Mass Die Offs? Nothing to see here...move along...

To evaluate the substance behind an assessment of a mass die off scenario, you need to know the biology of the species effected and all the relevant circumstances surrounding the event.

Since the biology of most species is not very well known and the relevant circumstances of the die off are usually not known, scientists usually have to speculate what is the likely cause of the death.

In my opinion most explanations given by the MSM are not ridiculous.

• Rapid cold spells do kill vast amounts of animals and plants over night.
  
• Diseases often quickly kill whole populations of plants and animals.
  
• Like truthinfact has stated, lack of oxygen is the most common cause for fish mass deaths.
  
• Birds can rapidly die when suffering extreme stress.
  

Although humankind is the primary cause for the massive dying of plants and animals and the extinction of many species all over the world, I believe that cosmic radiation and the change in the magnetic field cannot explain any of those recent mass die offs.

Lethal radiation levels would not just kill one or two species in a singular location, the effect would be much greater. All animals of the hole region should suffer the effect. It would also be possible to measure lethal radiation levels. A shift in the magnetic field might alter migration behaviour and survival success, but the effect would be global and slower.

Today a much greater dangers are the millions of different kinds of human produced chemicals and the alteration and elimination of whole ecosystems. If you change an ecosystem you kill the populations living there. Usually the die off is happening more gradually and will not be recognized right away.

Even very low concentrations of chemical pollutants can kill vulnerable species. For instance substances which mimic sex hormones mess up the mating behaviour and reproduction success of water-dwelling organisms. Chemical pollution is the probable primary cause for the mass extinction of amphibians. Amphibians are perhaps the group, which suffers most from human-produced causes.

Originally posted by SonoftheSun
Doesn’t look good. That point of no return is long gone. There’s no going back. Too late.


Today, many scientists think the evidence indicates a sixth mass extinction is under way. The blame for this one, perhaps the fastest in Earth's history, falls firmly on the shoulders of humans. By the year 2100, human activities such as pollution, land clearing, and overfishing may have driven more than half of the world's marine and land species to extinction.

science.nationalgeographic.com...

Excellent thread S&F - And, great structure/presentation (a huge thing with me).

I completely agree that this is a possible future/result for a majority of us.

I think this compliments this thread, very well - you provide the cause, I provide the effect:
There is Only ONE Conspiracy - Everything Else is Just 'Noise'!

Would love your input, (OP, and others in this thread)

Originally posted by SonoftheSun

1/22/11 Hundreds of penguins dying near Wellington at Banks Peninsula, NZ
[color=gold]"It got too cold for them."

Look, nice post and very interesting. However, I must say a couple of things: Firstly, Wellington is not near Banks Peninsula, Christchurch is.

Secondly, I dug up an article about this episode: Dying brids stir extinction fears

and include some quotes from it:

At Banks Peninsula, hundreds of little white-flippered penguin chicks have died of starvation, according to Shireen Helps, who has been caring for the colony on her property for about 25 years.

"There were chicks dying in their burrows, in the hillside, and heaps dying on the water."

Dr Argilla said the calm La Nina seas meant fewer small fish and plankton close to the surface of the water for them to feed on.

penguins, for example, needed five or six years of good conditions for populations to regenerate.

The strong La Nina had brought with it conditions that made for a bad breeding year. "They're natural occurrences that always happen, but now they're happening more regularly and it's playing havoc with wildlife populations."

However, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research principal scientist James Renwick said it was unknown whether La Nina would be stronger or happen more frequently in future.

This year's La Nina was the strongest since 1975, when Conservation Department seabird scientist Graeme Taylor said many hundreds of seabirds died.

Unusually warm currents had made it difficult for adults to find food, leading them to stay out searching at sea for too long while their chicks needed feeding, she said.

Conservation Department vet Kate McInnes said that, during La Nina, cold currents did not come up around New Zealand and stir up the ocean to bring food near the surface.

Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony manager Jason Gaskill said no chicks there had starved, but warmer sea surface temperatures led to poorer breeding conditions for fish and less food for penguins, which would affect this year's season.

So, it's NOT because it was too cold for them. Rather, it was too warm, and as a consequence of a natural weather cycle.

I must state that I am only replying to this specific account, not the rest of the thread. I think we have caused/are causing serious environmental problems which are manifesting themselves initially in these sorts of episodes, but there are also naturally-occurring causes as well, which makes the detective work a bit more difficult.

Awsome post, thanks. Call me a fear monger if you shall but i believe it isn't getting any better and will continue to get worse until it drives humans crazy....

I remember a show where japanese scientists were trying to figure why the jelly fish population exploded,well, they looked at many things that did not pan out. When they put them in warmer water (the water they came from had gotten warmer) they reproduced like crazy.


I just saw something the other day about the bees, they said the bees are attacked by a microscopic mite that turns them into zombies! I will have to do a search for it Leads to colony colapse

link blogs.scientificamerican.com...

Sad to see all the fear and sadness with this subject.

Just to wonder: Radiation can intensify cancer and tumors...


... also noticed a lot of people dying to cancer?


