Do you ever stop to consider what an amazingly successful animal humans are?
We've out competed virtually every other animal on the planet for land and resources. We can change our environment to an incredible degree in order to suit our needs. We've expanded and settled virtually every continent on the planet.
Amazing evolutionary success.
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Yeah, from time to time. Except I'm not sure of the definition of "success" given our responsibility for global warming and probable catastrophic global extinctions of 90% of the planet's current species sometime within the next 20 - 100 years.
@hartfire You think it'll be that much? That's like an end-Permian level extinction event and they hand poison hypercanes and boiling oceans and lava flows the size of Russia.
@Pikachu Yes, I really do think it will be that severe. Although we're now only at 1.5% above pre-industrial levels of greenhouse gases dumped in the atmosphere, we are already experiencing many extinctions of insects and wildlife due to changing climates destroying their habitats and breeding conditions. We're also experiencing greater levels of desertification (Sahara growing southword by 20 metres per year), inundation (low-lying city-ports, Pacific islands) and the shrinking of farmlands due to loss of glaciers and snow that feed rivers and irrigation. Each winter the arctic tundra gets less snow and ice; each summer the permafost melts in a 10% larger area than the year before. As it melts it releases bubbles of methane into the atmosphere, 25 times more potent as a global warming gas than CO2. The ocean surfaces absorb carbon dioxide. This deprives algae of oxygen, which intern starves microscopic sealife, krill, and on up the food chain. We are already in far more trouble than most people realise - and I've only mentioned a small fraction of what's happening.
We're distracted by the tragedies and horrors of war and the soap operas of politics. And in the meantime we are the frogs in the proverbial pot of water set to boil.
