Except that no one really cares. And the “if we all just believe hard enough” bullshit is such a pipe dream I don’t even know how to respond to it. They maintain the myth of human exceptionalism, the idea that we somehow inherited the earth and that this “problem” belongs to us and that we must come up with a “solution.” Except there is no problem, and there is no solution, this is just what happens. Populations rise and fall. Mass extinctions happen. Life and death both happen. All this talk of preservation seems to be just another desperate attempt at maintaining status quo, ceasing change, attempting to stymy evolutionary cycles of life and death, rise and fall. NOT GONNA HAPPEN.
Well, this mass extinction didn’t just happen. We caused it, and because of that, we own a certain amount of that. Yes, life and death both happen, but that doesn’t justify a serial killer, and it doesn’t justify civilization.
I was kind of put off by the ending, too, but decided to post it anyway for the earlier stuff on the extent of the mass extinction, and the brief touch on ecopsychology.
Not a justification, merely an observation. Can we not look at civilization without judgment, merely noting it as a phenomenon, a system? I don’t see civilization or serial killers as BAD, nor do I make any attempt to justify it/them.
“We” caused it? First of all, who is this we, and second of all, what caused humans? Of course it just happened. A blame game in this instance doesn’t seem particularly helpful. What are you going to get mad at, anyway? “Civilization” is too large of a system to blame, to get angry at, to attribute any cause and effect to. We do not say that the head of a cat causes the tail, we say that the head and the tail are both part of the same cat. I see the reinforcing feedback loop of civilization and mass extinction as the same system. Seeing this mass extinction as “our fault” is not helpful. It is merely another aspect of the cycle of life and death.
Attempting to take responsibility for something of this magnitude simply leaves one feeling guilty for failing. I’m not a big fan of despair.
From the aloof, detached perspective of some distant god, that point of view might have some merit. But you and I are down here in the midst of it. We’re part of that system, we contribute to it. Animism is all about recognizing the personhood of complex systems, and persons act kindly or viciously. Civilization is a system, and it has a personality, and that personality usually acts very viciously. And we’re a part of it. We feed it, we live inside of it. It doesn’t have to lead to a sense of guilt for failing, but it should always stick in the back of your mind and drive you forward that because we helped make this beast, it falls to us to do what we can to put it down.
Then we move into a realm not of “responsibility” and “ownership”, but of personal power and solidarity. This is us. We are it. We are here. This is happening. Let’s.
See, this (the fact that we are in the middle of a mass extinction) is why I get annoyed with people (a la John Michael Greer, for example) who claim that we are in for a long collapse, a new dark age, some kind of recovery of civilization etc., people who scoff at the ‘apocalyptic’ bunch. (Hell, I’m even annoyed when Jason claims that humanity will survive.) Sure, we’ve seen a bunch of civilizations fail, we know more or less how the process generally unfolds; but has any one of those previous civilizations collapsed in the middle of a mass extinction? I mean, how do we know that our current situation resembles that of the Roman empire more than it resembles that of the dinosaurs?
Mind you, I do not claim that humanity will not survive, and I am not even claiming that the collapse will not be long (though I am somewhat inclined to believe that it won’t be as long as any previous one, if for no other reason, than because the growth was, in our case, much steeper than ever before). When it comes to these questions (especially the former), I declare myself an agnostic. Frankly, I don’t see how one could be anything else. I mean, sure, you can think that one of the two outcomes is somewhat more likely than the other. But to claim either that we will or that we won’t survive as a species, that just goes on my nerves.
If humans can’t survive, then we’re really in for it. Humans are surviving right now in the Arctic and the Kalahari. If the whole world becomes more desolate than the Arctic, then we’re talking about the end of all multicellular life anyway, and if it’s less desolate than that, then that means there will be somewhere on earth with resources equal to or better than places where humans are surviving now, so odds of survival are good in that case. So, the case in which humans can’t survive is something hardly worth worrying about, because that’s the scenario where nothing survives.
Well, I don’t know that I quite agree with that, Jason. End of multicellular life? Nah. Multicellular life will most likely be around a lot longer than we will. (Think fungi. Think moss. Think invertebrates of various sorts.) Nevertheless, it is true that humans are pretty adaptable, at least as far as large animals go.
But see, when I say I get annoyed with people just assuming that we will ‘obviously’ survive (as a species), the reason for that is actually practical. Our survival, while most definitely not entirely in our hands, is not entirely out of our hands either. A few years more or less of life’s simple pleasures a la nuclear weapons (for instance) might just make a difference. Hell, a few years more or less of coal exploitation might make a difference! Basically, I get annoyed with people de facto saying ‘relax, there’s nothing to worry about’, when in fact, different courses of action lead to different, in some cases (that are not easy to identify in advance) vastly different, outcomes.
Also, one thing that I got from the trailer is that we shouldn’t be concerned about species only, but also about populations. Take a random species. Homo sapiens, say. The question is not simply whether, a decade/century/millennium from there will be H. sapiens somewhere on the globe, but also whether there will be H. sapiens in equatorial areas, in polar areas, in Australia, in Brazil…
Well, I don’t know that I quite agree with that, Jason. End of multicellular life? Nah. Multicellular life will most likely be around a lot longer than we will. (Think fungi. Think moss. Think invertebrates of various sorts.) Nevertheless, it is true that humans are pretty adaptable, at least as far as large animals go.
So, if fungi, moss, and invertebrates are still around, that means that the climate’s in survivable parameters, and there’s food around (fungi, moss and invertebrates), so where did the humans go? Might be a lot smaller, being at a higher trophic level and possibly subsisting off of a smaller base, but it’s enough for human survival.
A few years more or less of life’s simple pleasures a la nuclear weapons (for instance) might just make a difference. Hell, a few years more or less of coal exploitation might make a difference! Basically, I get annoyed with people de facto saying ‘relax, there’s nothing to worry about’, when in fact, different courses of action lead to different, in some cases (that are not easy to identify in advance) vastly different, outcomes.
What is it in those scenarios that would lead to human extinction? Even the worst nuclear scenarios only kill a fraction of the population from blasts or fallout; the majority die from the nuclear winter that follows, and lack of food. But if the nuclear winter’s not so severe that it kills off everything, then that means there will be places warmer than the Arctic, and there’s still life to sustain us. So, wherefore extinction?
Also, one thing that I got from the trailer is that we shouldn’t be concerned about species only, but also about populations. Take a random species. Homo sapiens, say. The question is not simply whether, a decade/century/millennium from there will be H. sapiens somewhere on the globe, but also whether there will be H. sapiens in equatorial areas, in polar areas, in Australia, in Brazil…
There’s a lot to be concerned with, but human extinction is not very high on the list. A life that’s truly “nasty, brutish and short” might be in store if things go very badly, but it would still be life, nonetheless. It’s a fairly limited perspective that only looks at extinction, but if that’s the question, then the only way humans are going to go extinct is if nearly all multicellular life goes with us. That doesn’t say anything about how limited that existence might become, though.
As far as I’m aware, no human society has ever managed to subsist on fungi, moss, and invertebrates only. For one bad season, maybe. But from cradle to grave, and for many generations, too? Hasn’t been done. Can it be done? I can’t prove that it can’t, but I’m suspicious. On the question of human survival, I tend to agree with Daniel Quinn: when ecosystems collapse, the beings that survive are not those with the largest brains, but those the lowest on the food chain, and that’s not us.
But you know, Jason, reading you, I get the sense that you haven’t quite gotten over human exceptionalism. Sooner or later, humans will go extinct, just as all other species will eventually go extinct. It might be soon or not so soon, but it’ll happen eventually. And I don’t see why the only way it could happen would be through the end of all multicellular life. Think of our cousins the Neanderthals. Foragers, omnivores, just like us. They went extinct. And it wasn’t via the end of all multicellular life, not even close.
As far as I’m aware, no human society has ever managed to subsist on fungi, moss, and invertebrates only. For one bad season, maybe. But from cradle to grave, and for many generations, too? Hasn’t been done. Can it be done?
No one’s ever had to, it’d be a miserable life. But I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work. Everything you need, physically, is there.
But you know, Jason, reading you, I get the sense that you haven’t quite gotten over human exceptionalism. Sooner or later, humans will go extinct, just as all other species will eventually go extinct. It might be soon or not so soon, but it’ll happen eventually. And I don’t see why the only way it could happen would be through the end of all multicellular life. Think of our cousins the Neanderthals. Foragers, omnivores, just like us. They went extinct. And it wasn’t via the end of all multicellular life, not even close.
