Biologist warn of early stages of Earth's sixth mass extinction event

a reply to: soficrow

You know, you pretty much had me until the obesity line. Seems like they are taking any changes and attributing them to DDT which is disingenuous at the very least and fraud at the worst.

I know all about the effects DDT has on the environment and how particularly dangerous to predators the poison is, since it persists in the environment and becomes ever more concentrated as it moves up the food chain.

The eagle and other are making comebacks.

The use of DDT at one point was extremely pervasive. It was used in fields, homes, yards, you name it. It was very effective so it was used everywhere. I cannot help but think that it might be used safely to kill bedbugs.

I am no expert and make no claims regarding such...so if it cannot be used safely, then fine. On the other hand, it is difficult to attribute obesity to DDT... makes me wonder about some of the other claims.

a reply to: galadofwarthethird

I agree with everything you've said. I've thought all these thoughts. Evolution is a funny thing. While much life on the planet cannot adapt to humans' use of it, there is other life that is adapting JUST fine. Dogs for instance. Dogs have been shown to cause better health in humans just by petting them. This would be an instance of symbiosis. The pigeon that inhabits every major city is another form of life. Niches will be filled again, species go extinct all the time. It is part of nature. Us causing extinctions on a greater scale is just another facet of nature. Eventually it will be our turn. Whether that is through our own doing or because the universe finally dealt us a bad hand remains to be seen. But it will happen.

originally posted by: HumansEh
a reply to: pl3bscheese

It is in mankinds nature to move into an area, consume all it has to offer with no thought to regeneration, when that area is depleted and we have reproduced to swell our numbers, we spread and multiply.
We are a cancer upon this world.

You said that you hope that people are working to get a chunk of us off planet.
They are, but it will be the rich, the greedy, the entitled, and the corporate/military (the very ones destroying Earth) that will be the ones on those ships mark my words.

You hope we can leave here before we make it a barren poisoned wasteland.
The rest of the galaxy hopes we don't.

Agreed, if we do ever get this planet to the state that we threaten its ability to accomodate life I sure as hell hope we go down with the ship.

a reply to: bbracken677

Not difficult at all - you didn't read the studies did you? ...It's all about endocrine disruption and epigenetic inheritance. Try this one from BIOMEDCentral: Ancestral dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) exposure promotes epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of obesity

And check out this old thread: MEN: You are being chemically castrated.

a reply to: soficrow

I did... and I understand, I just have a problem grasping how DDT is responsible for the obesity we see, when people eat like pigs. Restaurants always bring huge servings (except for some of the high end ones). I almost always take home a doggy bag. Then you have those who live on fast food...

I question not that there is an effect, I question how much of the effect is due to DDT persisting in the environment.

The affected predators are making comebacks, so apparently the concentrations are dwindling. I used DDT around my home back in the day and neither my kids, nor I nor the wife are obese. I understand that a single anecdotal case does not evidence make, but I also know how easy it can be to skew a study when there is an agenda present.

Because of my age, I have experienced such skewed studies most of my life and therefore take each one with a grain of salt. Studies used to show that '___' was extremely detrimental and if you took it you would have deformed children. That was complete rubbish. There are a number of other skewed studies I could name that turned out to be complete rubbish.

Don't get me wrong...there is way too much evidence to even suggest that DDT is fine and dandy and have some on your breakfast wheaties lol. I am totally against the use of it in the manner it used to be... I am not sure you understand how pervasive it's use was at one time.

I do question the obesity claim. There are a host of other common sense, commonly seen reasons why America is an obese country. First up would be activity levels are much lower. In those who maintain higher activity levels, and eat right, you do not see obesity. Because DDT can influence obesity does not necessarily mean it is.

I will also add that your sources are or seem to be impeccable. To be fair I should do more research. I try to maintain an open mind, specially when presented with such data.

a reply to: bbracken677

...I do question the obesity claim. There are a host of other common sense, commonly seen reasons why America is an obese country. First up would be activity levels are much lower. In those who maintain higher activity levels, and eat right, you do not see obesity. Because DDT can influence obesity does not necessarily mean it is.

I will also add that your sources are or seem to be impeccable. To be fair I should do more research. I try to maintain an open mind, specially when presented with such data.

