Philosophy Discussion Forums

When you were young, were you the type of child who would scour open fields looking for bumble bees? Today, it is much harder for kids to spot them. Researchers discovered that bumble bees are disappearing at rates "consistent with a mass extinction.". If declines continue at this pace, many insect species could vanish forever within a few decades.

"We have now entered the world's sixth mass extinction event, the biggest and most rapid global biodiversity crisis since a meteor ended the age of the dinosaurs."

Scientists agree that Earth is at the outset of a mass extinction event—only the 6th in half-a-billion years—which could drive a million species, or one-in-eight, into oblivion over the coming decades.

https://phys.org/news/2020-02-bumble-be ... chaos.html

Multiple eco-crises could trigger ‘systemic collapse’: scientists

Overlapping environmental crises could tip the planet into “global systemic collapse,” more than 200 top scientists warned Wednesday.

https://phys.org/news/2020-02-multiple- ... tists.html

Question: What could explain a potential collapse of nature on Earth? Is is logical that some species "give up" or is it plausible to assume that millions of species are actually forced into extinction by humans or an other factor, in decades of time?

arjand wrote:Question: What could explain a potential collapse of nature on Earth?

Answer: The presence of a species of Great Ape whose individuals are relatively large but whose population is vastly, vastly greater than the populations of other species of comparable individual size. 7+ billion, and growing. The number of babies born to this species every single day is greater than the total extant population, of all ages, of all the other Great Apes combined. That's just the number of babies born every day. I think it's worth thinking about that to get a sense of how truly vast the human population of the planet is.

I think the simple fact of population numbers is that we will drive to extinction most other species unless they are deemed useful to us in some way. I don't think anything serious will be done about this. The only way I can think of to look on the bright side of that is to remember that eventually, one way or another, everything is going to go extinct anyway. Maybe the mere fact that they at least existed once is enough, regardless of how long they lived for. Maybe.

Do you believe that the cause will be humans?

The human population issues appear to be local in some regions only. The insect decline is globally so it appears that it cannot provide an explanation for the official announcement that millions of species will be extinct in 1-2 decades of time.

Scientists: “We wanted to really wake people up. When you consider 80% of biomass of insects has disappeared in 25-30 years, it is a big concern. In a few decades, the insects are gone.”

According to several sources the decline is mostly blamed to "new pesticides".

NGC: "Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides" (2019)

America’s agricultural landscape is now 48 times more toxic to honeybees, butterflies and other insects, than it was 25 years ago

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/envi ... riculture/

The past 25 years is the same period that GMO or genetic engineering has been introduced on a large scale. I wonder if profound corruption of nature by genetic engineering may be a possible cause.

Toxins can be circumvented by nature. It will find a way to clean up the mess. It can create new bacteria for example. The plastic in the oceans is already being cleaned up by new bacteria.

Genetic engineering however is something else. GMO can 'corrupt' vital parts of nature that affect the purpose to live in tiny creatures. The symbiose between animals and plants that is obvious for humans, such as ants that live together with a plant, or flowers that are adapted for bees, may be applicable on a much greater scale than humans could comprehend.

How does a bee and a flower establish a symbiose? As my footnote argues, something that is good as it was doesn't have a reason to come into existence. The bees and flowers are not just meaningless humps of chemicals. They serve life in a greater whole and the complex coherence of genes may hold vital information for reaching the future, for serving others (nature) in the best way, for purpose.

Big Pharma like companies are currently investing trillions of USD per year in 'synthetic biology' for a planned 'revolution' to redesign life.

Big pharma raises bet on biotech as frontier for growth

Biotechnology is already a bigger business than many people realize. Rob Carlson of Bioeconomy Capital, an investment company, calculates that money made from genetically engineered animals and plants accounted for about 2% of American GDP in 2017.

Those given to grand statements about the future often proclaim this to be the century of biology in the same way that the 20th century was that of physics and the 19th century was that of chemistry. ...

Humans have been turning biology to their own purposes for more than 10,000 years. ...

Reprogramming nature is extremely convoluted, having evolved with no intention or guidance other than making money. But if you could synthesize nature, life could be transformed into something more amenable to an engineering approach, with well defined standard parts.

https://www.ft.com/content/80a21ca2-136 ... f78404524e

Hint: red flag / corporate corruption on the cover of The Economist
The idea by which synthetic biology is possible implies that there will be literally 0% respect for nature. Animals and plants will be considered meaningless humps of chemicals that can be "done better" by a company.

The corruption would be purely driven by "making money" which could be seen as a deviance of a potential "good" purpose of nature.

Maybe GMO is destructive for the will (purpose) to live.

A recent study showed that nearly 90% of all seabirds have plastic pollution in their body. In the past decades 67 percent of all seabirds have died. In the next decades many seabird species may go extinct.

The plastic pollution in the ocean is estimated to kill millions of seabirds and over 100,000 animals per year and the toxics also have an effect on reproduction and the wellbeing of the animals.

https://www.ecowatch.com/seabirds-plast ... 53767.html



In some areas that are bigger than land continents, there is 6x more plastic in the water compared with plankton.

This topic is intended to discover potential philosophical contributions to finding a solution.