Uhhh, no, not exactly. I assume that we will go extinct one day, just like everything else. We are an incredibly adaptable species, though, and like other highly adaptable species (like the cockroaches), I except some species of Homo to be milling about for quite some time. That doesn’t make us impervious, any more than the cockroack (and the cockroach will go extinct one day, too). But extinctions don’t just happen randomly, either. The expectation that we’ll go extinct is, at this point, mostly based on hand-waving.
Fungi and plants such as moss will give you very, very little energy and not too much nutrition. As for invertebrates… If you had to go around catching nothing but insects and other invertebrates in order to satisfy all your energy needs, my guess is you’d starve pretty fast. Further, you’d presumably want to cook them, no? If the only plants left are moss and such (so no wood), what are you going to burn? (Moss doesn’t burn very well, you know.) And what are you going to wear? No animal skins, remember, because all the vertebrates other than us went extinct. No clothes and no fire. So the only regions you could live in would have to be the really warm ones. Etc.
Also, there’s an enormous amount of toxic waste that we have released into the environment. As this crap increasingly enters our food chain, how do we know it won’t end up making us infertile, or if the rate of birth defects in our offspring won’t be so high as to make it impossible for us to survive? And isn’t there already an issue with the amount of B12 in the soil? How do you know this won’t get worse?
Again, I’m not trying to prove that we will go extinct in the relatively near future: I’m by no means convinced that we will! What I am arguing is that Richard Leaky (from the trailer) is right: we are in the middle of a mass extinction, and there is no guarantee that we won’t end up being one of the species going extinct. I mean, sure, we are more adaptable than songbirds, for instance, but not infinitely so, and in the face of erratic ecosystem collapse, you cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt that we won’t go extinct. (And as I pointed out in my previous post, it’s also possible that we won’t exactly go extinct, but that we will disappear from many parts of the Earth that we currently inhabit.)
Oh, and, here’s a question for you, Jason, since you insist that if fungi and moss and some invertebrates survived, we would be guaranteed to survive too: What kind of event could it be that would drive extinct every single vertebrate species other than us? Or more to the point: what kind of event is it that would be expected to spare our species alone among all vertebrates?
(I should really learn to think my entire posts through before posting, so that I just have one, rather than three posts in a row, but oh well…)
I just wanted to address the relevance of the fungi, moss, and invertebrates debate. First of all, I think that, for the near future, this scenario is extremely unlikely: rats are highly adaptable. (Though given that vertebrates have only been around for about half a billion years, while multicellular life has been around two-to-three times as long, it is by no means impossible that, at some point in the Earth’s future, there will no longer be any vertebrates but multicellular life will still be around. It is even more likely that, at some point in the future, there will be plenty of life - vertebrates included - on this planet, but no species of Homo) But the point I’m trying to make is this: we intimately depend on the beings that we coevolved with. And we coevolved with a lot more than fungi, moss, and invertebrates. To be sure, we can survive in a changed environment; but changed to what extent? We don’t know that. We cannot know that in advance. The fact, Jason, that you are suggesting that we would ‘obviously’ survive without all these beings (large animals etc.) suggests to me that you haven’t rid yourself of the idea of human exceptionalism.
So I’m feeling verbose today, so let me throw out a few points here….
Fungi and plants such as moss will give you very, very little energy and not too much nutrition.
Funig is *incredibly* nutritious. Loaded with protein in particular, and trace vitamins and minerals to boot.
If you had to go around catching nothing but insects and other invertebrates in order to satisfy all your energy needs, my guess is you’d starve pretty fast.
Again… insects are also loaded with protein and fats, then stop and thick about sea invertabrates: very healthy indeed.
Further, you’d presumably want to cook them, no? If the only plants left are moss and such (so no wood), what are you going to burn? (Moss doesn’t burn very well, you know.)
Cooking is optional. But just the same… moss certainly DOES burn well. Often dried moss is used as kindling if you are inclined to keep a flint and tinder set. Of just stop for a moment and consider peat moss. Another common burnable substitute for wood: cow pies. Human faeces may be even less appealing, but it could probably be done….
And what are you going to wear? No animal skins, remember, because all the vertebrates other than us went extinct.
Now that is a valid concern…. but there is still fiber, so I’m sure some groups would find a way to make it all work.
In any case, regardless of probabilities or trying to read the future…. I don’t worry too much about whether humans will survive. I just *assume* that we will, because if we don’t… well, that’s not a goal to work toward, neh? So I work toward a positive vision and don’t much worry about the possibility that we will fail………
Fungi are high in protein, but it was my understanding (or was I misinformed?) that this protein is not absorbed too well by human beings, and that, therefore, you really shouldn’t be relying on fungi for your protein needs. And certainly, you couldn’t satisfy your calorie needs from fungi and moss. As for insects, well, yes, they are nutritious, but the question is, how easy are they to catch? Can you really have insects and oysters and shrimp (if the latter two groups don’t go extinct to begin with…) satisfy all of your calorie needs? From cradle to grave? Through pregnancy? For small children? I’m not convinced.
And yeah, I suppose dry moss would burn well… Though I still wonder. Fungi and moss mean a very humid environment, no? How successful would you be getting moss to dry…?
For clothes… What kind of fiber would you rely on? (Can you wear moss?)
But actually, I feel somewhat silly even participating in this (fungi/moss/invertebrates) discussion. I’ll repeat my earlier question:
[quote] What kind of event could it be that would drive extinct every single vertebrate species other than us? Or more to the point: what kind of event is it that would be expected to spare our species alone among all vertebrates? [/quote]
Seriously. If there’s nothing other than insects and such to eat, it seems to me that insectivores with bodies and (especially) brains smaller than ours would easily outcompete us. I mean, if you don’t have large prey animals that you need to track and then kill, if you don’t have a wide variety of plant foods to gather, then it seems to me that our large, energy-expensive brains would be maladaptive, and that our less brainy (distant) relatives would outcompete us.
Finally, concerning:
[quote]In any case, regardless of probabilities or trying to read the future…. I don’t worry too much about whether humans will survive. I just *assume* that we will, because if we don’t… well, that’s not a goal to work toward, neh? So I work toward a positive vision and don’t much worry about the possibility that we will fail………[/quote]
When it comes to just assuming that humans will survive… Well, there are two very different cases. Are you already working toward a future that is likely to ensure human survival? In that case, it might just be best (the most useful/productive) not to dwell on the possibility of human extinction. If, on the other hand, you are just trying to preserve the status quo (which is what the vast majority of people in this culture - though not on this blog - want), then assuming that we won’t go extinct makes the whole situation all that much worse. (And then there are various intermediate cases, but I don’t want to go into that right now…)
Not to beat the whole fungi/moss/invertebrates questions to death, but the nutrition angle is important to me, and I also wonder how well we’d be able to do long term with that. I mean, lots of vegans fall off (myself included) because they’re unable to meet their body’s needs with a somewhat restricted diet that still has lots of plant and fngal matter. The invertebrates make this an imperfect analogy, but as hasha mentioned, we did evolve in a context with lots of other species, and our needs evolved based on what our environment was. Yeah, we’re super adaptable, but I also don’t think that such a limited food base would ensure our survival. I mean, don’t we need lots of nutrient and calorie dense animal foods (typically vertebrates) for our brains to function? In the absence of that, can we surive? And even if we do survive, might we have to evolve substantially such that we’re no longer humans as we understand them today?
Insects can be pretty easy to gather, especially the really social ones. A wet stick in an ant hill can give you quite a bit. They provide a lot of nutrients for sometimes very little energy input.
Not that this would be a satisfying or even a particularly healthy diet, but it would be adequate.
And no one ever said that it’d just be moss, insects, fungi and humans, either. Humans are our current focus, but given moss, insects and fungi, there’s a number of other animals that would have everything they need as well; rats are an excellent example.
Rather than the modern American, consider a group like the Bushmen. They might migrate along with their shifting ecosystem, but if there’s no place on earth that’s at least as abundant as the Kalahari Desert, then we’re talking about a shift so dramatic that the survival of multicellular life itself comes into question. And if it’s less dramatic than that, then that means that at least the most abundant regions on the planet will provide a level of resources at least equal to some of the places where foragers live now. If it’s possible, then someone will try it. You may see a human population in the hundreds, living lives that are nasty, brutish and short, but if there’s not even enough for that, then I have to wonder what kind of scenario that would be, where the life still has much of anything beyond bacteria, where there’s no place on earth as abundant as the Arctic or the Kalahari.
