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Direct Link: https://www.geekxgirls.com/article.php?ID=12040
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Original Artist: https://humoncomics.com/
“The planet is fine. The people are fucked.”
George Carlin
Aside from the thousands of species we killed in the process
It’s a recurrent theme in the history of the world you know, thousands, hundreds of thousands, tens of millions of species killed, never to be seen again.
No species ever lasts that long.
There have been many extinction events, and we won’t be the first “nature based extinction event” the planet has seen either.
Just one of the dumber ones.
Others have been fairly random. GRBs sterilizing half the planet, asteroid impacts, simple microbiological species fighting for resources whilst unknowingly making their environments unlivable, etc., etc.
In this case, the writing has been on the wall for decades, completely preventable, but here we are barrelling into it head first none-the-less. Dumber indeed.
Hardly. We conserve when we want to.
The problem is that not everyone shares the same values, and so there are people who are willing to let some species go in exchange for a more comfortable lifestyle (with “more comfortable” in some cases meaning “not starving to death”). Values aren’t objective.
Sorry, I was absolutely dehumanizing and generalizing us as a species. Individually, you’re absolutely right, but the people who need to make the tough decisions to save us all won’t make them and will selfishly take us all into the end with them. Differentiating the subjective opinions and values, at the end of the day, doesn’t really matter.
No species ever lasts that long.
Sharks enter the thread.
Awkward silence ensues
Shark species go extinct all the time. New shark species arise.
Except for these species, classified as living fossils:
- Blind shark (Brachaelurus waddi)
- Bullhead shark (Heterodontus sp.)
- Cow shark (sixgill sharks and relatives) (Hexanchidae)
- Elephant shark (Callorhinchus milii)
- Frilled shark (Chlamydoselachus sp.)
- Goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni)
- Gulper shark (Centrophorus sp.)
Why does the cow shark description say it’s unique in having six and sometimes seven gill slits compared to all other sharks having five. Then the frilled shark says it has six gill slits.
They’re both part of the Hexanchiformes order, which are seven gill sharks. So the cow shark article is wrong, there are two surviving families with more than five gills.
Thank you, I typically default to assuming I don’t understand or I’m confused when reading up things outside of my wheelhouse. I enjoyed reading up on the sharks you shared! I was trying to decide which one I would want to be if I could decide while laying in bed this morning. Felt silly but fuck it, I’m old, it’s nice to dream.
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Terry the Trilobite too.
We are committing a mass extinction on Earth’s life, there will be a geological record one day of where life suddenly fell off.
And what’s really wild to think about is that while tragic to us and our perspective of the beauty of the world… in the larger picture, it will still be utterly insignificant to Earth’s history. The next million years will see massive portions of life die off, climates will change, new species will emerge and grow into new ecosystems, and there will be an entirely new set of fauna and flora, and humans will be a distant memory, a rust-colored line on the strata.
And that coming million years? Also a blink of an eye in Earth’s history. A fraction of a fraction of our planet’s history of life’s abundance and drama. All the life we see around us represents a sliver of a fraction of a fraction of Earth’s biological history. It’s so, SO much bigger than any of us can imagine and it should have the effect of humbling us.
dont forget about our deep space probes, pioneer, and voyager.
Those will still exist without us. A drifting reminder of our pitiful existences, hurtling through the vast emptiness of space, hoping to find something capable of discovering it.
250 millions years ago, there was a mass extinction that killed 95% of life on earth.
Yeah and we should maybe NOT CAUSE ANOTHER ONE wtf
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We’re actually going through the 6th mass extinction right now, so actually we are kinda killing most everything on the planet, not just us.
We should want to preserve that. Unfortunately a handful of old rich dudes don’t care.
Nature will survive, this specific bird species perhaps not.
This specific bird is way to forgiving. It’s more like saying if on average 1 species dies every million years on average, we have killed thousands of species in a thousand years. Then throw in the idea that we also could say the percentage of population of those species we killed would be over half of them, we can say to ourselves, yeah this is really being accelerated. Mass extinction has already begun. People who say humans will survive it are optimistic because our adaptability. It’s more like if you want your descendants to be able to go outside and be able to breathe without life support systems, you should so something about it.
There is a science fiction story I love but can never find.
It was about a society that was deep into climate change. Humans lived in giant concrete bunkers and never went outside. The oceans and land was fucked but we managed optimize it all to keep living. Farm the ocean for plankton for food and oxygen. Set a limit on how many humans we could have and how much food, water and activity you could do in a day to preserve resources.
