Yes & no
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Will the earth ever recover from
climate
change
and pollution? Will
WE
survive? It turns out that the earth may recover but many
of the animals on it won't. It's happened before: 55 million
years ago earth had a sudden spike in global
warming caused by too many greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere. In those days, the CO2 did what it would do
today: 85% of the gas dissolved in the ocean, while the
remaining 15% went into the atmosphere. All this CO2
persisted for tens of thousands of years, increasing the
temperatures of both sea and the land.
In New Scientist Magazine, Bob Holmes quotes paleontologist
Tony Barnosky as saying, "A lot of things have to die, and a
lot of those things are going to be
people."
Society could collapse, sending us back to a simple, even
prehistoric, lifestyle. But even if we become extinct, will the
earth survive?
A new study claims that conservation biologists are setting
their minimum population size targets too low to prevent
extinction and that endangered species are unlikely to persist
in the face of global climate change and habitat loss unless
they number around 5,000 mature individuals or more.
Researcher Lochran Traill says, "Conservation biologists
routinely underestimate or ignore the number of animals or
plants required to prevent extinction. Often, they aim to
maintain tens or hundreds of individuals, when thousands are
actually needed. Our review found that populations smaller
than about 5,000 had unacceptably high extinction rates.
This suggests that many targets for conservation recovery
are simply too small to do much good in the long run."
But even if we disappear, the earth itself will remain and will
undoubtedly be repopulated by
another
species. In New Scientist, Holmes writes, "A new geological
age will dawn. Shame there won't be anybody around to give
it a name."
Maybe we should try to
turn back
the clock so we can try again. But the best thing we can do
is to use our brains (which are BETTER in contactees and
abductees) to CHANGE THINGS. Anne Strieber explains what
this is all about in this week's
subscriber
interview).
To learn more,
click here and
here.