Again, as I said, multicellular life has been around more than twice as long as vertebrates have, which means that multicellular life is perfectly capable of going on without us (vertebrates), but obviously not the other way around. If, for instance, something managed to kill off the B12 producing bacteria, all vertebrates would go with them, but not necessarily all of multicellular life.
Further, you really need to keep in mind that human extinction need not come about through outright starvation. If you manage to poison your environment enough, you’ll wind up not being able to reproduce at all, or if still able to reproduce, with too many birth defects to keep humankind afloat. Also, the carrying capacity for humans needs to be high enough to allow for population densities that don’t lead to excessive inbreeding. Otherwise, you wind up with a pile of birth defects, plus the severely reduced genetic diversity means that a single disease could kill off the entire human population. I strongly suspect that this is what would happen if you wound up with a global human population numbering in the hundreds only.
Again, as I said, multicellular life has been around more than twice as long as vertebrates have, which means that multicellular life is perfectly capable of going on without us (vertebrates), but obviously not the other way around.
Obviously, but we’re basically talking about trophic levels. If we go extinct, as omnivorous as we are, that means that our trophic level closed; and that means that the level of invertebrate multicellular life is itself going extinct. For example, eucalyptus trees were around long before koalas, but for koalas to go extinct from lack of resources, you’d need to drive eucalyptus extinct, too, otherwise some koalas would survive on whatever eucalyptus trees were left. If there’s still invertebrate, multicellular life around, then some human will use it to survive.
If, for instance, something managed to kill off the B12 producing bacteria, all vertebrates would go with them, but not necessarily all of multicellular life.
That would be true. Bizarre in its specificity, but true. That seems somewhere in the same category as gamma rays from space that suddenly make every woman on the planet infertile. That’d drive us to extincton, too, but how is that going to really happen with that kind of specificity?
If you manage to poison your environment enough, you’ll wind up not being able to reproduce at all, or if still able to reproduce, with too many birth defects to keep humankind afloat.
We’re not dumping specifically human anti-fertility poisons, though, so how did we manage to make it so polluted that all humans become infertile, yet there’s still an intact fungi kingdom, plant kingdom, insects? Again, this is a specificity that really belongs in science fiction.
Also, the carrying capacity for humans needs to be high enough to allow for population densities that don’t lead to excessive inbreeding. Otherwise, you wind up with a pile of birth defects, plus the severely reduced genetic diversity means that a single disease could kill off the entire human population.
Exactly; it’s a matter of trophic levels. So, given how wide the omnivore’s foundation is, how do you close that trophic level without killing off all multicellular life on the planet in the process? You’re going to need a planet so far gone that the Kalahari looks like a verdant paradise, and at that point, what has survived at all?
I strongly suspect that this is what would happen if you wound up with a global human population numbering in the hundreds only.
You’d be wrong; this has happened before, of course. It can get tricky, but the incidence of birth defects from inbreeding has been generally exaggerated in our culture. A second cousin is already pretty safe, genetically. A hundred or so can be perfectly viable. It’s when you drop to a dozen or so that you start to run into trouble.
It is my understanding that the concentration of B12 in water and soil has already dropped somewhat. The intensification of the cause of this could conceivably lead to the extinction of the B12 producing bacteria, so I don’t think it’s fair to say that this belongs in the domain of science fiction, at least not in the disparaging sort of way.
As for infertility, well, human sperm counts are already dropping: in Western men, they are now something like 50% (or maybe it was 70% - I can’t quite recall) of what they were less than a century ago. (Matt Savinar at LATOC occasionally posts stories about this, so if you check his web site regularly, then you know what I’m referring to.) Now, we have an island of plastic twice the size of Texas in the Pacific, and similar plastic islands in other oceans. All of this will eventually enter the food chain. (Plastic has, of course, already entered the food chain; but then, as I pointed out, sperm counts are already dropping, too; we are here talking about the intensification of this trend.) Also, at the industrial civilization collapses, all of our nuclear waste, now carefully managed (though of course, not carefully enough; as if you could be careful enough when it comes to that crap!) will eventually be released into the environment at large. And we’ve got a lot of nuclear waste around. When such high doses enter the water we drink and the food we eat, well, we don’t really know what happens…
It is my understanding that the concentration of B12 in water and soil has already dropped somewhat.
So has life on earth as a whole, so that’s to be expected, but you’re talking about no B12 anywhere, yet multicellular life goes on. A goodly portion of the bacteria need to go to wipe out B12, so the science fiction label is pretty fair.
As for infertility, well, human sperm counts are already dropping: in Western men, they are now something like 50% (or maybe it was 70% - I can’t quite recall) of what they were less than a century ago.
As I’d expect, but again, dropping, largely due to urban lifestyle. Not everyone lives in the city, and dropping is very different from gone. To reach the point where the radiation is so pervasive that even country boys are all shooting blanks would require a level of radiation so high that nothing else would survive it, either–unless we’re back to the sci-fi, human sperm-seeking radiation.
Also, at the industrial civilization collapses, all of our nuclear waste, now carefully managed (though of course, not carefully enough; as if you could be careful enough when it comes to that crap!) will eventually be released into the environment at large. And we’ve got a lot of nuclear waste around. When such high doses enter the water we drink and the food we eat, well, we don’t really know what happens…
Sure we do: we’ll get irradiated. So how is it that this radiation wipes out all humans everywhere, even those living in the Arctic or the Kalahari far, far away from any of them, and yet leaves room for fungi and mosses and insects? They’ll be irradiated by all of this, too.
I’m not saying these are pleasant scenarios, but humans are some of the most adaptable animals the earth has ever seen. If humans can’t make it, then there’s not much hope for much of anything else in the multicellular world, because we’re about as adaptable as multicellular life comes.
As plastic enters the food chain in the ocean, that plastic gets distributed everywhere, from pole to pole. (Remember that, as mercury entered the marine food chain, the native peoples of northern Canada and Alaska wound up being among the most severely affected groups, even though they are by no means urban populations. As the two Texases of plastic from the Pacific enter the food chain, living in a rural area won’t necessarily save you.) As plutonium enters the underground water, that plutonium gets distributed all over the globe. And yeah, sure, we know what happens then: we get irradiated. But how severe are the consequences of the radiation? We don’t and cannot know that in advance.
As culture-bearing animals, we are indeed very adaptable in terms of lifestyle. The fact remains that rats and cockroaches can withstand far greater radiation than we can. And as time passes, it is perfectly possible (likely?) that the effects of the poisons that we have released into the environment will get worse, rather than better. (Delayed effect. Much as with global warming.) How severe are those likely to be? We don’t know that. We just don’t. And if they’re severe enough, the fact that we are culture-bearing omnivores won’t save us.
Also… When it comes to the scenario of a few hundred humans left on the planet. First of all, that means that you’re assuming that they’re all more or less clustered together? If you’re talking about a few hundred humans dispersed in a dozen or so regions that are too far from each other to allow for intermarriage, you wind up with a good deal of genetic trouble. If you’re talking about a few hundred humans in close proximity… You still wind up with an increased incidence of birth defects, though, fair enough, it might not be bad enough to jeopardize the survival of the whole species. Nevertheless, humans become quite vulnerable under such circumstances: while you might still have enough viable offspring to ensure the survival of the species, you still wind up with major decrease in genetic diversity. Smallpox killed what, 90% of the Indians exposed to it? If you get a single disease that kills 90% of the few hundred humans left, then the human population is simply never going to recover.
As plastic enters the food chain in the ocean, that plastic gets distributed everywhere, from pole to pole.
Right, so how are humans going to be the only ones affected by this? How are humans going to go extinct, and rats won’t?
The fact remains that rats and cockroaches can withstand far greater radiation than we can.
Is that really true? I’m skeptical. If that’s true, then that would be one way that humans would die out while rats and cockroaches survive, but I don’t think that’s true. Yes, rats and cockroaches survive radiation exposure, but so do we. Humans survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There really is a perfectly normal, healthy level of radiation, and we can withstand significant amounts of it before we show any problem, and a good deal more than that before it kills us.
How severe are those likely to be? We don’t know that. We just don’t. And if they’re severe enough, the fact that we are culture-bearing omnivores won’t save us.