And one man had managed to save a small patch of grass at the cost of a little bit of his own water. Until it was discovered and deemed an unoptimized flaw and burned.I think of that story when I think of humans surviving climate change a lot. I think about it whenever I think I would like to have kids.
you missed the point completely. life has always survived mass extinction events and will survive this one too. life will eventually flourish once again and humanity will have been a blip in earths history
Right, the Gaia presented in this comic is a mother nature who does not give a shit about the lives of billions of animals. She only cares if life as a whole survives, she doesn’t care how many species go extinct and become lost forever. Only humans care about that.
Humans are the universe’s way of giving a shit about itself.
Yeah, the 6th mass extinction.
Up and to the right. Line must go up.
Humans are basically just another massive asteroid hitting earth. And just as mindless.
Some things yes, most things… Not by a long shot.
You could always google it instead of denying that it’s happening.
Going through? Yes. Causing? Yes. Could have modified or prevented it? Also yes in countless and effective ways over literally centuries.
Will we? No. No, we will not.
Cause the rich will be fine. They’re simply not affected by it.
Maybe the old ones who will die soon. But everybody else, including their children will be affected.
Climate protection was never about saving species or eco systems.
It is about not fucking the whole planet wide eco system so that we can’t live anymore on this planet.
However even that we dropped for profits.
I mean basically anything relating to energy would have costed the double amount (at least).
Now we have also to reduce the co2 that was produced 200 years and the one that is triple the amount of the next 10 years.
Great filter theory: can intelligence evolve fast enough to outpace stupidity?
In my completely unprofessional opinion…no.
regulate billion dollar corporations and then over 99% of all pollution will stop.
I’m not getting rid of my car, make billionaires and millionaires get rid of their private jets and make them stop dumping garbage into waterways
Sure, but those regulations have to be stuff like “no selling petroleum to people for their cars”. Are you ready for a carless world? I am. If you’re not ready, you might find yourself opposing the necessary regulation when the time does come to regulate.
I don’t know why these discussion are often met with “if you’re not ready to lose your car you’re the problem” narrative.
I might not be ready to lose my car but I sure as hell am ready to lose coal based electricity, the military complex, single use plastic, billionaire who prefer to let a train derail than spend money on regulations, and a shit ton other things that wouldn’t even affect my day to day life other than make it safer.
I don’t know why, in these discussions, “it’s all the fault of corporations!” is treated as though it was a serious argument.
Corporations do one thing: they give us what we want. What we demand, a lot of the time. The fundamental problem is us, corporations are just the abstraction we use to fulfill our needs and desires. Before there were companies, people fought and scrambled for wealth and then displayed it as lavishly as possible, it’s just that the means of acquiring and then using that wealth were different. Read up on Romans hosting banquets where slave boys were fed to eels for entertainment while guests fed on flamingos stuffed with hippo brains with a garnish of tiger testicles or whatever, or the Chinese or Indian or Mesoamerican equivalent, and then explain again how all our problems are due to modern corporations.
Yeah, no. When you go to the grocery store to pick out the lettuce for dinner, did you specifically ask for the single use plastic it’s wrapped in, or was that the only option presented to you?
The idea that we as consumers are choosing the only option available on the market is flawed. This extends to the times another option is available, but is two to three times as expensive, such as milk being available in glass but even after factoring out the deposit the milk itself costs double.
When you hook your house up to the electricity grid, are you given a choice of where your power comes from? No. Hell, the majority of the time you’re not even given a choice of what company you get that electricity from.
And before you go in on the “there are other options” I’m just going to flat out ask you what the cost difference is. If I’m living paycheck to paycheck, there’s no way in fuck I’m buying solar panels, or collecting and processing my own rain water, or buying the expensive foodstuffs wrapped in the sustainable packaging.
Pretending the consumer has a choice is a bullshit narrative pushed by corporations that want to pass the blame down to the people who really have no direct way to effect things beyond recycling what they can. Hell, some communities don’t even have recycling.
Yeah, no. When you go to the grocery store to pick out the lettuce for dinner, did you specifically ask for the single use plastic it’s wrapped in, or was that the only option presented to you?
I chose to go to the grocery store rather than a farmers market.
Farmers markets are not universally available. The closest to me is a 40 minute drive, and while the prices are… usually good, what exactly am I to do during the winter?
