No, 60 Minutes, Humans Are NOT Causing A ‘Sixth Mass Extinction’
On January 2nd, on the CBS “60 Minutes” program, ‘scientists’ claimed that humans are causing a “sixth mass extinction” and that we would need the equivalent of five planet Earths for all humans to live at current Western levels.
“No, humanity is not sustainable to maintain our lifestyle — yours and mine,” claimed Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich. “Basically, for the entire planet, you’d need five more Earths. It’s not clear where they’re gonna come from.”
Both claims are wrong and have been repeatedly debunked in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.
The assertion that “five more Earths” are needed to sustain humanity comes from something called the Ecological Footprint calculation.
I debunked it 10 years ago with a group of other analysts and scientists, including the Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy, in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, PLOS Biology.
We broke down the six measures that comprise the Ecological Footprint and found that five of the six, including food and forestry, were either in balance or surplus. The only thing out of balance was humankind’s carbon emissions.
To its credit, CBS notes how wrong Ehrlich has been over the years. “The alarm Erlich sounded in 1968 warned that overpopulation would trigger widespread famine,” noted CBS News’ Scott Pelley. “He was wrong about that. The Green Revolution fed the world.”
But Pelley goes on to claim that Ehrlich is right about humans causing a “sixth mass extinction.” He’s not. He’s wrong about that, too.
To cause a “mass extinction,” humans would need to be wiping out 75-90 percent of all species on Earth.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the main scientific body that tracks species, says just six percent of species are critically endangered, nine percent are endangered, and 12 percent are vulnerable to becoming endangered.
Further, the IUCN has estimated that just 0.8 percent of the 112,432 plant, animal, and insect species within its dataset have gone extinct since the year 1500. That’s a rate of fewer than two species lost every year for an annual extinction rate of 0.001 percent.
The huge increase in biodiversity during the last 100 million years massively outweighs the species lost in past mass extinctions.
The number of genera, a measure of biodiversity more powerful than species count alone, has nearly tripled throughout this time period.
After each of these past five mass extinctions, the biodiversity in the fossil record dips between 15 to 20 percent. But each extinction is followed by much larger growth.
Conservationists, it turns out, are skilled at maintaining small populations of animals, from yellow-eyed penguins of New Zealand to mountain gorillas of central Africa. The real challenge is expanding the size of their populations.
But it’s not the case that humankind has failed to conserve habitat. By 2019, an area of Earth larger than the whole of Africa was protected, an area that is equivalent to 15 percent of Earth’s land surface.
The number of designated protected areas in the world has grown from 9,214 in 1962 to 102,102 in 2003 to 244,869 in 2020.
In fact, in rich nations around the world, wild areas are coming back, thanks to the more efficient use of land for producing food in general and meat in particular.
Humans use about half of the ice-free land surface of the Earth. Of that half, we use about half for meat production, which is one of the greatest threats to endangered species.
But the amount of land humans use for meat has declined massively in recent decades, nearly an area the size of Alaska.
But if we’re not creating a “sixth mass extinction,” or using up “five Earths,” why do so many people, including “60 Minutes,” believe we are?
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Ken Hughes
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Except carbon dioxide is harmless plant food.
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Robert Beatty
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How easy it is to underestimate human ingenuity when discussing these ‘settled’ conclusions. Humans have always been able to solve life’s problems when they become urgent enough to need fixing. The real problem is top-down government which assumes they know what needs fixing and how to do it. Invariable the result is less useful than the previous condition. In Australia we have many national parks which are a burden to the taxpayer and the people who live next to them for all the obvious reasons. Now the government is in the process of gifting those parks to the people who claim aboriginal ancestry. What could possibly go wrong with that?
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Tom Anderson
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Whenever I think of the copious data and facts disproving the mindless and vacuous nonsense of CO2-driven climate calamity, or whatever it officially is now, I stumble over Mark Twain’s “It is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.”
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Mark Green
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Modern, human-released CO2 emissions have not caused the extinction of one plant or animal. Not one. Over the past century however, humans have killed off countless large animals, as well as numerous bird species and reptiles. Rhinos, elephants, jaguars, wolves, bears, whales, orangutangs, crocodiles, ibex, buffalos, and tigers (as well as most of the big cats) have declined sharply. Over-fishing has also drastically-reduced numerous fish populations. But it’s rising CO2 that is the Big Worry? Are you serious?
For decades, modestly rising levels of CO2 have been boosting plant production worldwide. This is good news for all living things.
On the other hand, the global human population just surpassed 8,000,000,000. In 1960, it was just 2.5 billion. This stratospheric rise in human numbers is unprecedented. This head-spinning rise in the number of human beings cannot go on indefinitely. There will grave ecological consequences. Today’s rate of habitat destruction (coupled with the rapid decline of global wilderness) is also unprecedented.
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aaron
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‘ global human population just surpassed 8,000,000,000’
just how would they determine this number?
not buyin their bs once again
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Squidly
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There was quite a comprehensive study done just a few years go that attempted to “count” (as closely as possible) the actual physical numbers of humans on this planet. The study took a few years and was touted as the most accurate of its kind. If I remember correctly, the figure they came up with was closer to 5.75 billion, not 8 billion. The 8 billion that is advertised is actually derived from a “model” used by the United Nations to estimate global population. As I understand it, this “model” has been used since the 50’s for such purpose. This “model” is wildly inaccurate, but they use it to propagate the lies of Paul Urlich and his “population bomb” garbage. In addition, world populations have been slightly declining over the past few decades and more and more nations have become industrialized. The more industrialized and prosperous a nation because, the more their birthrate drops. Even further still, male fertility has been dropping off of a cliff in recent decades with worldwide sperm counts dropping more than 50% during the past decade alone.
The whole narrative of “over population” is just another in a long list of scams.
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Len Winokur
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Well put; I agree.
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Koen Vogel
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The greatest extinction caused by the rising temperature and levels of CO2 is that of critical thought and scientific debate. The previous 5 mass extinctions were not caused by humans: most (all?) of the last big ones were caused by catastrophic events such as meteorites. The last major extinction – the Holocene megafaunal extinction – was attributed to “overhunting” by humans at first. As if primitive hunters who only hunted for food could do wipe out species with their arrows and spears. Humans have always overestimated their importance and power. The Holocene megafaunal extinction was caused by a weakened geomagnetic field coupled to strong solar radiation (https://principia-scientific.com/why-did-the-laurentide-ice-sheet-melt-during-the-younger-dryas/) Why do these Hairshirt-wearing scientists get a platform? There is zero evidence that climate change is causing anything but positive habitat changes. Greedy and uncaring stupid humans is a different matter, but that apparently makes less of a compelling and interesting story than Climate Change. If nobody watches this tripe they will cease making it.
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John Doran
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Book: Merchants of Despair, by nuclear PhD engineer Robert Zubrin exposes the lies of the likes of Paul Ehrlich, who has not made a correct prediction his entire life.
Book: The Ultimate Resource 2, by economist Julian Simon, demonstrates that human population growth is a boon, a spur to progress & prosperity.
The ultimate resource is human ingenuity.
We are heading toward a period of stagnation & recession.
JD.
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