Breach in the magnetosphere can sure explain that, i think

reply to post by SonoftheSun


Maybe you forgot to cite more clues into the mass deaths of bees...ps, the syndrome was NOT the cause:

Times Magazine reports: www.time.com...

Viruses Cause Mass Deaths

In late 2006, something strange began to happen to America's honeybees. Colonies that were once thriving suddenly went still, almost overnight. The worker bees that make hives run simply disappeared, their bodies never to be found. Over the past couple of years, nearly one-third of all honeybee colonies have collapsed this way, which led to a straightforward name for the phenomenon: colony collapse disorder (CCD).

A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) shows that the causes of CCD may be more varied than scientists expect. The bees may be dying not from a single toxin or disease but rather from an assault directed by a collection of pathogens.

Berenbaum believes that the presence of those genetic fragments inside the CCD-afflicted bees indicates that they may be under attack by a number of insect viruses — including deformed wing virus and Israeli acute paralysis virus — that damage the ribosomes.

"It was the one factor that remained consistently associated with the CCD bees we tested, no matter where they came from or how severe the disorder was," says Berenbaum. "It doesn't have to be a specific virus, just an overload." Once the bees' systems get burdened this way, they are less capable of fighting off any other threat, from pesticides to other environmental causes. (See TIME's video "Bees Without Borders.")

Berenbaum is quick to point out that the microarray analysis is only correlative, meaning that while it can show evidence that certain viruses are present in CCD-afflicted bees, it doesn't reveal exactly what role the viruses play, nor how best to battle them.

The good news is that the disorder may be on the wane, with the Apiary Inspectors of America reporting that deaths from CCD are below 30% for the first time since the crisis began.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Organic Consumers Association Reports:

Insecticides Produced by Bayer: www.organicconsumers.org...

Since 1991 Bayer has been producing the insecticide Imidacloprid, which is one of the best selling insecticides in the world, often used as seed-dressing for maize, sunflower, and rape.

Bayer exports Imidacloprid to more than 120 countries and the substance is Bayer´s best-selling pesticide. Since patent protection for Imidacloprid expired in most countries, Bayer in 2003 brought a similarly functionning successor product, Clothianidin, onto the market.

Both substances are systemic chemicals that work their way from the seed through the plant. The substances also get into the pollen and the nectar and can damage beneficial insects such as bees.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New York Times Reports: www.nytimes.com...

Israeli acute paralysis virus & Lack of Nutrition

In both ailing humans and bees, he said, it is plausible that a mix of infection, genetics, and environmental influences is at work.

Now, one bee disease, called Israeli acute paralysis virus, seems strongly associated with the beekeeping operations that experienced big losses, a large research group has concluded...

Dr. Pettis said that even if the virus is involved, it is likely that more than one factor has to align for a hive to collapse, with another possible influence being poor nutrition. Most of the colonies that had big losses over last winter were in areas that experienced drought a few months beforehand, and thus a lack of nectar in flowers, he said.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So take it as you will, but the world is evolving in such a way that nature cannot cope with the industrial and chemical evolution of agriculture. Simply put, humans are putting too much stress on nature to produce that it is becoming overwhelming and as a consequence, is putting a dis-ease into mother nature. The implications, nature either adapts to man, or man will need to adapt to mother nature.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a mass die-off of man NEXT. Ever think about this???

Is this what 2012 and other predictions/conspiracies are coming to fruition? That man is the disease of Earth, and to restore balance, there has to be a mass elimination of man?

Pardon me for using "man" in the above sentences, and I should be saying human beings, but it is just a saying for all you ladies, so I hope you understand

I have a family member that is the animal control officer in a 30,000 plus population city in Kansas. I was visiting with her this summer and she told me a depressing story about how her job has changed over the last year. She told me that over a year ago she received three or four calls a month to retrieve dead wild animals in the city. Some of them were still alive, but those had been hurt in some way and most of the time the reasons of their demise were obvious on seeing them. Now she says, by this last summer (2011) she is receiving five or six calls a week, and the animals are almost always still alive and dying. She has no idea why. They are dehydrated a lot of the time, foaming around the mouth and such, but are sick with something or other and it is not rabies. She is very concerned. Noone else in her department seems to be concerned as she is. She works for the police department, and the few times that she has brought it up, the guys she works for act as if the wild animals should not be in the city, as if they are better off dead anyway.

The reason why humans have these kinds of problems is that more than half of the people on earth now live in cities. They have no thoughts for those living in the country. They have no care for the wild lands or farm lands. Hence the openness to the idea of fracking. Nobody seems to care what practices like fracking do to the environment. Once the pollutions start to enter the lives of those in the city then those same people will take action. The problem with that is that like now, even though the pollution has already entered the city, as it is in our fridges already. The effects will have to be visible, and by then it will be too late.