It’s a good solution, when it’s available, but by no means is it a silver bullet against the issue of corporations taking shortcuts to save money in the short term, and costing everyone in the long.
what exactly am I to do during the winter?
Are you kidding me? Not have crops from a country 10s of thousands of miles away deliver deliver super cooled fresh produc at the cost of our planet.
You eat the preservatives like we used to. We should absolutely be getting more produce as locally as possible and as in season as possible.
We live in a collective society so trade and import is totally fine and will happen but everything we want all of the time is not currently sustainable.
I mean, here you go: reusable produce bags for you to bring with you to the store, provided by a corporation.
Yes, milk in glass bottles is more expensive: those bottles are expensive to produce, heavy and delicate to transport, and they need a whole infrastructure to collect and return them to the plant. If we insisted on glass bottles instead of cardboard or plastic, things would be more expensive. The problem is that we, the customers are cheap motherfuckers and will, on aggregate, always go for the cheapest option. So that’s what companies offer us. If the government banned single-use plastic or cardboard milk cartons, corporations would shrug their shoulders and offer that: they don’t care, they make a profit either way, but as long as plastic is an option, corps know that’s what we’re going to buy because it’s $1 cheaper…so that’s what they offer us.
Hell, the majority of the time you’re not even given a choice of what company you get that electricity from.
Yeah, I’d be totally fine with the government finding ways to break up monopolies like this–including natural monopolies, like power and internet (where infrastructure requirements limit competition). Here’s the thing, though: if hydro, wind and coal were all options, and coal was 20% cheaper, what would people pick? We’re the problem. Luckily, we’re getting close to solar being more efficient than any fossil fuel for power (thanks to greedy corporations rushing to develop the tech for sale).
If I’m living paycheck to paycheck, there’s no way in fuck I’m buying solar panels, or collecting and processing my own rain water, or buying the expensive foodstuffs wrapped in the sustainable packaging.
Right. And in a world where those were the only options, you’d eat less food or live in a smaller home. Making them the only options doesn’t make them cheaper, and in some cases, where supply is limited, it will dramatically increase prices.
You want to main exactly the same quality of life you have now, make no sacrifices, and for that to somehow be totally green and sustainable. That’s not realistic.
Blaming companies is lazy and self-serving. We’re the problem. We’ve always been the problem. Corporations can’t make minor adjustments, at no cost or inconvenience to us, and save the planet. That’s ridiculous, and it’s a self-serving myth, making them a scapegoat for our sins.
That’s ridiculous, and it’s a self-serving myth, making them a scapegoat for our sins.
The irony is, it’s exactly the opposite: https://harvardpolitics.com/climate-change-responsibility/
Yes consumers do in fact add to climate change and pollution, of course they do. They still drive their cars, they still take long showers, they still run the AC with a window cracked because reasons.
But the idea that the corporations are just innocent little victims being forced to do bad things with a gun held to their head by consumers is bloody ridiculous.
I’m not saying corporations are innocent. I’m saying they’re doing what we demand.
Corporations are just a bunch of people working together, seeking profit. That’s it. They’re not more moral than the people who work there–and if they’re too moralistic they’ll fail, because people aren’t willing to buy their more expensive products.
I have a lot of problems with corporations, how they’re structured, the laws that apply to them (and more importantly, don’t). But they’re not the core problem, and blaming them is a cop-out. It stops us from taking responsibility, and in the end we’re the program: corporations can’t even exist unless we’re enthusiastically buying and using their products.
That’s bullshit, corporations sell you what they tell you you need, and convince you that you need to change the phone every 2 years, that you need anew car every 5, and that you have to eat the new organic bullshit nutrient rich superfood.
you are not as free to think as much as you think you are (and neither am I… I am not cooler than you)
you are not as free to think as much as you think you are
All of those things are things that are very easy to say no to? I swapped the battery on my phone, I don’t have a car but “my” car at my parents house is from '99. I eat food that I like. I’m not saying I’m impervious to bad decisions, or even that these are always bad decisions, but the people who buy a new phone or car every few years its because they like to.
Exactly. It’s just people don’t want to take responsability for the decisions they are able to make.
That’s great, but EmperorHenry said regulation would stop 99% of emissions. I can assure you that personal vehicles and animal agriculture represent more than 1% of emissions. If we’re talking about a 20%, 50%, maybe even 70% reduction, then your argument is fine. But we need a 100% reduction in order to save the species. I’m ready for 100%, are you?