Would it be bad if the animals are gone? If so, why?

arjand wrote: ↑February 10th, 2020, 8:04 am If declines continue at this pace, many insect species could vanish forever within a few decades.

Please let that include mosquitoes and roaches. And can't we just do it now instead of having to wait a few decades?

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑February 16th, 2020, 11:27 am Please let that include mosquitoes and roaches. And can't we just do it now instead of having to wait a few decades?

I've noticed similar responses. I understand that some insects are annoying or even dangerous for humans but how can you be certain that those insects are not vital in an unforeseeable way?

arjand wrote: ↑February 16th, 2020, 1:45 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑February 16th, 2020, 11:27 am Please let that include mosquitoes and roaches. And can't we just do it now instead of having to wait a few decades?

I've noticed similar responses. I understand that some insects are annoying or even dangerous for humans but how can you be certain that those insects are not vital in an unforeseeable way?

I'm willing to take a chance when it comes to some critters.

Some of the vital purposes that an animal or insect fulfills in Nature may be hidden for hundreds or thousands of years.

Mosquitoes are the world’s deadliest animal and cause immense human suffering. Despite this, mosquitoes may fulfill vital purposes in Nature's bigger whole that are unknown or difficult to comprehend from the human perspective.

The bizarre and ecologically important hidden lives of mosquitoes
Mosquitoes have many functions in the ecosystem that are overlooked. Indiscriminate mass elimination of mosquitoes would impact everything from pollination to biomass transfer to food webs.

https://theconversation.com/the-bizarre ... oes-127599

Mosquitoes are critical to the perpetuation of diverse microbes. Some (such as the agents of malaria, filariasis, and arboviruses as dengue) infect and burden human beings and other vertebrates but there are also many good microbes.

The word ‘microbe’ sounds scary — we associate them with the flu, ebola, flesh-eating disease, you name it. But microbiologist Dr. Jonathan Eisen has given an illuminating TEDTalk that will make you put down the hand sanitizer. As Eisen explains, “We are covered in a cloud of microbes and these microbes actually do us good much of the time rather than killing us.”

https://blog.ted.com/6-great-things-microbes-do-for-us/

The human perspective on its environment may very limited.

Even if you may provide a valid case to eradicate the mosquito species from Earth, the warning by "200 top scientists" states that millions of insect species will go extinct in the next decades.

Is the value that the human can 'see', all there is to be considered if it concerns an insect or animal?

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑February 16th, 2020, 3:23 pm

arjand wrote: ↑February 16th, 2020, 1:45 pm

I've noticed similar responses. I understand that some insects are annoying or even dangerous for humans but how can you be certain that those insects are not vital in an unforeseeable way?

I'm willing to take a chance when it comes to some critters.

While recognising and acknowledging the flippancy of your comment, I also see in your words the downfall of our species. Many of us actually think it would be a Good Thing to rid the world of certain creatures, even though we are aware of the possibility that the interdependence of all the living creatures in our ecosystem might be necessary for it all to survive. Our arrogance, and willingness to act long before we have obtained understanding of the consequences, is the reason we're in this mess, isn't it?

The only real pest on earth is the species human being. So, the quicker they are eradicated from earth from self-destruction or evolved out of and past that human being stage then the better I say.

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑February 23rd, 2020, 8:20 am

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑February 16th, 2020, 3:23 pm

I'm willing to take a chance when it comes to some critters.

While recognising and acknowledging the flippancy of your comment, I also see in your words the downfall of our species. Many of us actually think it would be a Good Thing to rid the world of certain creatures, even though we are aware of the possibility that the interdependence of all the living creatures in our ecosystem might be necessary for it all to survive. Our arrogance, and willingness to act long before we have obtained understanding of the consequences, is the reason we're in this mess, isn't it?

I don't actually see us as being in a mess at the moment (other than some political messes, but that's a different track)

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑February 23rd, 2020, 9:37 am I don't actually see us as being in a mess at the moment

Really? Here is just one of many alarming examples of the mess we're in:

More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century.

Quote taken from here.

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑February 23rd, 2020, 11:31 am

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑February 23rd, 2020, 9:37 am I don't actually see us as being in a mess at the moment

Really? Here is just one of many alarming examples of the mess we're in:

More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century.

Quote taken from here.

So when we compare that to extinction and speciation data for insects over the course of many millions of years . . . Wait--we can't do that very well because the data isn't easy to come by, as we have to rely on fossil records.

Insects, as a whole, have never become extinct before. Individual species have, for sure, but not all of them. So there are no useful comparisons to be done. And this is just an example. Climate change is another one, perhaps the most serious. And then there's overpopulation.... There seems little justification for a denier's viewpoint.

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑February 23rd, 2020, 11:43 am Insects, as a whole, have never become extinct before. Individual species have, for sure, but not all of them. So there are no useful comparisons to be done. And this is just an example. Climate change is another one, perhaps the most serious. And then there's overpopulation.... There seems little justification for a denier's viewpoint.

What you'd need to do in order for this to work as a response to my post is to argue against: "Wait--we can't do that very well because the data isn't easy to come by, as we have to rely on fossil records."