A Quote by David Grinspoon
As long as we are a single-planet species, we are vulnerable to extinction by a planetwide catastrophe, natural or self-induced. Once we become a multiplanet species, our chances to live long and prosper will take a huge leap skyward.
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Once we become a multiplanet species, our chances to live long and prosper will take a huge leap skyward.
The earth has continued to change, from rapid climatic changes that have caused the glaciers and the ice sheets to basically bulldoze the landscape and cause species compression in the tropics and cause mass species extinction - you know, all these huge changes. In terms of evolution, every species is doomed to eventual extinction. The natural world is constantly changing. So, to deal with "environmental problems," in quotes, totally misses the issue. That is not the way we want to define our problem if we're going to find our solution.
Many scientists would argue that we are now in what is called Extinction, and it's caused by this perfect extinction storm: climate change, habitat loss, pollution, unsustainable exploitation of species and habitat resources, and of course, human population explosion. All of these factors work together and conspire to drive a species to extinction on our planet, every half an hour.
If a species is diverse, it can survive and prosper. If a species is homogeneous, it is vulnerable.
On an overcrowded planet where more species slip toward extinction every day, should one species have the right to multiply and consume at will, even as it nudges others to oblivion?
In the long run, the only solution I see to the problem of diversity is the expansion of mankind into the universe by means of green technology... Green technology means we do not live in cans but adapt our plants and our animals and ourselves to live wild in the universe as we find it... When life invades a new habitat, she never moves with a single species. She comes with a variety of species, and as soon as she is established, her species spread and diversify further. Our spread through the galaxy will follow her ancient pattern.
There is good reason to believe that we have already entered the Sixth Extinction, a period of destruction of species on a massive scale, comparable to the Fifth Extinction 65 million years ago, when three-quarters of the species on earth were destroyed, apparently by a huge asteroid.
If enough species are extinguished, will the ecosystems collapse, and will the extinction of most other species follow soon afterward? The only answer anyone can give is: possibly. By the time we find out, however, it might be too late. One planet, one experiment.
One animal or plant species may become extinct every hour. All species are doomed to extinction, but man through worldwide development/killing animals for food/profit/using toxic chemicals such as pesticides/industrial wastes, will accelerate the extinction of plants/animals and the result will be a more hostile environment for man.
We are the most dangerous species of life on the planet, and every other species, even the earth itself, has cause to fear our power to exterminate. But we are also the only species which, when it chooses to do so, will go to great effort to save what it might destroy.
Of the four billion life forms which have existed on this planet, three billion, nine hundred and sixty million are now extinct. We don't know why. Some by wanton extinction, some through natural catastrophe, some destroyed by meteorites and asteroids. In the light of these mass extinctions it really does seem unreasonable to suppose that Homo sapiens should be exempt. Our species will have been one of the shortest-lived of all, a mere blink, you may say, in the eye of time.
If we drive our fellow species to extinction, we will leave a far more desolate planet for our descendants than the world we inherited from our elders.
A species has to become pretty intellectually advanced in order to grasp the concept of death in the abstract, and to dream up the idea of immortality. Long before that (in evolutionary terms) all species with brains have the survival instinct in some form. So, I am just saying that there are many existent proofs of species that have one, but not the other.
A species may eat a particular bacterium, phytoplankton, smaller fish, or plant in an area. Lacking a predator, these species/populations will overgrow and alter the area's biology, overwhelming and driving to extinction dozens or hundreds or thousands of other local species.
We need to radically and intelligently reduce human populations to fewer than one billion. We need to eliminate nationalism and tribalism and become Earthlings. And as Earthlings, we need to recognize that all the other species that live on this planet are also fellow citizens and also Earthlings. This is a planet of incredible diversity of life-forms; it is not a planet of one species as many of us believe.
The health of our home planet and the survival of our species will only be secured through the use of space resources and the expansion of Earth's economic sphere to the Moon and beyond. Creating an off-Earth economy and multi-planet civilization will safeguard the long term prospects of humanity.
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