RE: New study on mass extinction of species
June 20, 2015 at 5:25 pm
(This post was last modified: June 20, 2015 at 6:08 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(June 20, 2015 at 4:01 pm)abaris Wrote:(June 20, 2015 at 3:27 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Dinosaurs stretched their -dominance- out for 135 million years. We, as a single species, are -slightly- more capable than they ever were (even adding all of their success together), and we're what, 2 million years and change in, at the most generous of estimates.?
But the dinos weren't as well equipped and willing to destroy their environment as we are. So lights out will probably happen a lot sooner than within 1 to 2.8 billion or even 135 million years.
Dinosaurs didn't change their environments faster than they could adapt to it. Rather the environment was change under their feet, in a space of just a few hours, by a large Boulder from the sky.
Be it as it may, the required time span over which species of dinosaurs would evolve to adapt to large environmental changes of a magnitude comparable to those following asteroid impacts is probably to be measured in millions to tens of millions Of years. So they had no prayer.
But I imagine technology and our organization power gives us the ability to adapt to similar magnitude of environmental change over perhaps a couple of hundreds of years. That speed won't save us if another big asteroid hits. But the current environmental catastrophe we wrought is not anywhere close in magnitude to the chixalube impact, and its effects on the climate and biosphere will likely take several hundred year to play out. So no, I don't think we will get our comuppance for instigating this current mass extinction.
I think progressives too flippantly underestimate when chips are down, how difficult we humans are to completely eradicate.