It could. There’s no evidence that it will, and it would require a unique breakdown in the world’s ecology, but anything’s possible. But if it does get that bad, how is anything else going to survive it?
When it comes to the scenario of a few hundred humans left on the planet. First of all, that means that you’re assuming that they’re all more or less clustered together?
A fair assumption, given the extreme apocalyptic scenario you’re painting: it’s either the south pole or a narrow strip of the equator, so a worldwide population of a few hundred would mean two or three communities of 25-50. There are endangered animals holding on today with numbers like that.
Nevertheless, humans become quite vulnerable under such circumstances: while you might still have enough viable offspring to ensure the survival of the species, you still wind up with major decrease in genetic diversity. Smallpox killed what, 90% of the Indians exposed to it? If you get a single disease that kills 90% of the few hundred humans left, then the human population is simply never going to recover.
Could well be, but you’d still be talking about a scenario so drastic where you’re knocking off some of the very last multicellular life on the planet.
[quote]It is popularly suggested that cockroaches will “inherit the earth” if humanity destroys itself in a nuclear war. Cockroaches do indeed have a much higher radiation resistance than vertebrates, with the lethal dose perhaps 6 to 15 times that for humans. However, they are not exceptionally radiation-resistant compared to other insects, such as the fruit fly.
The cockroach’s ability to withstand radiation better than human beings can be explained in terms of the cell cycle. Cells are more vulnerable to effects of radiation when they are dividing. A cockroach’s cells divide only once when in its molting cycle, which at most happens weekly. The cells of the cockroach take roughly 48 hours to complete a molting cycle, which would give time enough for radiation to affect it but not all cockroaches would be molting at the same time. This would mean some would be unaffected by the initial radiation and thus survive, at least until the fallout arrived.[/quote]
I spent a couple of minutes trying to find the info on rats and radiation; haven’t found anything of interest, one way or another. Regardless, as the passage above suggests, it is by no means true that all living beings (or all multicellular living beings) are impacted by radiation to the same extant; some are a lot more vulnerable than others.
[quote]Right, so how are humans going to be the only ones affected by this?[/quote]
Who said humans would be the only ones affected? We are in the middle of a mass extinction: at least 200 species a day are being affected to the point of extinction each day by the byproducts of human activity. All I’m suggesting is that we are no more resistant to some of the mess that we’ve created than your average multicellular being.
All right, so insects will do better in a nuclear holocaust.
All I’m suggesting is that we are no more resistant to some of the mess that we’ve created than your average multicellular being.
But we are–we’re nomadic omnivores, with a culture to boot. Are you really suggesting that we’ve got equal odds with the koala?
And there’s the point. We’re so far down the road of nightmare scenarios, what’s the point? If it gets that bad, who will want to survive, anyway? And besides, to get here, we’ve had to ignore the fact that as much damage as humans have done, the earth as an ecosystem is a powerful thing in its own right. We could argue this endlessly, but what’s the point? This mass extinction isn’t happening “just ’cause,” it’s happening because civilization is pushing it along, and civilization is fragile—dependent on a Holocene climate and a handful of fickle, closely-related, domesticated species. When civilization stops, the earth begins healing itself almost immediately. The air quality doubles in just 24 hours. Humans, and the earth, are a lot hardier than civilization could ever be. Even the most extreme predictions, like Lovelock’s, don’t go far enough to wipe out life on earth, or even Homo sapiens. You need to make Lovelock look like an optimist to get to that point, and I think even Lovelock is underestimating the planet’s ability to regulate itself.
I didn’t say that we didn’t have better chances of surviving than koalas - that would be absurd. Read what I said:
[quote]All I’m suggesting is that we are no more resistant to some of the mess that we’ve created than your average multicellular being.[/quote]
I deliberately italicized the word ‘some’. And by ‘some’, I mean plastics and radiation, for instance. If toxins don’t wipe us out, and if Lovelock doesn’t turn out to be an optimist climate-wise, then as a species, we do indeed have pretty good chances of survival. Again, I’m not claiming that we’ll go extinct. I am saying that you cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt that we won’t. I’m not saying any more or any less than that.
As for:
[quote]We’re so far down the road of nightmare scenarios, what’s the point? If it gets that bad, who will want to survive, anyway?[/quote]
All I’m suggesting is that we are no more resistant to some of the mess that we’ve created than your average multicellular being.
Yes, but being such adaptable things, we’re actually quite a bit above average. Not invulnerable, not divinely blessed, but certainly above average.
I am saying that you cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt that we won’t. I’m not saying any more or any less than that.
But I do think it’s fairly clear that if humans can’t survive, there won’t be much surviving, anyway. Devastation on that kind of scale would be well beyond our ability to handle anyway. If it’s that much worse than what everyone has so far predicted, then it’s already too late, and has been for decades, so what sense is there in worrying about that?
…and if Lovelock doesn’t turn out to be an optimist climate-wise…
Mind you, Lovelock has the most extreme position out there, so if it’s worse than he expects, that means it’s worse than anyone is predicting right now.
Since we are so adaptable lifestyle-wise, we are quite a bit above average in terms of many, many potential adversities, at least as far as mammals and birds go. There are, however, some threats for which we are no better suited than koalas: plastics, radiation, and other toxins. If these wind up being the lead killers, then our chances of survival plummet, because then, survival starts being about tissue resistance, and not about lifestyle.
As for Lovelock, oh I know he’s pretty extreme. The comment on Lovelock being an optimist was made with tongue in cheek.
Okay, so this is totally off topic and I apologize for posting it in this thread, but I don’t know where else to post…? I just wanted to say I found the debate between you (Jason) and John Michael Greer over at the Archdruid Report blog quite fascinating; you last post was especially strong, and I consider myself lucky to have read it before JMG apparently realized he’d lost the debate and therefore removed it… Would you consider writing a post on Anthropik.com that would summerize the debate, so that it’s not completely lost now that it’s been removed from JMG’s blog?
Wow. I’m beside myself. I can hardly believe that.
I used to have a lot of respect for John Michael Greer. Now … not so much.
We’ve had plenty of hairy threads around here, but no matter how heated it got, I never pulled anything like that.
I’m afraid I didn’t save my post anywhere else. Who would have expected Greer to suddenly sink to that level? At this point, those who are still permitted to speak in the thread are congratulating themselves over “facts” like agriculture causing no mass extinctions or global warming prior to industrialism, the mass extinctions hunter-gatherers caused as proven by the “Overkill Theory,” and the sustainability of agriculture in Japan and southern Europe. And, apparently, should I take the time to rebut those “facts” with actual evidence, that work is deleted because it’s not right-thinking. (Suffice to say, none of these “facts” are actually true.)
[quote]Jason, you surely know that comparing opposing viewpoints to Nazism is the generally recognized internet signal that rational discourse has come to an end.[/quote]
Right. He so pulled that out of context, and now that your post is gone, a person reading the comments from that thread just ends up with ‘Jason compared JMG to the Nazis, and JMG reacted reasonably by removing his post.’ How convenient…
It is really unfortunate though that you didn’t save that post. It was a strong post that, as far as I’m concerned, adequately addressed all the objections raised to your earlier arguments.
I noticed, and I’m pretty angry. Especially since what I said was that his comparison of primitivism to an apocalyptic cult is no more fair than me comparing him to the Nazis. In both cases, yes, there’s a certain amount of shared history and narrative, but you’re picking the most extreme comparisons possible. It’s a caricature, and it’s useless. That’s hardly an example of Godwin’s Rule, that’s an illustration of how far off-base his treatment of primitivism is.
But primitivists are, apparently, banned from the Archdruid Report. I ammended the link in Anthropik’s directory to warn others: “John Michael Greer’s blog, defending the notion of a long collapse. Warning: Greer often makes ill-informed, disparaging insinuations about primitivists, but he has made it clear that primitivists are not permitted to respond in his comments. Defenses against his attacks will be deleted.”
[quote]I ammended the link in Anthropik’s directory to warn others: “John Michael Greer’s blog, defending the notion of a long collapse. Warning: Greer often makes ill-informed, disparaging insinuations about primitivists, but he has made it clear that primitivists are not permitted to respond in his comments. Defenses against his attacks will be deleted.”[/quote]
On the bright side (and I’ll admit, it’s a pretty small bright side), now I know that the deleted comments on his blog may not actually be objectionable.
