I think it's now safe to say that...

[Hubert Flottz]

humanity has shat it's nest. We humans have polluted and over populated the planet Earth to the brink of non-habitability. And I don't have the money for a damned ticket to another solar system. I don't think the Koch brothers have the money for a ticket either. It was nice while it lasted.

[JuniperLea]

1. Even an animals knows better...

Than to shit where it eats and sleeps.

Stupid humans.

[Gregorian]

2. At least you have company.

I'm here. Maybe a few others that aren't smiling away to their Kenny G CD's while sitting on a highway in their car. With all due respect to those who can't help it because they designed their life around the car.

Oh my god, you can't even joke about it. Everyone is so busy caught in the life they made that is killing the planet. And in other news, my 82 year old bike friend was killed by a car last weekend. Yay cars and pollution and billions of human monkeys!

[MoonRiver]

3. So true and it's disgusting.

Sometimes I think the best thing that could happen to this planet is for humans to become extinct. We'll probably take care of that ourselves. Unfortunately we'll undoubtedly take a lot of innocents with us.
x(

[Hubert Flottz]

4. I think that without a doubt we are the most destructive beings to

have ever inhabited the planet. Even our "superior" brains were not enough of an edge, to protect us and our world from ourselves.

[Gregorian]

6. Last night I lay awake in the middle of the night thinking about this

Where did it begin, I wondered. I see a specie walking around forests picking berries. Much like bears. Then someone realized that if a few people picked the berries, the rest of the community could do something else. Maybe someone had discovered that when they killed an animal for meat they could wear it's skin. And they needed time off of berry foraging in order to work on the skins. All of the stuff we see today started from the idea of comfort and safety. Then even the ideas evolved. We found some dedicating themselves to nothing but making skins to wear. Or just picking berries. And on and on. Eventually Liebnitz and Newton came up with some interesting concepts. And Shockley and his group. Now we have the Chevy Volt.

Man, I'd love to share stories. But I digress.

[Bosonic]

7. Cyanobacteria have set the bar pretty high

We haven't got to their level yet.

http://www.damninteresting.com/how-bacteria-nearly-destroyed-all-life/">How Bacteria Nearly Destroyed All Life

[Hubert Flottz]

14. An interesting read.

Thanks for posting.

[Laelth]

8. Agreed.

Our brains are a double-edged sword. It was our brains that allowed us to endanger the planet in the first place.

-Laelth

[MoonRiver]

13. I think our brains are the problem.

A long time ago, in a psychology or biology course, I learned about the theory of "over specialization." When a species becomes over specialized it is unable to adapt to changing conditions. Our intelligence has made us manic in terms of controlling and exploiting the environment, other animals and each other. We seem incapable of understanding, though, that this exploitation and control is in turn destroying our environment, which we depend upon to live.
:crazy:

[RegieRocker]

5. It could br reversed in 20 years if we start now.

[Gregorian]

9. It's strange to think that all humans could be gone in 100 years.

I've spent a lifetime thinking about the different possibilities. For all of eternity we just lived our lives. Now we're faced with limitation. It's that vertical part of the exponential curve that we're all up against. We spent millennia on the horizontal portion. The part where anyone could do anything without bothering anyone. Now no one can do anything without bothering everyone. To a degree.

[Hubert Flottz]

11. Are you ready? One, two, three, GO!

I didn't feel anything change!

[RegieRocker]

15. I don't think you're the starter for this one.

[RZM]

10. That remains to be seen

I'm skeptical that man-made climate change, overpopulation, or resource depletion will result in the end of our species. They might seriously alter the game and perhaps trigger a major population crash or even a social collapse. But extinction? I highly doubt it. I think you need something bigger for extinction . . . asteroid impact, nuclear war, or severe natural climate change etc.

Sooner or later we will be faced with such an event, though by that time we will probably have the technology to deal with it or at least the technology to colonize other systems. Probably the war scenario will be the only permanent wild card.

[Hubert Flottz]

12. I hope you're right.