freediver wrote on Apr 19^th, 2019 at 2:01pm:


Too lazy to follow the link?

"I had written to Erwin to get his take on the contemporary idea that there is currently a sixth mass extinction under way on our planet on par with the so-called Big Five mass extinctions in the history of animal life. Many popular science articles take this as a given, and indeed, there’s something emotionally satisfying about the idea that humans’ hubris and shortsightedness are so profound that we’re bringing down the whole planet with us."

So written by someone who was convinced it was true.

"Like all extinction events, so far this one has been phased and complex, spanning tens of thousands of years and starting when our kind left Africa. Other mass extinctions buried deep in earth’s history have similarly played out over tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years. To future geologists, then, the huge wave of extinctions a few thousand years ago as First Peoples spread out into new continents and remote archipelagoes will be all but indistinguishable from the current wave of destruction loosed by modernity and its growing appetites. Surely we’ve earned our place in the pantheon next to the greatest ecological catastrophes of all time: the so-called Big Five mass extinctions of earth history. Surely our Anthropocene extinction can confidently take its place next to the juggernauts of deep time—the Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, Triassic and Cretaceous extinctions.

Erwin says no. He thinks it’s junk science.

“Many of those making facile comparisons between the current situation and past mass extinctions don’t have a clue about the difference in the nature of the data, much less how truly awful the mass extinctions recorded in the marine fossil record actually were,” he wrote me in an email. “It is absolutely critical to recognize that I am NOT claiming that humans haven’t done great damage to marine and terrestrial [ecosystems], nor that many extinctions have not occurred and more will certainly occur in the near future. But I do think that as scientists we have a responsibility to be accurate about such comparisons.” "

So he says it is junk science. Now which experts do you want to cite to prove your assertion?

freediver wrote on Apr 19^th, 2019 at 2:31pm:



You do realise that it is written by a person who believed it to be true that attributed that statement to him?

A real believer non believer.

BTW- The Atlantic is generally very pro AGW.

"Doug Erwin, curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, said placing the ongoing extinctions of animal species in the same playing field as the mass extinction events in history, or the Big Five, amounts to "junk science."

"Many of those making facile comparisons between the current situation and past mass extinctions don't have a clue about the difference in the nature of the data, much less how truly awful the mass extinctions recorded in the marine fossil record actually were," he told The Atlantic last month."

https://www.sciencealert.com/earth-is-on-its-way-to-the-biggest-mass-extinction-...

Note: Junk science in quotes.

"Historical Use: Use prior to 1927 is noted by Arsen’ev (1927). Nikulin (1941) noted use by walruses in 1937. Regularly use by walruses in ice-free autumns during all of the 20th Century up to the present (Belopl’skii 1939, Grachev and Mymrin, 1991; Zheleznov-Chukotsky and others, 2003; Kochnev, 2010b, unpublished data)."

https://polarbearscience.com/2019/04/14/our-planet-film-crew-is-still-lying-abou...

So not an unusual event caused  by climate change.

freediver wrote on Apr 19^th, 2019 at 3:09pm:


Is that how you arrived at the conclusion the walrus climbed cliffs?

lee wrote on Apr 19^th, 2019 at 3:40pm:


Once more you provide the evidence that refutes you.

Ehrlich is not the only one saying this. By your logic the earth would be flat after he said it was round.

Where did Ajax get to? We never got an explanation for his time travelling climate scientists. Should we chalk that one up to just another lie from a climate skeptic?

freediver wrote on Apr 21^st, 2019 at 7:08pm:


Does that make it more likely he is correct this time?

freediver wrote on Apr 21^st, 2019 at 7:08pm:


Nope. merely that I wouldn't take his word for it.

Thanks Lee. Once again, a climate skeptic posts the evidence that proves himself wrong.