Yeah, I lost a lot of respect there too. I did get to read the post before deletion, and agree w/ Hasha: it was a good, strong rebuttal. While it was certainly, uh, “strongly worded”, it wasn’t offensive. I would maybe be more or less okay, except for the snide insinuation left after deletion. That’s pretty much unforgivable in my book.
[quote]I would maybe be more or less okay, except for the snide insinuation left after deletion. That’s pretty much unforgivable in my book. [/quote]
Yeah, I tend to agree with that. That business about Jason comparing him to the Nazis was really below the belt. An unjustifiable and unforgivable attack on Jason’s reputation. At least for this, JMG owes Jason an apology. I’d go over to the Archdruid Report and say so, but I very much suspect it would fall on deaf ears.
Have we podfaded? Honestly, yes. We still harbor plans to bring back the podcast, once we have a place where we can record! Expect us back sometime in 2008.
The Directory gathers links to some of the best rewilding and primitivist sites we know of, gathers them in one place. Syndicated from the Anthropik Ma.gnolia Group.
Hey, taxes, hunting & fishing licenses and all the rest cost money. Besides, you'll need field guides, books, and some other gear anyway. The indigenous peoples of the world have spoken: the most useful thing to come out of civilization is the t-shirt.
Except that no one really cares. And the “if we all just believe hard enough” bullshit is such a pipe dream I don’t even know how to respond to it. They maintain the myth of human exceptionalism, the idea that we somehow inherited the earth and that this “problem” belongs to us and that we must come up with a “solution.” Except there is no problem, and there is no solution, this is just what happens. Populations rise and fall. Mass extinctions happen. Life and death both happen. All this talk of preservation seems to be just another desperate attempt at maintaining status quo, ceasing change, attempting to stymy evolutionary cycles of life and death, rise and fall. NOT GONNA HAPPEN.
Exercises in futility piss me off.
Comment by Devin — 24 May 2007 @ 6:24 PM
Well, this mass extinction didn’t just happen. We caused it, and because of that, we own a certain amount of that. Yes, life and death both happen, but that doesn’t justify a serial killer, and it doesn’t justify civilization.
I was kind of put off by the ending, too, but decided to post it anyway for the earlier stuff on the extent of the mass extinction, and the brief touch on ecopsychology.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 24 May 2007 @ 6:56 PM
Not a justification, merely an observation. Can we not look at civilization without judgment, merely noting it as a phenomenon, a system? I don’t see civilization or serial killers as BAD, nor do I make any attempt to justify it/them.
“We” caused it? First of all, who is this we, and second of all, what caused humans? Of course it just happened. A blame game in this instance doesn’t seem particularly helpful. What are you going to get mad at, anyway? “Civilization” is too large of a system to blame, to get angry at, to attribute any cause and effect to. We do not say that the head of a cat causes the tail, we say that the head and the tail are both part of the same cat. I see the reinforcing feedback loop of civilization and mass extinction as the same system. Seeing this mass extinction as “our fault” is not helpful. It is merely another aspect of the cycle of life and death.
Attempting to take responsibility for something of this magnitude simply leaves one feeling guilty for failing. I’m not a big fan of despair.
Comment by Devin — 24 May 2007 @ 9:31 PM
From the aloof, detached perspective of some distant god, that point of view might have some merit. But you and I are down here in the midst of it. We’re part of that system, we contribute to it. Animism is all about recognizing the personhood of complex systems, and persons act kindly or viciously. Civilization is a system, and it has a personality, and that personality usually acts very viciously. And we’re a part of it. We feed it, we live inside of it. It doesn’t have to lead to a sense of guilt for failing, but it should always stick in the back of your mind and drive you forward that because we helped make this beast, it falls to us to do what we can to put it down.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 25 May 2007 @ 9:48 AM
Then we move into a realm not of “responsibility” and “ownership”, but of personal power and solidarity. This is us. We are it. We are here. This is happening. Let’s.
Comment by Devin — 25 May 2007 @ 5:27 PM
I suppose that question turns more on how you define responsibility, then.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 25 May 2007 @ 5:29 PM
See, this (the fact that we are in the middle of a mass extinction) is why I get annoyed with people (a la John Michael Greer, for example) who claim that we are in for a long collapse, a new dark age, some kind of recovery of civilization etc., people who scoff at the ‘apocalyptic’ bunch. (Hell, I’m even annoyed when Jason claims that humanity will survive.) Sure, we’ve seen a bunch of civilizations fail, we know more or less how the process generally unfolds; but has any one of those previous civilizations collapsed in the middle of a mass extinction? I mean, how do we know that our current situation resembles that of the Roman empire more than it resembles that of the dinosaurs?
Mind you, I do not claim that humanity will not survive, and I am not even claiming that the collapse will not be long (though I am somewhat inclined to believe that it won’t be as long as any previous one, if for no other reason, than because the growth was, in our case, much steeper than ever before). When it comes to these questions (especially the former), I declare myself an agnostic. Frankly, I don’t see how one could be anything else. I mean, sure, you can think that one of the two outcomes is somewhat more likely than the other. But to claim either that we will or that we won’t survive as a species, that just goes on my nerves.
Comment by Hasha — 25 May 2007 @ 10:00 PM
If humans can’t survive, then we’re really in for it. Humans are surviving right now in the Arctic and the Kalahari. If the whole world becomes more desolate than the Arctic, then we’re talking about the end of all multicellular life anyway, and if it’s less desolate than that, then that means there will be somewhere on earth with resources equal to or better than places where humans are surviving now, so odds of survival are good in that case. So, the case in which humans can’t survive is something hardly worth worrying about, because that’s the scenario where nothing survives.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 May 2007 @ 12:24 PM
Well, I don’t know that I quite agree with that, Jason. End of multicellular life? Nah. Multicellular life will most likely be around a lot longer than we will. (Think fungi. Think moss. Think invertebrates of various sorts.) Nevertheless, it is true that humans are pretty adaptable, at least as far as large animals go.
But see, when I say I get annoyed with people just assuming that we will ‘obviously’ survive (as a species), the reason for that is actually practical. Our survival, while most definitely not entirely in our hands, is not entirely out of our hands either. A few years more or less of life’s simple pleasures a la nuclear weapons (for instance) might just make a difference. Hell, a few years more or less of coal exploitation might make a difference! Basically, I get annoyed with people de facto saying ‘relax, there’s nothing to worry about’, when in fact, different courses of action lead to different, in some cases (that are not easy to identify in advance) vastly different, outcomes.
Also, one thing that I got from the trailer is that we shouldn’t be concerned about species only, but also about populations. Take a random species. Homo sapiens, say. The question is not simply whether, a decade/century/millennium from there will be H. sapiens somewhere on the globe, but also whether there will be H. sapiens in equatorial areas, in polar areas, in Australia, in Brazil…
Comment by Hasha — 26 May 2007 @ 10:26 PM
So, if fungi, moss, and invertebrates are still around, that means that the climate’s in survivable parameters, and there’s food around (fungi, moss and invertebrates), so where did the humans go? Might be a lot smaller, being at a higher trophic level and possibly subsisting off of a smaller base, but it’s enough for human survival.
What is it in those scenarios that would lead to human extinction? Even the worst nuclear scenarios only kill a fraction of the population from blasts or fallout; the majority die from the nuclear winter that follows, and lack of food. But if the nuclear winter’s not so severe that it kills off everything, then that means there will be places warmer than the Arctic, and there’s still life to sustain us. So, wherefore extinction?
There’s a lot to be concerned with, but human extinction is not very high on the list. A life that’s truly “nasty, brutish and short” might be in store if things go very badly, but it would still be life, nonetheless. It’s a fairly limited perspective that only looks at extinction, but if that’s the question, then the only way humans are going to go extinct is if nearly all multicellular life goes with us. That doesn’t say anything about how limited that existence might become, though.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 May 2007 @ 10:44 PM
As far as I’m aware, no human society has ever managed to subsist on fungi, moss, and invertebrates only. For one bad season, maybe. But from cradle to grave, and for many generations, too? Hasn’t been done. Can it be done? I can’t prove that it can’t, but I’m suspicious. On the question of human survival, I tend to agree with Daniel Quinn: when ecosystems collapse, the beings that survive are not those with the largest brains, but those the lowest on the food chain, and that’s not us.
