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this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
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Global warming is a test. We're failing the test, so the warming is going to start accelerating until we learn our lesson
I believe a mix of runaway elitism + ecological devastation is the Great Filter. We're at our great filter and definitely will not overcome considering the galactic evidence.
This is certainly a credible assertion, but it's very broad.
As in, runaway elitism is probably relevant to almost all civilisation-ending catastrophes.
And I'd be ok with this. I see that humans are failing the test. I think it would be totally fair for us to take some really huge losses as a consequence of our collective hubris. But the thing that makes me sad and angry is that we're taking down everything else with us.
There's such a huge diversity of life, basically just minding its own business in a totally sustainable way. It's been like that for billions of years. More than 1,000,000,000 years. But then humans work out that burning stuff is an easy way to do mass-production, and in less then 1000 years things start turning to shit - for everyone. That's so unfair. If it was just our own house we were burning down, I'd say its fair. But we're burning down the whole world. We're already causing mass extinction, and by all predictions it is going to get much much worse.
it'll all return in due time, the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was a major extinction event in the same caliber as global warming is likely to be.
If we continue on like this, it'll be more like the Permian-Triassic Extinction 250 million years ago, which was also due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere and which killed 90 percent of all life.
gotta love extinction science
Other organisms and natural disasters do that, too. Ice ages, meteors, waves of diseases. The difference seems to be we have the consciousness to predict consequences, then decide whether to embark upon a path of behavior, or continue it when latent consequences emerge. I guess the question ends up being whether the course chosen is "natural," and how can we know, since plenty of organisms kill the host, while also surviving and even propagating? Then observation also changes the behavior of things. And we don't kill everything. Just whatever life is left continues to evolve in expected and unexpected ways.
Or until the test is complete and humanity has failed.
Like will the bacteria survive the self cleaning cycle?
Probably some extremophiles, tardigrades at least. Depends on how the planetary boundaries get crossed. Hope horseshoe crabs and lichens and some birds make it through. Those guys have been around so long for us to mess it up for them.
Algae are having an amazing time right now.
It's one of their biggest moments since multicellular life evolved
~~Like~~ Life on earth has survived more extreme environments before. Not only microbes but multicellular life should be fine.
Source for this prediction? What are you basing this on?
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/04/729341362/the-great-dying-nearly-erased-life-on-earth-scientists-see-similarities-to-today
Great question, I glad you asked. When I said both multicellular and microbial life would be fine, what I meant is it's unlikely either would be wiped totally out.
As highlighted in the article you linked, only about 90% of [multicellular] species died out during the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event, specifically the "things have been worse before" situation I was thinking about. Also noted in the article is that the conditions we're experiencing now are not to the same degree although we're observing events similar to what we understand may have happened during the Permian-Triassic Extinction, again to a much lesser degree.
Keep in mind atmospheric CO2 levels were estimated to be around 2500 ppm, about 6 times greater than our current levels of around 420 ppm. Preindustrial CO2 levels were 270 ppm, so we've added about 150 ppm. It's not all that much but it's enough to start changing things for the worse for many of the planet's current inhabitants.
As to microbial life, I'm a microbiologist so I know my microbes. They as a whole are far more resilient and will outlast all multicellular life. Some thrive in conditions where no multicellular life on Earth could survive. Even if conditions were so hostile than no microbes could survive, some form endospores. These are incredibly resilient little escape pods that can remain viable for millions of years, then reactivate when conditions are better, reconstituting back to bacteria.
While extinctions are frankly depressing, they do open ecological niches into which other species with suitable traits can expand and, given time and selective pressure, differentiate. For example, all we'd need is mice and a suitable food source to survive and, a few million years later, the earth will be covered with various species decended from both of them.
When you said life would be fine, what you meant was it may MOSTLY all die and may take millions of years to evolve again. That's not "fine."
Second, we really don't know that it will ever evolve again or that other conditions won't deteriorate. Bacteria can't live in molten lava. Biology has a general upper and lower limit before things start denaturizing. Our moon is further away and the earth isn't as young as it once was. The conditions that gave rise to life so long ago might not be replicable enough in the future.
I agree that it's likely extremophiles at least will survive. I don't take for granted that it definitely will happen and I don't call it "fine."
I pretty distinctly defined when I meant by saying "fine" in my follow-up comment. If you want to pretend I meant something different so you can "prove me wrong", that's "fine" (define that however suits you.).
That, along with the rest of your comment, suggests you're just more interested in feeling you're right at all costs instead of actually discussing the topic, so I'm out.
Edit: I had to look - of course you downvoted me. LOL.
Yes, you moved the goalposts to have "fine" include what I do not consider "fine." This is part ofntthe disagreement we have here. Agree to disagree ig.
I mean go ahead, be out. Have a good day. You don't have to believe as I do, and your last comment also made it seem you were "happy I asked."
Tl;dr: I was genuinely happy until you showed yourself to be a petty, intellectually dishonest person.
I was genuinely happy you asked. I hoped we'd have an interesting conversation. What I received in response was the type of comment I haven't seen as much of since leaving Reddit: unnecessarily antagonistic and full of bad arguments, seemingly for no other purpose than to state "nuh uh, you're wrong!".
