Post by NatureDevil on Jun 2, 2004 23:05:19 GMT -6
I figured I shoud post this here. It is an article I wrote a few months back that was sparked by the UK claiming that their butterfly population was diminishing. Long story, but anyway, I write these NatureDevil Nuggets as I call them. And this one seemed closly related enough that I thought it would be informative, as much research was needed for it, to post on the site. Along with the release of the ridiculously liberal-slanted "Day After Tommorrow" movie, I figured now would be a fitting time to post this here. Hehehe...besides, Shrek II beat "Day After" in the opening weekend.
So, here it is, slightly editied so as not to offend anyone (they are my own opinions after all and I get a little excited when I type them). I hope you guys enjoy. If there are any corrections or mistakes, please lemmie know so I can get my facts straight, and remember, they are my opinions, so feel free to disagree.....
Nugget #46 (01/18/04) It isn't Your Fault, But it's Your Problem
"It isn't your fault, but it's your problem"
That is the company motto among the close employees for my friend's business. It applies to many things. In today's nugget, it refers to mass extinction, and the silly fact that humans think they can stop it.
I have pregnant doged about this one before, and I will continue to pregnant dog about it until it ends, which is never. You can't save every single little living creature, no matter how much of my money you take through the claws of the government. It won't happen. Life moves in cycles. Our human existence is but a blink of an eye compared to the vast depths of our ever expanding universe.
And that is only the one universe we can prove exists. You know, the round one you can't get out of?
Insects, plant life, and overall wildlife are vanishing at an alarming rate, putting more and more species on the endangered and extinct lists. People in the UK right now are going crazy because there are 50% less species of butterflies today then there were 20 years ago. Are you f*****g kidding me? ***dammit Britain, your entire history and culture is riddled with humiliation, isn't it? What I wanted to cover here is that, this isn't the first time we have had this "mass extinction" problem. Actually, it would be the 6th.
Time for the history lesson.
About 65 million years ago, a mass extinction took place. Yes, it was the dinosaurs, you win a cigar. Near the end of the Cretaceous period, when Tyrannosaurus Rex harassed the plant eaters on the basketball courts, a massive extinction took place that killed off almost all of the dinosaurs and about half of the planets' main groups of marine animals. Of course, as is true with all the others, none of this took place over night. This was believed to have been proliferated with the help of a comet or asteroid that was swimming to close to Earth and most likely caused this to happen. But we have all heard these theories plenty of times in our lives by now.
Back up even further to 200 million years ago, during what was known as the late Triassic period (yes, the Jurassic was in between these two periods). Half of the major groups of marine wildlife were slaughtered. This was caused mostly by the rising appearance of the undersea volcanoes.
A little further to about 250 million years ago, when the Triassic period was just getting warmed up (get it?) the worst of the mass extinctions took place at this time, killing off 95% of the species on the whole planet. The whole planet! This was either caused by an earlier asteroid, or even by the ghastly amounts of volcanoes that existed back then when the earth was a lot warmer. If only Greenpeace was around then to save the poor animals. Heck, those morons couldn't save a seat at a restaurant.
Sorry. Okay, so we go back even further to the late Devonian Period, which was approximately 360 million years ago. The death toll was estimated to be 22% of marine species and 57% of marine genera. The odd thing about this extinction is no one is really sure why this one happened, it just did.
Finally, a quarter of the marine life on the planet along with any new creatures developing ways to live on land were killed off by the lowering of sea levels due to the development of glaciers, and then again the rising of sea levels due to their melting. This happened almost 440 million years ago.
When you look at how diverse and flourished life is on this planet today after realizing all the crap that was thrown at us over the last several millennia, you realize we are pretty frigging lucky. All it takes in one fairly large asteroid to hit us and the life cycle starts up all over again. In a few million years from now, we will be nothing but fossil fuel for the idiots of tomorrow to power their Escalades and Bravadas (or whatever they are in the future) with.