But you know, Jason, reading you, I get the sense that you haven’t quite gotten over human exceptionalism. Sooner or later, humans will go extinct, just as all other species will eventually go extinct. It might be soon or not so soon, but it’ll happen eventually. And I don’t see why the only way it could happen would be through the end of all multicellular life. Think of our cousins the Neanderthals. Foragers, omnivores, just like us. They went extinct. And it wasn’t via the end of all multicellular life, not even close.
Comment by Hasha — 26 May 2007 @ 11:39 PM
No one’s ever had to, it’d be a miserable life. But I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work. Everything you need, physically, is there.
Uhhh, no, not exactly. I assume that we will go extinct one day, just like everything else. We are an incredibly adaptable species, though, and like other highly adaptable species (like the cockroaches), I except some species of Homo to be milling about for quite some time. That doesn’t make us impervious, any more than the cockroack (and the cockroach will go extinct one day, too). But extinctions don’t just happen randomly, either. The expectation that we’ll go extinct is, at this point, mostly based on hand-waving.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 May 2007 @ 12:51 AM
Fungi and plants such as moss will give you very, very little energy and not too much nutrition. As for invertebrates… If you had to go around catching nothing but insects and other invertebrates in order to satisfy all your energy needs, my guess is you’d starve pretty fast. Further, you’d presumably want to cook them, no? If the only plants left are moss and such (so no wood), what are you going to burn? (Moss doesn’t burn very well, you know.) And what are you going to wear? No animal skins, remember, because all the vertebrates other than us went extinct. No clothes and no fire. So the only regions you could live in would have to be the really warm ones. Etc.
Also, there’s an enormous amount of toxic waste that we have released into the environment. As this crap increasingly enters our food chain, how do we know it won’t end up making us infertile, or if the rate of birth defects in our offspring won’t be so high as to make it impossible for us to survive? And isn’t there already an issue with the amount of B12 in the soil? How do you know this won’t get worse?
Again, I’m not trying to prove that we will go extinct in the relatively near future: I’m by no means convinced that we will! What I am arguing is that Richard Leaky (from the trailer) is right: we are in the middle of a mass extinction, and there is no guarantee that we won’t end up being one of the species going extinct. I mean, sure, we are more adaptable than songbirds, for instance, but not infinitely so, and in the face of erratic ecosystem collapse, you cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt that we won’t go extinct. (And as I pointed out in my previous post, it’s also possible that we won’t exactly go extinct, but that we will disappear from many parts of the Earth that we currently inhabit.)
Comment by Hasha — 27 May 2007 @ 9:02 AM
Oh, and, here’s a question for you, Jason, since you insist that if fungi and moss and some invertebrates survived, we would be guaranteed to survive too: What kind of event could it be that would drive extinct every single vertebrate species other than us? Or more to the point: what kind of event is it that would be expected to spare our species alone among all vertebrates?
Comment by Hasha — 27 May 2007 @ 9:23 AM
(I should really learn to think my entire posts through before posting, so that I just have one, rather than three posts in a row, but oh well…)
I just wanted to address the relevance of the fungi, moss, and invertebrates debate. First of all, I think that, for the near future, this scenario is extremely unlikely: rats are highly adaptable. (Though given that vertebrates have only been around for about half a billion years, while multicellular life has been around two-to-three times as long, it is by no means impossible that, at some point in the Earth’s future, there will no longer be any vertebrates but multicellular life will still be around. It is even more likely that, at some point in the future, there will be plenty of life - vertebrates included - on this planet, but no species of Homo) But the point I’m trying to make is this: we intimately depend on the beings that we coevolved with. And we coevolved with a lot more than fungi, moss, and invertebrates. To be sure, we can survive in a changed environment; but changed to what extent? We don’t know that. We cannot know that in advance. The fact, Jason, that you are suggesting that we would ‘obviously’ survive without all these beings (large animals etc.) suggests to me that you haven’t rid yourself of the idea of human exceptionalism.
Comment by Hasha — 27 May 2007 @ 10:19 AM
Hey –
So I’m feeling verbose today, so let me throw out a few points here….
Funig is *incredibly* nutritious. Loaded with protein in particular, and trace vitamins and minerals to boot.
Again… insects are also loaded with protein and fats, then stop and thick about sea invertabrates: very healthy indeed.
Cooking is optional. But just the same… moss certainly DOES burn well. Often dried moss is used as kindling if you are inclined to keep a flint and tinder set. Of just stop for a moment and consider peat moss. Another common burnable substitute for wood: cow pies. Human faeces may be even less appealing, but it could probably be done….
Now that is a valid concern…. but there is still fiber, so I’m sure some groups would find a way to make it all work.
In any case, regardless of probabilities or trying to read the future…. I don’t worry too much about whether humans will survive. I just *assume* that we will, because if we don’t… well, that’s not a goal to work toward, neh? So I work toward a positive vision and don’t much worry about the possibility that we will fail………
Janene
Comment by janene — 27 May 2007 @ 1:03 PM
Fungi are high in protein, but it was my understanding (or was I misinformed?) that this protein is not absorbed too well by human beings, and that, therefore, you really shouldn’t be relying on fungi for your protein needs. And certainly, you couldn’t satisfy your calorie needs from fungi and moss. As for insects, well, yes, they are nutritious, but the question is, how easy are they to catch? Can you really have insects and oysters and shrimp (if the latter two groups don’t go extinct to begin with…) satisfy all of your calorie needs? From cradle to grave? Through pregnancy? For small children? I’m not convinced.
And yeah, I suppose dry moss would burn well… Though I still wonder. Fungi and moss mean a very humid environment, no? How successful would you be getting moss to dry…?
For clothes… What kind of fiber would you rely on? (Can you wear moss?)
But actually, I feel somewhat silly even participating in this (fungi/moss/invertebrates) discussion. I’ll repeat my earlier question:
[quote] What kind of event could it be that would drive extinct every single vertebrate species other than us? Or more to the point: what kind of event is it that would be expected to spare our species alone among all vertebrates? [/quote]
Seriously. If there’s nothing other than insects and such to eat, it seems to me that insectivores with bodies and (especially) brains smaller than ours would easily outcompete us. I mean, if you don’t have large prey animals that you need to track and then kill, if you don’t have a wide variety of plant foods to gather, then it seems to me that our large, energy-expensive brains would be maladaptive, and that our less brainy (distant) relatives would outcompete us.
Finally, concerning:
[quote]In any case, regardless of probabilities or trying to read the future…. I don’t worry too much about whether humans will survive. I just *assume* that we will, because if we don’t… well, that’s not a goal to work toward, neh? So I work toward a positive vision and don’t much worry about the possibility that we will fail………[/quote]
When it comes to just assuming that humans will survive… Well, there are two very different cases. Are you already working toward a future that is likely to ensure human survival? In that case, it might just be best (the most useful/productive) not to dwell on the possibility of human extinction. If, on the other hand, you are just trying to preserve the status quo (which is what the vast majority of people in this culture - though not on this blog
- want), then assuming that we won’t go extinct makes the whole situation all that much worse. (And then there are various intermediate cases, but I don’t want to go into that right now…)
Comment by Hasha — 27 May 2007 @ 1:46 PM
Not to beat the whole fungi/moss/invertebrates questions to death, but the nutrition angle is important to me, and I also wonder how well we’d be able to do long term with that. I mean, lots of vegans fall off (myself included) because they’re unable to meet their body’s needs with a somewhat restricted diet that still has lots of plant and fngal matter. The invertebrates make this an imperfect analogy, but as hasha mentioned, we did evolve in a context with lots of other species, and our needs evolved based on what our environment was. Yeah, we’re super adaptable, but I also don’t think that such a limited food base would ensure our survival. I mean, don’t we need lots of nutrient and calorie dense animal foods (typically vertebrates) for our brains to function? In the absence of that, can we surive? And even if we do survive, might we have to evolve substantially such that we’re no longer humans as we understand them today?
Comment by Archangel — 27 May 2007 @ 11:24 PM
Insects can be pretty easy to gather, especially the really social ones. A wet stick in an ant hill can give you quite a bit. They provide a lot of nutrients for sometimes very little energy input.
Not that this would be a satisfying or even a particularly healthy diet, but it would be adequate.
And no one ever said that it’d just be moss, insects, fungi and humans, either. Humans are our current focus, but given moss, insects and fungi, there’s a number of other animals that would have everything they need as well; rats are an excellent example.