There are people out there, scientists, gov't officials, etc. that already have a good timeframe of how long it will be until the earth is uninhabitable. But there is nothing they really can do about it, because it will take thousands of years before the earth ever gets to the point where life can flourish again. When it does and they peek their heads out again, humans and the earth will have changed into something that they cannot imagine today. There is very little effort made to prolong the human species, animals, or plants the are on the earth today, and those efforts are not very well thought out or organized. The people of the world are almost incapable of having the kind of imagination that will help them deal with these issues. They need a modern day Noah. Very soon the direness of the earth and her predicament will become obvious to all who live upon her.

Great thread! I have taken notice to a number of your threads and find I am generally in agreement with you're take on things, as with this topic. I am a firm believer in human kinds devastating effect on our plant. Although it is hard to be certain what the cause of all this dramatic weather, die offs, etc., is. The likelihood that we are part of the causation is fairly high, and it would only have made good "conservative" sence to start changing our consumption and energy production habits a number of decades ago, simply to hedge our bets. However, greed, apathy, and perhaps an instinctive need to only focus on the short term has led us to what I agree to be a point of no return, in regards to the consequences of our global actions.

Don't get me wrong, I do hope to be proven incorrect in the long term on this matter. That pollution and other negative effects from human influence are either overblown for financial, social, and political gain, or that we will figure out some technology to make it all good in the long run. But, to think you can crap in your own back yard for such a long time, and not eventually get sick is unlikely.

You pose a very interesting theory in a very clear and creative layout, so thanks!

PS from your avatar name I think you may have been the individual that turned me on to the ATS site a while back.

All the best....

zombie fly parasite killing the bees causing hive collapse

blogs.scientificamerican.com...

Nice job you've given me more things to think about on this matter... It really is a bit mind boggling, you would think this would be all over MSM but I guess reality T.V. and biased news take precedence over global catastrophe.

You sir are a Charles Fort of modern times. Thank you for taking the time to compile this. I seem to remember the Colony Collapse Syndrome has been traced back to a bug poison company. The FDA had the info however sat on it for 10 years because many on their board are also on the board of Monsanto an other chem corps.
So again we see a cover up catalyzed by corruption. The solution would be for the chem corp to stop producing the chemical however this would result in the loss of millions of dollars for said corp.

The laws of the land go after drug users however those poisoning and creating genocide of species are protected by the law as a corporation has many of the same rights as a human entity but none of the responsibility. I suggest that whomever is the head of a corp and on its board should assume direct legal responsibility and jail time along with their 7 figure bonuses. The problem is they are the ones with all the lobby money.

reply to post by Drunkenshrew


You should make him an offer on that bridge he has for sell.

If you believe any of this...I have a bridge to sell...

Sweet thread. Helping people wake up.

Very nice thread, I don't have much to add but I have something.

When the cows died in Wisconsin I lived nearby. I heard the story on the news so I went out to talk to the guy to get his take on it.

I'm not kidding you, he told me he thought it was the government or aliens conducting experiments.

He kinda said it jokingly which leads me to believe, there was no rational explination for it. None at all, he was grabbing at straws.

The owner of the cows had no idea how that happened, to me it means, nobody really knows what happened. Maybe its the sun, maybe its some weird Earth phenominon, either way its not normal.

Great thread, in a lot of ways...

But I must wonder...

Why would you paint the picture (and rightfully so) that we are facing the Sixth Great Extinction and that humans are to blame... and then veer off wildly into speculations that cosmic rays/the magnetosphere breach is to blame?? It's an interesting theory... but there really is no hard evidence (nor will there necessarily be any discovered) that recent breaches in the magnetosphere are to blame for die-offs, and furthermore... considering the depth/breadth/amount of damage humans have done to ecosystems, is it so hard to believe that it's quite out in the open that humans are responsible? Why must there be some mysterious/hidden reason for these things when they're plainly obvious to anybody with common sense/awareness?

Humans are destroying the planet... it's not really a conspiracy so much as a blatant/harsh reality. There's no mysterious/hidden reason that such an explanation is covering for, there doesn't need to BE a cover, it's bad enough as it is.

In fact, the conspiracy is to PLAY DOWN these threats, or AT LEAST encourage (whether directly/indirectly) a kind of laziness, denial, ignorance, false-optimism, and perpetuation of the very things that are causing our biosphere to collapse.

I encourage everyone to give this a good watch!

WOW ! Didn't expect so many replies so soon...I haven't read them all yet but will. I will also try my best to answer every one of you.

I only know of 2 species with 'explainable' mass die offs.
from experience.
north american honey bees can get a mite that kills them in the winter. because they are hibernating, they cannot simply 'shake' the mite off. throughout the winter, the mite kills them.

and the little brown bat of north america also gets a fungus. normally , and if it was summer, they would easily clean it off. but again, because the are hibernating they don't notice it nor can they get rid of it. if it was summer for either creature, it would be no big deal. it's our winters that do them in.

with both species, the introduced mites and fungus came from another country and therefore are not something our north american creatures are adapted to, nor can they fight it.
a sad demise.

reply to post by Afterthought


Thank you. When you mention a swarm of jellyfish I remembered reading about a swarm of locusts in Africa...not good.

But perhaps there is a certain equilibrium in the equation.

Good points. I would also enjoy to have a look at a complete list of species disappearing versus new species appearing.