The "common sense" stuff doesn't wash when we look at 'developing cultures' - and there's clearly much more to the story. ...My interest is in epigenetics - I suspect the DDT-obesity link involves other environmental factors yet-to-be-determined, but it's likely quite real.

I also know (not suspect) that corporate powers deny epigenetic effects and hold to the (now discredited) "one cause one effect" paradigm for contaminants and pollutants. It's a legal position to avoid liability, not a scientific one.

PS. Thanks for the last para and please forgive me for bolding it. S&

a reply to: soficrow

Consider, for example, this passage from Edwards’ article: “This implication that DDT is horribly deadly is completely false. Human volunteers have ingested as much as 35 milligrams of it a day for nearly two years and suffered no adverse effects. Millions of people have lived with DDT intimately during the mosquito spray programs and nobody even got sick as a result. The National Academy of Sciences concluded in 1965 that ‘in a little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million [human] deaths that would otherwise have been inevitable.’ The World Health Organization stated that DDT had ‘killed more insects and saved more people than any other substance.’”

In addition, DDT was used with dramatic effect to shorten and prevent typhus epidemics during and after WWII when people were dusted with large amounts of it but suffered no ill effects, which is perhaps the most persuasive evidence that the chemical is harmless to humans. The product was such a boon to public health that in 1948 the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Dr. Paul Müller for his discovery of the “contact insecticidal action” of DDT.

I think the morality of DDT use is clear here.

Although the use of DDT is not risk-free, there is a vast difference between applying large amounts of it in the environment — as farmers sometimes did before it was banned in the United States — and using it carefully and sparingly to fight mosquitoes and other disease-carrying insects, as it is used in a handful of African and Asian countries even today. It is sprayed or dusted indoors in small amounts to prevent mosquitoes from nesting, so exposures are extremely low. The now well-known problems associated with the thinning of raptor’s eggshells – while always exaggerated – can be completely avoided by using DDT with care exclusively in residential areas, because the chemical remains largely near where it is sprayed. No study has ever linked DDT environmental exposure to harm to human health.

Source
DDT could be used properly to help save lives and is used daily toward that end in parts of the world.

Harte

originally posted by: bbracken677
a reply to: soficrow

I did... and I understand, I just have a problem grasping how DDT is responsible for the obesity we see, when people eat like pigs. Restaurants always bring huge servings (except for some of the high end ones). I almost always take home a doggy bag. Then you have those who live on fast food...

Simplest rebuttal is skinny people, if DDT is so pervasive. Right?

Hart

originally posted by: Harte

originally posted by: bbracken677
a reply to: soficrow

I did... and I understand, I just have a problem grasping how DDT is responsible for the obesity we see, when people eat like pigs. Restaurants always bring huge servings (except for some of the high end ones). I almost always take home a doggy bag. Then you have those who live on fast food...

Simplest rebuttal is skinny people, if DDT is so pervasive. Right?

Hart

Epigenetics is about rapid response to environmental change - major factors include amount of exposure, time of exposure (not just 'was it in the womb?' or 'what stage of development?' but down to the nano-second of protein folding), and other environmental factors in play.

Oddly, many epigenetic effects on gene/proteins seem to occur in opposites - which may be explained by the gene being turned off or on, and the specific protein being present or absent. Some of these opposite epigenetic effects include: super-dense bones OR super-fragile ones (glass bone disease); super large penises OR super small ones; extreme hair growth (Hypertrichosis) OR extreme hair loss (alopecia). Fibrosis is another interesting epigenetic effect - symptoms are radically different depending on the location in the body, severity and so on. ....So no - the presence of skinny people in a population does NOT refute the link between DDT and obesity. Also see: Ehlers–Danlos type4.

a reply to: bbracken677
I was being a bit dramatic on the neanderthal part, but in all you got to look at it like this how many types or different species of humans were there in the past and how many are there today. On a genetic level were all varied, but you got to think that at one time different branches were if not living side by side, they were at the very least all over the world in there capacity competing for the same things. We cant go back in history at any period and cant see were one group even among home sapiens were not or are not fighting it out, and sometimes over little tiny insignificant differences in particular groups like one group has a different flag. So yes of homo sapiens and Neanderthal were at one point in the same place same time you can bet that one group was likely at any given moment going to war with the other, or any other group which predated them.