Life goes on, and it doesn't matter what you try to do about it. I am not saying to go out and deliberately poison the atmosphere to kill the stupid butterflies, but don't waste valuable resources trying to save them. We may need those valuable resources to stop that damn asteroid we haven't spotted yet. Then what are you going to say to the Chequered Skipper or Queen of Spain Fritillary?
Relax. We're cool.
NatureDevil
So, here it is, slightly editied so as not to offend anyone (they are my own opinions after all and I get a little excited when I type them). I hope you guys enjoy. If there are any corrections or mistakes, please lemmie know so I can get my facts straight, and remember, they are my opinions, so feel free to disagree.....
Nugget #46 (01/18/04) It isn't Your Fault, But it's Your Problem
"It isn't your fault, but it's your problem"
That is the company motto among the close employees for my friend's business. It applies to many things. In today's nugget, it refers to mass extinction, and the silly fact that humans think they can stop it.
I have pregnant doged about this one before, and I will continue to pregnant dog about it until it ends, which is never. You can't save every single little living creature, no matter how much of my money you take through the claws of the government. It won't happen. Life moves in cycles. Our human existence is but a blink of an eye compared to the vast depths of our ever expanding universe.
And that is only the one universe we can prove exists. You know, the round one you can't get out of?
Insects, plant life, and overall wildlife are vanishing at an alarming rate, putting more and more species on the endangered and extinct lists. People in the UK right now are going crazy because there are 50% less species of butterflies today then there were 20 years ago. Are you f*****g kidding me? ***dammit Britain, your entire history and culture is riddled with humiliation, isn't it? What I wanted to cover here is that, this isn't the first time we have had this "mass extinction" problem. Actually, it would be the 6th.
Time for the history lesson.
About 65 million years ago, a mass extinction took place. Yes, it was the dinosaurs, you win a cigar. Near the end of the Cretaceous period, when Tyrannosaurus Rex harassed the plant eaters on the basketball courts, a massive extinction took place that killed off almost all of the dinosaurs and about half of the planets' main groups of marine animals. Of course, as is true with all the others, none of this took place over night. This was believed to have been proliferated with the help of a comet or asteroid that was swimming to close to Earth and most likely caused this to happen. But we have all heard these theories plenty of times in our lives by now.
Back up even further to 200 million years ago, during what was known as the late Triassic period (yes, the Jurassic was in between these two periods). Half of the major groups of marine wildlife were slaughtered. This was caused mostly by the rising appearance of the undersea volcanoes.
A little further to about 250 million years ago, when the Triassic period was just getting warmed up (get it?) the worst of the mass extinctions took place at this time, killing off 95% of the species on the whole planet. The whole planet! This was either caused by an earlier asteroid, or even by the ghastly amounts of volcanoes that existed back then when the earth was a lot warmer. If only Greenpeace was around then to save the poor animals. Heck, those morons couldn't save a seat at a restaurant.
Sorry. Okay, so we go back even further to the late Devonian Period, which was approximately 360 million years ago. The death toll was estimated to be 22% of marine species and 57% of marine genera. The odd thing about this extinction is no one is really sure why this one happened, it just did.
Finally, a quarter of the marine life on the planet along with any new creatures developing ways to live on land were killed off by the lowering of sea levels due to the development of glaciers, and then again the rising of sea levels due to their melting. This happened almost 440 million years ago.
When you look at how diverse and flourished life is on this planet today after realizing all the crap that was thrown at us over the last several millennia, you realize we are pretty frigging lucky. All it takes in one fairly large asteroid to hit us and the life cycle starts up all over again. In a few million years from now, we will be nothing but fossil fuel for the idiots of tomorrow to power their Escalades and Bravadas (or whatever they are in the future) with.
Life goes on, and it doesn't matter what you try to do about it. I am not saying to go out and deliberately poison the atmosphere to kill the stupid butterflies, but don't waste valuable resources trying to save them. We may need those valuable resources to stop that damn asteroid we haven't spotted yet. Then what are you going to say to the Chequered Skipper or Queen of Spain Fritillary?
Relax. We're cool.
NatureDevil