Rather than the modern American, consider a group like the Bushmen. They might migrate along with their shifting ecosystem, but if there’s no place on earth that’s at least as abundant as the Kalahari Desert, then we’re talking about a shift so dramatic that the survival of multicellular life itself comes into question. And if it’s less dramatic than that, then that means that at least the most abundant regions on the planet will provide a level of resources at least equal to some of the places where foragers live now. If it’s possible, then someone will try it. You may see a human population in the hundreds, living lives that are nasty, brutish and short, but if there’s not even enough for that, then I have to wonder what kind of scenario that would be, where the life still has much of anything beyond bacteria, where there’s no place on earth as abundant as the Arctic or the Kalahari.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 29 May 2007 @ 10:25 AM
Again, as I said, multicellular life has been around more than twice as long as vertebrates have, which means that multicellular life is perfectly capable of going on without us (vertebrates), but obviously not the other way around. If, for instance, something managed to kill off the B12 producing bacteria, all vertebrates would go with them, but not necessarily all of multicellular life.
Further, you really need to keep in mind that human extinction need not come about through outright starvation. If you manage to poison your environment enough, you’ll wind up not being able to reproduce at all, or if still able to reproduce, with too many birth defects to keep humankind afloat. Also, the carrying capacity for humans needs to be high enough to allow for population densities that don’t lead to excessive inbreeding. Otherwise, you wind up with a pile of birth defects, plus the severely reduced genetic diversity means that a single disease could kill off the entire human population. I strongly suspect that this is what would happen if you wound up with a global human population numbering in the hundreds only.
Comment by Hasha — 29 May 2007 @ 10:57 AM
Obviously, but we’re basically talking about trophic levels. If we go extinct, as omnivorous as we are, that means that our trophic level closed; and that means that the level of invertebrate multicellular life is itself going extinct. For example, eucalyptus trees were around long before koalas, but for koalas to go extinct from lack of resources, you’d need to drive eucalyptus extinct, too, otherwise some koalas would survive on whatever eucalyptus trees were left. If there’s still invertebrate, multicellular life around, then some human will use it to survive.
That would be true. Bizarre in its specificity, but true. That seems somewhere in the same category as gamma rays from space that suddenly make every woman on the planet infertile. That’d drive us to extincton, too, but how is that going to really happen with that kind of specificity?
We’re not dumping specifically human anti-fertility poisons, though, so how did we manage to make it so polluted that all humans become infertile, yet there’s still an intact fungi kingdom, plant kingdom, insects? Again, this is a specificity that really belongs in science fiction.
Exactly; it’s a matter of trophic levels. So, given how wide the omnivore’s foundation is, how do you close that trophic level without killing off all multicellular life on the planet in the process? You’re going to need a planet so far gone that the Kalahari looks like a verdant paradise, and at that point, what has survived at all?
You’d be wrong; this has happened before, of course. It can get tricky, but the incidence of birth defects from inbreeding has been generally exaggerated in our culture. A second cousin is already pretty safe, genetically. A hundred or so can be perfectly viable. It’s when you drop to a dozen or so that you start to run into trouble.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 29 May 2007 @ 11:08 AM
It is my understanding that the concentration of B12 in water and soil has already dropped somewhat. The intensification of the cause of this could conceivably lead to the extinction of the B12 producing bacteria, so I don’t think it’s fair to say that this belongs in the domain of science fiction, at least not in the disparaging sort of way.
As for infertility, well, human sperm counts are already dropping: in Western men, they are now something like 50% (or maybe it was 70% - I can’t quite recall) of what they were less than a century ago. (Matt Savinar at LATOC occasionally posts stories about this, so if you check his web site regularly, then you know what I’m referring to.) Now, we have an island of plastic twice the size of Texas in the Pacific, and similar plastic islands in other oceans. All of this will eventually enter the food chain. (Plastic has, of course, already entered the food chain; but then, as I pointed out, sperm counts are already dropping, too; we are here talking about the intensification of this trend.) Also, at the industrial civilization collapses, all of our nuclear waste, now carefully managed (though of course, not carefully enough; as if you could be careful enough when it comes to that crap!) will eventually be released into the environment at large. And we’ve got a lot of nuclear waste around. When such high doses enter the water we drink and the food we eat, well, we don’t really know what happens…
Comment by Hasha — 29 May 2007 @ 1:00 PM
So has life on earth as a whole, so that’s to be expected, but you’re talking about no B12 anywhere, yet multicellular life goes on. A goodly portion of the bacteria need to go to wipe out B12, so the science fiction label is pretty fair.
As I’d expect, but again, dropping, largely due to urban lifestyle. Not everyone lives in the city, and dropping is very different from gone. To reach the point where the radiation is so pervasive that even country boys are all shooting blanks would require a level of radiation so high that nothing else would survive it, either–unless we’re back to the sci-fi, human sperm-seeking radiation.
Sure we do: we’ll get irradiated. So how is it that this radiation wipes out all humans everywhere, even those living in the Arctic or the Kalahari far, far away from any of them, and yet leaves room for fungi and mosses and insects? They’ll be irradiated by all of this, too.
I’m not saying these are pleasant scenarios, but humans are some of the most adaptable animals the earth has ever seen. If humans can’t make it, then there’s not much hope for much of anything else in the multicellular world, because we’re about as adaptable as multicellular life comes.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 29 May 2007 @ 2:22 PM
As plastic enters the food chain in the ocean, that plastic gets distributed everywhere, from pole to pole. (Remember that, as mercury entered the marine food chain, the native peoples of northern Canada and Alaska wound up being among the most severely affected groups, even though they are by no means urban populations. As the two Texases of plastic from the Pacific enter the food chain, living in a rural area won’t necessarily save you.) As plutonium enters the underground water, that plutonium gets distributed all over the globe. And yeah, sure, we know what happens then: we get irradiated. But how severe are the consequences of the radiation? We don’t and cannot know that in advance.
As culture-bearing animals, we are indeed very adaptable in terms of lifestyle. The fact remains that rats and cockroaches can withstand far greater radiation than we can. And as time passes, it is perfectly possible (likely?) that the effects of the poisons that we have released into the environment will get worse, rather than better. (Delayed effect. Much as with global warming.) How severe are those likely to be? We don’t know that. We just don’t. And if they’re severe enough, the fact that we are culture-bearing omnivores won’t save us.
Comment by Hasha — 29 May 2007 @ 2:59 PM
Also… When it comes to the scenario of a few hundred humans left on the planet. First of all, that means that you’re assuming that they’re all more or less clustered together? If you’re talking about a few hundred humans dispersed in a dozen or so regions that are too far from each other to allow for intermarriage, you wind up with a good deal of genetic trouble. If you’re talking about a few hundred humans in close proximity… You still wind up with an increased incidence of birth defects, though, fair enough, it might not be bad enough to jeopardize the survival of the whole species. Nevertheless, humans become quite vulnerable under such circumstances: while you might still have enough viable offspring to ensure the survival of the species, you still wind up with major decrease in genetic diversity. Smallpox killed what, 90% of the Indians exposed to it? If you get a single disease that kills 90% of the few hundred humans left, then the human population is simply never going to recover.
Comment by Hasha — 29 May 2007 @ 3:27 PM
Right, so how are humans going to be the only ones affected by this? How are humans going to go extinct, and rats won’t?
Is that really true? I’m skeptical. If that’s true, then that would be one way that humans would die out while rats and cockroaches survive, but I don’t think that’s true. Yes, rats and cockroaches survive radiation exposure, but so do we. Humans survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There really is a perfectly normal, healthy level of radiation, and we can withstand significant amounts of it before we show any problem, and a good deal more than that before it kills us.
It could. There’s no evidence that it will, and it would require a unique breakdown in the world’s ecology, but anything’s possible. But if it does get that bad, how is anything else going to survive it?
A fair assumption, given the extreme apocalyptic scenario you’re painting: it’s either the south pole or a narrow strip of the equator, so a worldwide population of a few hundred would mean two or three communities of 25-50. There are endangered animals holding on today with numbers like that.
Could well be, but you’d still be talking about a scenario so drastic where you’re knocking off some of the very last multicellular life on the planet.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 29 May 2007 @ 3:28 PM
From the Wikipedia article on cockroaches:
[quote]It is popularly suggested that cockroaches will “inherit the earth” if humanity destroys itself in a nuclear war. Cockroaches do indeed have a much higher radiation resistance than vertebrates, with the lethal dose perhaps 6 to 15 times that for humans. However, they are not exceptionally radiation-resistant compared to other insects, such as the fruit fly.