Thats pretty much the history of humanity, when a certain group or trait comes along it supersedes things and that group even if there not at war with another group will likely make the other group extinct just because they can do things more efficiently. Hence why humanity may be diverse, but you do not see any of the past groups of humans around. As for Neanderthals, I think a great majority of them breed and intermingled with home sapiens. So yes you see them around everywhere if you know were to look. And that whole thing about them being slow and stupid, well that's just a myth. So yes I see some every day as well.

And extinctions are pretty much the story of the world, and there have been countless species that have gone extinct, and for every species of bug or whatever that goes extinct, there is another that takes its place. So while some species of spiders may be going extinct in the rainforest due to either human machinations or just nature, there are other species which are thriving. Its pretty much like that everywhere. So really its not one or the others which is contributing to any mass extinction, if there is one going on, its not nature or humans, its generally both.

Really the species really in danger of going extinct are the bigger more territorial types of which would in one way or another have to compete with humanity for either space/habitat or food or our mere presence effects there ecosystems somehow, or it could just be the change in weather, or who knows really, its why you see big cats and elephants and all other big land animals dwindling in numbers and even among them its only certain types within there categories which may be going extinct. But you can bet they have a smaller cousin or offshoot on the genome which are doing just fine. So yes while there may be some tigers or lions in Siberia or Africa or in other remote parts which are effected by both human development or just nature for instance in Africa the place and there habitat is slowly turning into a desert hence they are going extinct, yet there are other tigers in other part doing just fine, and there are plenty of felines offshoots of the same genome ie there smaller cousins such as cougars or bobcats you name it and including the common housecat which are not exactly going to be going extinct any time soon.

So is there an extinction going on? Well can you name a single place and time in history were there wasn't one on some level? Probably not, right.

a reply to: galadofwarthethird

While I somewhat agree, the OP is talking about an increase in normal extinctions, perhaps signaling another major extinction event.

There always are extinctions of one type or another for one reason or another. With an ELE there is normally a single event that precipitates the massive extinctions, often by way of screwing up the environment/climate to a degree that nature does not have time to adapt. Too sudden and too extreme.

That is not the truth in this situation. Climate has not changed in such a manner. If they wish to blame man, then they have to do it on an individual extinction at a time manner.

I think life on Earth and mass cycles are extremely complicated and random. How can anyone even think they know were are in the early stages? For all we know this is a small lul and we smarten up as a species. We are extraordinary and could just as easily help the planet as we could destroy it. I dont have much faith in the human race right now but anything is possible. Maybe we kill ourselfs off over the nezt few hundred years (if not sooner) enablig the planet and animals to thrive once more?

I am not a fan of the human race.

We as a species share this planet with millions of other species, ey we are the only species causing this planet to die, and causing damage to other species (such as the rhino) and ecosystems (such as the rainforest) that will be irreversible if we continue to our exsistance.

The question is what do you care about more, the continuing existence of millions of species and ecosystems, or do you care about 1 species, ours. Do not fool yourself, we are incapable of fixing what we have broken. We are incapable of a prolonged existence with other species because we are destructive.

If our fate is to become extinct, it simply shows, that we as a species are just like every other species we have made extinct.

We will become extinct, and then, and only then will this plant heal itself, and the rest of the species we share it with will finally be save from us.

The best and only reason for this is the Planet X hypothesis..it is interesting how the media is subtly instilling this concept into the minds of the masses.I do believe they will announce it 'officially' but by then it will most likely be too late for many,as travel of all sorts will be next to impossible.

Here is a link to the best (and only) site to go to, for the low down on current events,it is also the only place where you will find a collection of all these events linked together in one area.Anyway, this following link is highlighting and explaining the true cause of this 'milky substance' that has been appearing frequently in harbors,lakes,rivers,creeks etc.

poleshift.ning.com...

Another link here from the same site,this time explaining the true cause of 'mass die offs' -that being,methane is released from deep rock layers,which in turn rises and enters the sea or say inland lakes/rivers and due to sensitivities in the fish,causes them to die,it also occurs when flocks of birds fly over these areas (think canary in the mines)


poleshift.ning.com...

This was the first year that I had bad yield from my garden. No amount of water would beat the intense sun and heat. I am more concerned about water. Less snow pack in mountains each year. Everything will die if drinkable water gets scarce. Perhaps bugs are finding it harder and further for water.