RE: Mass Extinction!
December 5, 2010 at 12:55 pm
(This post was last modified: December 5, 2010 at 1:15 pm by Anomalocaris.)
This species is not destroying it. It is reforming it, although whether or not for the better by a number of different standards, including what i think is yours, is really much harder to say then you realize.
Was the Permian extinction - the greatest extinction event we know of, and far more extravagantly destructive of then living species and habitats than the most serious projections of the current extinction event or the one that killed dinosaurs - destroying the planet? It might have looked like it for someone looking at it from within it the few hundreds of thousands of years it lasted. Would it have been the best thing for earth if Permian extinction never occurred or was cut short long before destroying 90% of all species as it would go on to do? For someone enamored to lystrasaurs or other permian habitats and biota, it might appear so. But was the Mesozoic age that followed it, with its dinosaurs, pterosaurs and plesiosaurs, worse then the Paleozoic age that it terminated? Permian extinction ushered in an entirely new age with a completely different biota that was fundamentally different and arguably much more robust and diverse. So why were the habitats and creatures of the Permian age more deserving of life then those that came after them in the jurrasic?
Without a robust means to forecast how the biota will adapt in the long run to what we impose, we have no grounds to analytically say what will be the best for the planet. I think Experience of past extinction events suggest while the planet's short term ability to maintain habitats exactly as the biota at one point of time has adapted to is easily defeated, the planet's fundamental long ability to ensure conditions in which vigorous new habitats for new biota can develop is very strong and easily beyond our ability to dent in an overall sense. In this case, it seems to me the main factor which can rationally drive our policy on habitat maintenance is how much will destruction of an existing habitat, to which we may have become materially dependent directly or indirectly, cost us.
Was the Permian extinction - the greatest extinction event we know of, and far more extravagantly destructive of then living species and habitats than the most serious projections of the current extinction event or the one that killed dinosaurs - destroying the planet? It might have looked like it for someone looking at it from within it the few hundreds of thousands of years it lasted. Would it have been the best thing for earth if Permian extinction never occurred or was cut short long before destroying 90% of all species as it would go on to do? For someone enamored to lystrasaurs or other permian habitats and biota, it might appear so. But was the Mesozoic age that followed it, with its dinosaurs, pterosaurs and plesiosaurs, worse then the Paleozoic age that it terminated? Permian extinction ushered in an entirely new age with a completely different biota that was fundamentally different and arguably much more robust and diverse. So why were the habitats and creatures of the Permian age more deserving of life then those that came after them in the jurrasic?
Without a robust means to forecast how the biota will adapt in the long run to what we impose, we have no grounds to analytically say what will be the best for the planet. I think Experience of past extinction events suggest while the planet's short term ability to maintain habitats exactly as the biota at one point of time has adapted to is easily defeated, the planet's fundamental long ability to ensure conditions in which vigorous new habitats for new biota can develop is very strong and easily beyond our ability to dent in an overall sense. In this case, it seems to me the main factor which can rationally drive our policy on habitat maintenance is how much will destruction of an existing habitat, to which we may have become materially dependent directly or indirectly, cost us.