Can we hit 100% if we sacrifice annoying pedants like you?
No, because we have lower emissions than annoying car drivers like you.
I can’t use public transit. And I don’t want to live in a 15-minute city either. I like my big rural town with tons of free space between every home. 1000 regular people driving cars isn’t even 10% of one billionaire flying in a private jet once.
Have you ever noticed how all these environmental regulations only affect us? Or how we’re the only ones looked at as being the ones who need to “cut back” on things WE like?
But billionaires and millionaires are never expected to change anything THEY do to help the environment.
I’ve also noticed that climate change isn’t nearly as bad as authoritarian, anti-free-speech assholes like Al Gore says it is. Al Gore said there wouldn’t be any ice in the polar regions by 2013, we’re 11 years past that and there’s still ice there.
I honestly don’t know if climate change is real, because half the studies are funded by oil companies and the other half of studies are funded by evil groups that want us to live in pods and eat bugs, the olde “you will own nothing and be happy” types.
I keep hearing from the latter that we’re all going to die because of climate change at whatever date they say, then we pass that time and we’re still here.
Look dude it’s awesome that you like your rural town and the big truck you probably take to grab a big mac from the nearest McDonald’s and all and there is nothing wrong with you personally liking that, but I like big cities. I like having everything I need, plenty of diverse entertainment and new friends to make, all within a 15 minute walk from me; being able to hop on a bike, tram or train to get anywhere further than that; the livelihood of living amongst other walking, talking, living, breathing humans; living amongst green spaces that people actually use and that I don’t have to personally maintain, that exist for a reason other than being a non-location that you pass through and don’t really think about on your way from a to b. I currently can’t have that at a reasonable quality without either having a damn near million dollar salary, moving several states away from my friends and family, and/ or just leaving the country altogether.
Nobody is saying towns that need cars to get around can’t exist, we are saying that walkable cities and towns are actually really good for our society and small business and the fucking tax revenue keeping your beloved money-pit suburbs and rural towns afloat. We are saying that there should be more places where humans come before cars, made available for the people that want them; just as badly as you want your free space between every home; rather than owning a home and a car in a bleak patchwork of corn fields, manicured bluegrass, and crumbling asphalt being the only real option for the vast majority of the country.
Heck, I’m honestly not even asking for big cities or any crazy amount of density. Americans have a hard time conceptualizing this before they travel and see it for themselves, god knows I did, but I’m not talking Manhattan. Literally just take any historical district of 1-over-1 or 3-over-1 mixed-use buildings in an American town (usually all that remains is a single block but they do still dot the country and are beloved places of commerce and leisure), expand that by a radius of 10 or so blocks, slap a tram, a couple buses, plenty of bike lanes, and a pedestrian-only zone or two in the middle of it, and boom you have yourself the lively and functional cross between a suburban town and a densely populated city that worked in America long before everyone was convinced they needed a car, and has adapted well to cars in Europe.
You see, we deliberately killed our cities when we flattened huge swaths of them to build freeways, parking lots, and arterial roads through them in order for whites to move somewhere that blacks were priced and redlined out of. We cut off our nose to spite our face and as a result, a lot of the issues we see in this country today are symptomatic of that era of government subsidized suburbanization.
This is not the natural order of things, we did not get here by suburbia and rural towns with their car-dependent lifestyles simply being superior in some way to cities and moderately dense towns, and we won’t go back by forcing people out of their homes and into tenements and taking their cars away. We simply have to fix what was destroyed and give people a choice and if they want to, they will move on their own. Many of those people will likely find that a car just isn’t worth the investment anymore. I would bet my life savings that a good chunk of people would choose that over the suburban sprawl that is currently the default.
“We can’t do 100% so why are we talking about 20%?”
We can do 100%. You pessimists need to start thinking bigger. We can do it.
Personal vehicles and animal agriculture are responsible for way more than 30% of emissions, it would be impossible to get 70% reduction without touching them. 100% reduction is not possible, necessary, or desirable, some industry is necessary to maintain basic necessities.
I think what you’re trying to say is that it’s necessary to address personal vehicles and animal agriculture to adequately address climate change, which is true and valid. But the way you’ve phrased it comes across as unreasonable.
Neurotypicals are so picky. I deliberately tell them 70% might be possible just to seem extra reasonable and concilatory, and it’s still not enough.
I’m not NT but maybe I can give some advice, constructive criticism as someone who agrees with your overall point.
