reduce climate change,'' the Fund said. ``If we don't act immediately the Arctic will soon become unrecognizable'' said Tonje Folkestad, a WWF climate change expert. ``Polar bears will be consigned to history, something that our grandchildren can only read about in books.'' General info on artic change: www.panda.org/arctic

[whistlingmarmot]

We've heard it all before: We are all doomed. So the real question that no one seems to answer is: What level of use is sustainable, and who decides that level? Who decides who can have children and who cannot? Who decides how much one can consume?

[UGH]

[whistlingmarmot]

Either we limit it or mother nature does. If mother nature will be doing all the decision making around here, why bother posting articles about how we are doomed? After all we're not going to do anything about it, are we? Again no clear answers, just more chicken little articles.

[UGH]

[touron]

The Earth has a noticeable bulge near its equator. It needs to go on the South Beach diet. We need names...

[wildernessed]

The answer is there is no answer. Every Dominant species that ever existed has become extinct for some reason or another, except one and if you think humans are the real dominant organism on earth you would be wrong. Bacteria rule the known world, bacteria evolved from viruses, and all life on this planet originated from bacteria and with evolution and divergence we have what we have today. Everything that is, is for a reason. It serves a role in the world. Everything is ultimately held in balance. Human nature is taking it's course, you can't change it, but you can see that the volume of a brain hasn't put the human organism above the simpler things. The world will not end, humans will , and if the world and all it's history were gone, that is the nature of things. Cosmologically irrelevant. No one is to blame, nothing can alter the current course. What's remarkable is the ride, enjoy the ride while you can. Everyday. wildernessed

[MtnGoat]

The club of rome tried the malthusian approach in the 70's, and were dead wrong in the predictions they made. These studies never seem to deal with human ingenuity or adaptation to other resources.

[laughing_dog]

[MtnGoat]

Unchecked capitalism? When did that occur? I must have missed it. Seems pretty well checked today.

[Damian]

Unchecked capitalism

[touron]

Unchecked capitalism? For he who seeketh, though, there is a dollar to be made.

[MtnGoat]

Both those look checked to me. Isn't making something illegal, checking it? Shall we judge every human activity only by it's worst examples?