Thursday, May 15, 2008

Mass Extinction Event

Humans are a mass extinction event.

Humans are wiping out about 1% of all other species every year, and one of the "great extinction episodes" in the Earth's history is under way, it says.
When the current food crisis first occurred, a friend of mine who works for a research organisation tallied it up over beer. Every major study of systems that promote human civilisation, from the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment to the IPCC, are in deep negative territory. I am reminded of a line from this book .

A civilization such as ours ploughs up the rails behind; we had at best one chance to get it right.
What next?

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