Given the scale and rate of growth of unbridled human consumption/production/propagation activities occurring now on the surface of the small finite planet we inhabit, what probability exists that Homo sapiens are unknowingly moving toward extinction in these early years of Century XXI?

Emerging data regarding the unrestrained per human consumption of limited resources, the untethered expansion of a seemingly endlessly growing world economy and the unrestricted increase of absolute global human population numbers are naturally persuasive and appear to indicate that these currently unregulated global activities are patently unsustainable.

Please see the scientific evidence from Russell Hopfenberg, Ph.D., and David Pimentel, Ph.D., on human population dynamics and the human overpopulation of Earth.

Thank you,

Steve

The Species Alliance is an impressive new advocacy effort coming out of the bay area. They are making a film and developing a curriculum around the extinction crisis.

Cheetahs, pandas, polar bears, chimpanzees...the list of mammalian species at risk of extinction is a long one, but for the most part fairly well established.

What is less established are the thousands, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of other species that we are losing every year. These species often don't have names, scientific or otherwise, and are as unglamorous as soil bacteria and rainforest beetles.

I remember setting insect traps in the forest floor as an ecology student, wondering about the different species we were capturing. Insects, even in a not-so-diverse place like Michigan, are notoriously difficult to identify at a species level, and it's quite possible we were trapping endangered species without even realizing it (doubtful, but possible).

So maybe we should think twice before we squish bugs, or fumigate plants, or pave open space. After all, its the little critters that we don't see that hold together the delicate web of life that sustains us all.

An added reason to feel fellowship with creatures going extinct is that our species is hardly exempt. Our actions threaten a global tipping point toward runaway climate change through release of global-scale carbon sinks including tundra methane, tropical rainforests, peat bogs and continental shelf methane hydrates, as well as general releases from soils and vegetation. A bluewater summer Arctic will make the planet a better solar collector. Meanwhile ocean stratification is already reducing the capacity of ocean plankton to take up carbon. Oceans and forests take up about half the carbon we release now. So we lose those functions and we effectively double our emissions. Peter Cox of the UK Hadley Center has done just about the best job of modeling feedbacks, and he gets mindboggling numbers that double the top IPCC projections, something like 20 degrees Fahrenheit. For reasons like this, James Lovelock thinks the planet is ready to eliminate our species, or maybe breeding pairs will survive in the Arctic. For a species so clever as ours to go extinct may seem impossible. But when you look at the forces we are unleashing, and understand the civilizational impacts may unleash other unpleasantries like nuclear war in a famine stricken South Asia, it would be hubristic to think humanity might not be another spotted owl. Just something to brighten up your day.

Given the interconnected of human organisms and other organisms in complex ecosystems, what combination of hubris and faulty reasoning indicates to us that the human species is somehow assured evolutionary success and not subject to the recognizable fate of species like the spotted owl?

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Let us imagine for a moment that the current scale of per human consumption, economic globalization and propagation of the human species, when taken together, are occurring synergistically and producing an overwhelming adverse impact on natural resources, ecosystem services and the integrity of Earth. Would reasonable and prudent people not choose at a minimum to consider how FURTHER UNBRIDLED INCREASES of per capita consumption, seemingly endless big business expansion and human reproduction could be sensibly and humanely restrained?

What preposterous combination of hubris, contrived logic, faulty reasoning, political convenience and economic expediency could be taking humankind down a "primrose path" to a patently unsustainable future for our children?

At least one real issue before the human species is certain global overgrowth activities of the human population. When will scientists examine, for example, virtual mountains of data indicating that the infinite growth of business conglomerations in a finite world cannot be maintained much longer by a small planet the size of Earth?

Very sincerely,

Steve

What, pray tell me, are the leaders at the WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM in Davos, Switzerland thinking and doing that could conceivably achieve MDG goals, Kyoto standards and a sustainable global economic structure in a timely manner, one that ensures a good enough future for our children?

My news wire, Extinction Blog (click on my name below for the link), covers news about endangered species and often includes links to help people take action. I hope you'll visit.