3) Previous mass extinctions have not caused the extinction of life itself. Therefore, even verterbrates can survive despite wholesale destruction of ecological services.
Okay, but what if you were really forced to choose, in a tough case? For example, suppose some country is getting really overpopulated, but they've got a big nature reserve, which they could farm more intensively. On the one hand, you could say: We can't clear the reserve, because people are depending on the ecological services provided by those species. On the other hand, you could say: We should farm the reserve, because those species are consuming ecological services needed by real people. The threat to human life seems to favor farming the reserve. Sure, if we farm the reserve, we might cause a nebulous threat to humankind, but the threat is remote.
As far as I know, the destruction of a nature reserve has never caused a single death (or even illness) due to the elimination of ecological services. So what you have is a foggy, unlikely threat to mankind on the whole, versus a real, direct threat on the lives of the people who need to farm the reserve.
So if we must choose biodiversity in this case, why don't the hungry people deserve to live? Surely you and I deserve to live, so why not them?
Also, couldn't you make the argument the other way around? Wouldn't killing those hungry people be an extinction of sorts, which would disturb the fabric of life, interrupt the ecological services those people are providing, and put us all (including the animals in the reserve) at potential risk of extinction? If humans are part of nature, then why shouldn't we preserve them too, in the name of biodiversity?
holmes wrote:so species loss is still exponential and 7 species a day go extinct (conservative estimate).
JohnDenver wrote:holmes wrote:so species loss is still exponential and 7 species a day go extinct (conservative estimate).
Holmes, where did this figure come from? Do you have any scientific data to support it?
MonteQuest wrote:JohnDenver wrote:holmes wrote:so species loss is still exponential and 7 species a day go extinct (conservative estimate).
Holmes, where did this figure come from? Do you have any scientific data to support it?
Don't waste anymore time here folks.
holmes wrote:sorry dont have the time to tutor you here.
JohnDenver wrote:"And what is the relationship between deforestation and species loss to begin with?" he asks. "Do we understand that? Do we know that when you deforest an acre, you lose x proportion of species, to extinction? Well, I'm afraid that nobody knows that. There is not one study that can claim to have understood the relationship between deforestation and species lost to extinction."
JohnDenver wrote:holmes wrote:sorry dont have the time to tutor you here.
You and Monte are a couple of quacks. I ask you to back up your numbers with scientific evidence, and you both pull the eject cord cause you ain't got no evidence that can stand up to scrutiny.
MonteQuest wrote:JohnDenver wrote:holmes wrote:sorry dont have the time to tutor you here.
You and Monte are a couple of quacks. I ask you to back up your numbers with scientific evidence, and you both pull the eject cord cause you ain't got no evidence that can stand up to scrutiny.
John Denver, anyone who questions whether biodiversity is important and wants evidence is blind, stupid, and full of myopic self-rationalization.
JohnDenver wrote:
No, Monte, anyone who asks you to back up your numbers with scientific evidence is a scientist. Those who feel that evidence is unnecessary are blind, stupid, and a threat to clear thinking.
Your failure once again to back up your numbers is noted.
smallpoxgirl wrote:BTW, if you need help to understand the relationship between deforestation and species loss, I would invite you to take half a day and walk around a clear cut. Unless you are Helen Keller, you will find all the scientific proof you need.
The rapid disappearance of species was ranked as one of the planet's gravest environmental worries, surpassing pollution, global warming and the thinning of the ozone layer, according to the survey of 400 scientists commissioned by New York's American Museum of Natural History. The scientists interviewed in the Louis Harris poll were members of the Washington-based American Institute of Biological Sciences, a professional society of more than 5,000 scientists.
Among non-scientists, meanwhile, the subject appears to have made relatively little impression. Sixty percent of the laymen polled professed little or no familiarity with the concept of biological diversity, and barely half ranked species loss as a "major threat."
katkinkate wrote:JohnDenver wrote:... "Where does the '7' come from?"
Its a very conservative calculated estimate based on calculations involving the estimated number of species on the planet and the estimated rate and effects of habitat loss and degradation. It's all estimates because ecology has never been a cool money magnet like nanotechnology and there are very few studies, limited to specific areas, but they use those studies of biodiversity and habitat loss to extrapolate a global estimate.
MonteQuest wrote:http://www.well.com/user/davidu/extinction.html
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