The Anthropocene Mass Extinction

 

    Earth cannot sustain our exploding population for many reasons, but one conquers them all.  We consume resources at far greater rates than any species in Earth history.  We not only need resources to survive, but we "need" them to look fashionable, be efficient, transport globally, stay competitive financially, politically, militarily, etc.  These are all things no other species exhibits, because as rational beings, we have divorced ourselves from nature, giving us a license to pollute and desecrate the planet.  We are so out of touch that we bury our dead bodies in coffins or burn them to ash.  And we send our natural waste to septic tanks, rather than giving it back to nature like everything else.  

    Many already know how detached we are, even those who believe global warming is a hoax.  Many feel helpless against the system we have created.  There's nothing one person can do, so why bother? 

    A part of me thinks our lineage will not last longer than the dinosaurs, because we haven't been successful at living in communion with nature; therefore, I see no reason why it would want us to stick around.  However I am an optimist, so I will share with you a useful comparison to us in Earth's history.  The End-Devonian mass extinction may have been the only other one caused by living organisms.  This was a time when trees got taller and expanded into large forests.  They sucked a lot of CO2 from the atmosphere, sinking global temperatures (note the opposite thing we are doing- raising it).  They also contributed to anoxia in the ocean by pouring too many nutrients into it at once.  Treehuggers beware; at first, they were devastating to the environment.  But over time, many species developed symbiotic relationships with trees, least of all us.  Dinosaurs did not offer the evolutionary record something as radical as photosynthesis, or, in our case dexterity, intelligence, and frankly, garbage.  That's why they were selected for extinction.  Our contributions will probably revolutionize new lineages, including our own.  But it is a painful path we are walking down to get there.  I don't think technology will save us, only the slow realization that we are contributing to our own apocalypse.  That's when population rates will slow down, and hopefully consumer driven lifestyles with it.