I think being generous on that point backfired because it made the other changes seem less necessary. It meant being more insistent on other points, which are more subjective, like, “exactly where do you draw the line between sacrificing for the environment vs maintaining quality of life?” It’s better to be generous on questions like that while sticking to your guns on facts you can support with data.
It could also help to point out that lifestyle changes are something people can do right now, while regulations have to go through political processes with lots of money working against them.
Also I just realized you may have been referencing carbon neutrality when you say “100% reduction.” The way I (and I think others) interpreted it was not “net zero emissions” but just “zero emissions.” The planet removes some carbon naturally, so it’s ok to have some pollution, we don’t need to go back to living in mud huts or anything. The question is, where can we get the most bang for our buck in reducing overall emissions to bring us closer to net zero, and the answers are the things you mentioned.
Yeah, I meant carbon neutrality. Carbon neutrality is the first step to preventing runaway climate collapse. When we reach carbon neutrality, it’ll keep getting hotter, but the rate at which it gets hotter won’t be increasing anymore. We need to be carbon negative in order to prevent further warming.
We’re still going to need to have some emissions, like from farting, but meat and cars are easy to get rid of. Those changes actually have a negative cost, because cars and meat are already bad for reasons besides climate change. I got rid of them and it was easy and it made my life better.
I would want to get rid of meat and cars before we get rid of things like intercontinental container ships. Those ships are actually super efficient for the amount of cargo they carry, and I think intercontinental trade is an absolute necessity. The main problem with container ships is just how much disposable garbage we’re shipping and how much we’ve moved away from local industry. But intercontinental industry is definitely going to be a necessity in some ways if we want to have an advanced society. Cheeseburgers? Not so much.
I might not be ready to lose my car but I sure as hell am ready to lose
Whatever it is you’re ready to lose, there are people out there who aren’t ready to lose it.
coal based electricity
Fuck right off, there are entire countries who would be completely at a loss without coal-based electricity. Countries which would rather you lose your car.
the military complex
Everyone working in the military complex would rather you lose your car than they lose their jobs. It’s you and your car vs millions of people all over the world specifically trained to identify threats to their security, find them and shoot/cut/drone/nuke them. Good luck.
single use plastic
I mean you wanna fight all the corpos involved with single used plastics, I’m sure having your car will keep you from being suffocated with a plastic bag for like 2 hours.
You’re unwilling to allow for changes in your personal lifestyle to globally change things for the better, so why the fuck would anyone else? Just nuke the planet from orbit at this point, we’re all egotistical shitheads and there’s no way to convince Jimmy McFuckface to give up his 1994 truck, we’re done here.
I don’t know why these discussion are often met with “if you’re not ready to lose your car you’re the problem” narrative.
I hate that argument. I can’t use public transit and most cities are too big to be walkable.
I also hate the idea of walkable cities, which is a dog-whistle-word for 15-minute cities, full of surveillance and all kinds of other bullshit, like not being able to go back the way you came and having to walk all around the entire town to go back home.
That’s not what 15 minute cities are.
You’re getting surveillance regardless of walkablity. Amazon is happy enough to hand Ring camera footage over to authorities no questions asked.
You said you can’t use public transit twice but neither time did you specify why.
You said you can’t use public transit twice but neither time did you specify why.
I’m disabled in several ways, I don’t want to talk about it.
Someone has been feeding you some weird bullshit about 15-minute cities. The concept of 15-minutes cities has nothing whatsoever to do with the things you wrote.
No no no, it’s way more comfortable thinking that I don’t have to make any big efforts because it’s only the responsibility of some elite.
Sure, but those regulations have to be stuff like “no selling petroleum to people for their cars”. Are you ready for a carless world?
Are we just going to act like electric vehicles don’t exist or that the quality of EVs would be significantly higher if the current fuel and car industry wasn’t hindering their development at every turn?
I get the feeling you’re just on some ego trip about how you’re ready to return to nature, while the rest of the lower classes around the world aren’t ready to go as far as you are, despite the fact that it’s not even necessary.
Our infrastructure and our technology can change and evolve to co-exist and support the environment much better. People can retain many of their modern convivences of life while preserving nature. It will be more expensive for the wealthy at the top, more time consuming, and perhaps not exactly the same, but it can be done.
you’re ready to return to nature
No, I’m trans. I need to take hormones every day or I’ll want to kill myself. I wear glasses and I can’t do without them. I love processed food, as long as it’s vegan. Instant ramen and potato crisps make up a significant portion of my diet. I can’t do without the internet. Constant information and stimulation keep the voices in my head quiet enough to be bearable. I love technology, there’s no place for me in a primitive world. I’d die.