The cockroach’s ability to withstand radiation better than human beings can be explained in terms of the cell cycle. Cells are more vulnerable to effects of radiation when they are dividing. A cockroach’s cells divide only once when in its molting cycle, which at most happens weekly. The cells of the cockroach take roughly 48 hours to complete a molting cycle, which would give time enough for radiation to affect it but not all cockroaches would be molting at the same time. This would mean some would be unaffected by the initial radiation and thus survive, at least until the fallout arrived.[/quote]
I spent a couple of minutes trying to find the info on rats and radiation; haven’t found anything of interest, one way or another. Regardless, as the passage above suggests, it is by no means true that all living beings (or all multicellular living beings) are impacted by radiation to the same extant; some are a lot more vulnerable than others.
[quote]Right, so how are humans going to be the only ones affected by this?[/quote]
Who said humans would be the only ones affected? We are in the middle of a mass extinction: at least 200 species a day are being affected to the point of extinction each day by the byproducts of human activity. All I’m suggesting is that we are no more resistant to some of the mess that we’ve created than your average multicellular being.
Comment by Hasha — 29 May 2007 @ 4:00 PM
All right, so insects will do better in a nuclear holocaust.
But we are–we’re nomadic omnivores, with a culture to boot. Are you really suggesting that we’ve got equal odds with the koala?
And there’s the point. We’re so far down the road of nightmare scenarios, what’s the point? If it gets that bad, who will want to survive, anyway? And besides, to get here, we’ve had to ignore the fact that as much damage as humans have done, the earth as an ecosystem is a powerful thing in its own right. We could argue this endlessly, but what’s the point? This mass extinction isn’t happening “just ’cause,” it’s happening because civilization is pushing it along, and civilization is fragile—dependent on a Holocene climate and a handful of fickle, closely-related, domesticated species. When civilization stops, the earth begins healing itself almost immediately. The air quality doubles in just 24 hours. Humans, and the earth, are a lot hardier than civilization could ever be. Even the most extreme predictions, like Lovelock’s, don’t go far enough to wipe out life on earth, or even Homo sapiens. You need to make Lovelock look like an optimist to get to that point, and I think even Lovelock is underestimating the planet’s ability to regulate itself.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 29 May 2007 @ 4:09 PM
I didn’t say that we didn’t have better chances of surviving than koalas - that would be absurd. Read what I said:
[quote]All I’m suggesting is that we are no more resistant to some of the mess that we’ve created than your average multicellular being.[/quote]
I deliberately italicized the word ‘some’. And by ‘some’, I mean plastics and radiation, for instance. If toxins don’t wipe us out, and if Lovelock doesn’t turn out to be an optimist climate-wise, then as a species, we do indeed have pretty good chances of survival. Again, I’m not claiming that we’ll go extinct. I am saying that you cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt that we won’t. I’m not saying any more or any less than that.
As for:
[quote]We’re so far down the road of nightmare scenarios, what’s the point? If it gets that bad, who will want to survive, anyway?[/quote]
Not me, certainly… I can’t say I disagree here.
Comment by Hasha — 29 May 2007 @ 5:50 PM
Yes, but being such adaptable things, we’re actually quite a bit above average. Not invulnerable, not divinely blessed, but certainly above average.
But I do think it’s fairly clear that if humans can’t survive, there won’t be much surviving, anyway. Devastation on that kind of scale would be well beyond our ability to handle anyway. If it’s that much worse than what everyone has so far predicted, then it’s already too late, and has been for decades, so what sense is there in worrying about that?
Mind you, Lovelock has the most extreme position out there, so if it’s worse than he expects, that means it’s worse than anyone is predicting right now.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 29 May 2007 @ 5:56 PM
Since we are so adaptable lifestyle-wise, we are quite a bit above average in terms of many, many potential adversities, at least as far as mammals and birds go. There are, however, some threats for which we are no better suited than koalas: plastics, radiation, and other toxins. If these wind up being the lead killers, then our chances of survival plummet, because then, survival starts being about tissue resistance, and not about lifestyle.
As for Lovelock, oh I know he’s pretty extreme. The comment on Lovelock being an optimist was made with tongue in cheek.
Comment by Hasha — 29 May 2007 @ 6:07 PM
Okay, so this is totally off topic and I apologize for posting it in this thread, but I don’t know where else to post…? I just wanted to say I found the debate between you (Jason) and John Michael Greer over at the Archdruid Report blog quite fascinating; you last post was especially strong, and I consider myself lucky to have read it before JMG apparently realized he’d lost the debate and therefore removed it… Would you consider writing a post on Anthropik.com that would summerize the debate, so that it’s not completely lost now that it’s been removed from JMG’s blog?
Comment by Hasha — 29 May 2007 @ 8:59 PM
He removed it?
Wow. I’m beside myself. I can hardly believe that.
I used to have a lot of respect for John Michael Greer. Now … not so much.
We’ve had plenty of hairy threads around here, but no matter how heated it got, I never pulled anything like that.
I’m afraid I didn’t save my post anywhere else. Who would have expected Greer to suddenly sink to that level? At this point, those who are still permitted to speak in the thread are congratulating themselves over “facts” like agriculture causing no mass extinctions or global warming prior to industrialism, the mass extinctions hunter-gatherers caused as proven by the “Overkill Theory,” and the sustainability of agriculture in Japan and southern Europe. And, apparently, should I take the time to rebut those “facts” with actual evidence, that work is deleted because it’s not right-thinking. (Suffice to say, none of these “facts” are actually true.)
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 May 2007 @ 10:15 AM
Yeah. And did you see what he wrote?
[quote]Jason, you surely know that comparing opposing viewpoints to Nazism is the generally recognized internet signal that rational discourse has come to an end.[/quote]
Right. He so pulled that out of context, and now that your post is gone, a person reading the comments from that thread just ends up with ‘Jason compared JMG to the Nazis, and JMG reacted reasonably by removing his post.’ How convenient…
It is really unfortunate though that you didn’t save that post. It was a strong post that, as far as I’m concerned, adequately addressed all the objections raised to your earlier arguments.
Comment by Hasha — 30 May 2007 @ 10:31 AM
I noticed, and I’m pretty angry. Especially since what I said was that his comparison of primitivism to an apocalyptic cult is no more fair than me comparing him to the Nazis. In both cases, yes, there’s a certain amount of shared history and narrative, but you’re picking the most extreme comparisons possible. It’s a caricature, and it’s useless. That’s hardly an example of Godwin’s Rule, that’s an illustration of how far off-base his treatment of primitivism is.
But primitivists are, apparently, banned from the Archdruid Report. I ammended the link in Anthropik’s directory to warn others: “John Michael Greer’s blog, defending the notion of a long collapse. Warning: Greer often makes ill-informed, disparaging insinuations about primitivists, but he has made it clear that primitivists are not permitted to respond in his comments. Defenses against his attacks will be deleted.”
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 May 2007 @ 10:37 AM
[quote]I ammended the link in Anthropik’s directory to warn others: “John Michael Greer’s blog, defending the notion of a long collapse. Warning: Greer often makes ill-informed, disparaging insinuations about primitivists, but he has made it clear that primitivists are not permitted to respond in his comments. Defenses against his attacks will be deleted.”[/quote]
LOL! But in fact, yeah, that does seem fair…
Comment by Hasha — 30 May 2007 @ 10:50 AM
On the bright side (and I’ll admit, it’s a pretty small bright side), now I know that the deleted comments on his blog may not actually be objectionable.
Yeah, I lost a lot of respect there too. I did get to read the post before deletion, and agree w/ Hasha: it was a good, strong rebuttal. While it was certainly, uh, “strongly worded”, it wasn’t offensive. I would maybe be more or less okay, except for the snide insinuation left after deletion. That’s pretty much unforgivable in my book.
Comment by jhereg — 30 May 2007 @ 12:01 PM
[quote]I would maybe be more or less okay, except for the snide insinuation left after deletion. That’s pretty much unforgivable in my book. [/quote]
Yeah, I tend to agree with that. That business about Jason comparing him to the Nazis was really below the belt. An unjustifiable and unforgivable attack on Jason’s reputation. At least for this, JMG owes Jason an apology. I’d go over to the Archdruid Report and say so, but I very much suspect it would fall on deaf ears.
Comment by Hasha — 30 May 2007 @ 2:38 PM