You start by telling me that the intended meaning of my words wasn't what I explained, followed up by how the meaning you instead fabricated for me is wrong. Now you're calling my explaining my original meaning further, even before you generated this artificial contention, "moving goal posts". That doesn't hold up under even the merest scrutiny. Again, you're just looking to score metaphorical points, but you don't do it by the merit of your own arguments - you instead pick apart my statements, but dishonestly. It's bizarre.
Then you follow up with several outlandish responses that only make sense if you ignored my previous comment. My comment was about how things have been massively worse on earth before and life has pulled through, with stated logic and references. Your response? "Well, life can't survive beyond certain bounds and the moon is further away, and the conditions from which life arose may not happen again". Pretty clear you didn't even bother to understand my comment before your rebuttal. Again, just looking to dunk.
Plus you downvoted me for a response I took quite a bit of time to write, all in good faith. So yeah, to the block list you go.
Lol it's genuinely wild to say life is "fine" while admitting a large extinction is taking place and may require millions of years to re-evolve. It does seem like "moving goalposts" (a sign of sophistry on your part) to include this in the definition of "fine."
I agreed to disagree there though.
Yes, conditions for life were in some ways harsher. But we have new conditions that make it harsh in a different way, and we don't have the same conditions as before when multicellular life first evolved (ypur claim that life will definitely evolve again).
Maybe I'm not "looking to dunk," and you're just losing?
I'm free to downvote whatever. That's how Lemmy works.
Sorry you took this exchange so personally lol. Weird of you to start insulting and getting grouchy when I agreed to disagree previously as a matter of different perspective.
Mother Nature, Earth, or Gaia, is an organism. In my loose perspective, I like to think that this is it's "fever" attempt at eliminating the virus.
And thereby eliminating a whole bunch of other species than just humans as well.
Although I'm totally in for the occasional misanthropy, I don't like seeing it as "just a fever" anymore as too many species will go down. Life will probably persevere in the end, but so will probably a bunch of rich shitpieces, who are significantly responsible for this fever in the first place.
Our world has gone through many life cycles in the past. At the beginning, was darkness, at the end, probably the same (unless it's a Futurama time cycle).
The earth will continue on and life will find a way. At this time, we, as humans, have screwed the pooch and now the pooch will screw us. We used the earth and culled it's resources. We are taking no consideration to the world around us, and instead focus on ourselves alone.
All of the movies about aliens are true. Humans are selfish, greedy, parasites.
Humans aren't selfish, greedy, parasites. We just get brainwashed into being that way by our culture
Hard to disagree with a famous lemur.
What are you basing this on? Like what scientific knowledge exactly? That life will find a way? You realize the "scientist" in Jurassic Park who said that wasn't a real scientist????
Look at every other planet. Do any of them have life? What makes you so blindingly confident this planet won't join them? We are in a mass extinction right now due to unprecedented rapid climate change. The only life left might just be extremophiles and they may never be able to evolve to be multicellular. And not even extremopjiles can survive everything.
That people are so casual about this shows a profound lack of scientific knowledge.
And we have evidence for at least 6 other major mass extinction events. Yet life on this planet found a way to survive and re-evolve. Quit being so fucking pedantic about something so silly.
I'm not being pedantic, I'm openly disagreeing with the idea that life "must" or absolutely will carry on. There's no such guarantee. That you hold onto that is a cope but not reality. That's fine if you need to do that ig but I disagree.
Calm down there, sport. I don't have to cite sources or be factually correct to have a conversation about my perspective and pop culture references.
Um but you're talking about a scientific phenomenon so if you want people to value your thoughts, it's good to support them with evidence
You don't have to do anything ofc. It just bothers me to see people say that George Carlin quote "the planet will be fine," the Jurassic Park quote "life will find a aay," or the idea that the planet is alive and will kill us off like a fever. Because all of those things are downplaying the seriousness of what's actually happening. From my PoV, what you're doing is very close to climate change denialism and it stops people from realizing how serious things are right now. Literally right now.
I'm posting on the internet on a place that is not super populated. I have no followers and want to gain nothing from these aside from conversation, learning, and my version of social interaction. Climate change is real. It's a very real threat to all life. I do what I can, donate to places I agree with, and advocate for groups that need to be heard. I do believe that life will find a way, because we came from nothing to begin with. Species have been destroyed, life was reborn. Civilization have been destroyed and rebuilt.
If life does not find a way, then it's the end of the road for our relative area. We succumb to silence like the rest.
Our carcasses could end up being petrochemicals of the emerging life forms.
Ooh! I hope I get to be coolant!
Our carcasses could end up being petrochemicals of the emerging life forms.
The earth, by any definition, is not alive. Sure there are ecological systems that interact with each other, but there's absolutely no guarantee they are able.to address issues together in an environment. I highly recommend Half Earth by EO Wilson explaining about species diversity loss and ecology.
It's important that we realize that life is the exception. None of the other planets have conditions needed to support life. Our planet would be fine to join them. It doesn't care about fevers or anything. It isn't alive.
i feel like you could describe a human body that way also :)
“I want to play a game”
Maybe John Kramer has gone too far this time.
What if humanity was created to cause climate change for the next phase of Earth's biological evolution? Is no-one considering a grander plan than what happens to humans?
A test for what? From where? I don't get it
A test of long-term sustainable viability, conducted by the limitations within the forces of nature that we audaciously call our home.