Our infrastructure and our technology can change and evolve to co-exist and support the environment much better.
I know. And cars aren’t the way. Cars are destructive to communities, they kill people with startling regularity, and even when they’re working properly on an electric battery they release PM10 pollution that gives kids asthma and allergies, and they stunt cognitive development for the people inside them.
The answer is public transit and bicycles. We don’t need to return to monke, we need to build cross continental high speed rail. The technologies to make our lives better exist and they’re not cars. Not even electric cars.
My apologies for assuming then. It genuinely came off as pretentious and I’m sorry for misunderstanding.
I also wasn’t aware of the side effects and dangers that even EVs had. I agree that public transit should be invested in more, but I at least thought using EVs as a transition phase would help.
Electric cars are only an effective solution if we’re waiting around for capitalism to fix our problems. Which we shouldn’t be doing. If the government is actually putting in an effort, then it’s more cost effective and faster to build trains and trams and rail. Electric cars let people do a little more good in a world where nobody else is. But they’re not the future, not a future we can look forward to. The EVs of the future are trains, bicycles, trams, buses, scooters, skateboards, fire engines, and ambulances.
Living carfree makes my life better. But people don’t realise that. I say “you better be ready like me”, and you think I’m an anprim. Nah, I love technology. And I also like getting exercise when I go places like nature intended. I like the vitamin D, I like the cortisol, I like the lack of guilt. I like bringing my bike on the train and playing with my phone on the way. I like never needing to seriously worry about parking. I like knowing I’m not part of the problem. And I really like knowing that no matter how badly I fuck up, I’ll never get someone else killed through carelessness.
The future is awesome! Walkable neighbourhoods and a public transit system the government actually invests are amazing. I’m very lucky to live somewhere that both of those are true. It’s great in the future, come over here!
But psychologically, people are stubborn. They’re scared of change. They’ll resist it. People don’t know what’s good for them, they only know what’s comfortable. So come join us in the future now, don’t wait, and don’t risk the possibility that you’ll end up an old fart holding the human race back with your reliance on the technology of the past.
Yes and stop selling bullshit electric vehicles, there is already the solution: public transport
Electric vehicles are another boost to the super rich car industry
I can’t use public transit. So I guess if there’s no cars, I’ll be stuck at my house forever.
Nobody said “no cars”. I’d like to see much fewer cars, and public transport that almost everyone can use.
That’s exactly the problem, you should be able to
That’s exactly the problem, you should be able to
I’m disabled in several ways, I don’t want to talk about it.
Wow. Such a martyr. Willing to stay at home forever because they have been told individual cars have an impact towards climate change that you don’t believe in.
People would rather the world burn than be inconvenienced even a little.
Unfortunately we do still need cars. Mostly for things like farm use and last mile transportation. Having everyone live in a city near a train line is a great idea but you it definitely won’t happen. Electric cars is the compromise we need to make with people in rural areas
Ok, but that is not the target group electric cars are targeting, see all Tesla models
Including “cyber truck” (always makes me chuckle to think that they are really trying to sell that crap)
Edit:typos
Yeah Elon musk is a cuck and I’m not advocating for any specific manufacturer but realistically we will need some cars in the future no matter what. So I’d rather them be electric
I get the sentiment, that we’re not killing nature, just ourselves, but “nature” is not one thing. Killing nature amounts to humans causing incredible suffering to untold trillions of individual animals each with a lilfe, a consciousness.
I saw my Kitty suffocate due to embolism and had to put her down and it’s no less of an awful event because it was a cat and not a human, it screwed me up and it was years ago. I imagine that level of needless suffering happening every day X 1 billion due to human greed and apathy.
“Nature” also has lots of suffering in it even without our help. I agree we shouldn’t cause undue harm, but the suggestion that animals won’t suffer without us is naïve at best.
My condolences for your kitty, but nature would not have granted her the more peaceful end you gave her.
i like the ever so slight implication here that a handful of deer could presumably cause global warming if we just didn’t exist now.
I wonder how likely that is to be true.
Human-accelerated global warming wouldn’t happen via a handful of deer… But global warming was going to happen even if humans never existed. Global temperatures have waxed and waned since before life existed. The only difference here is that we’re pressing on the gas pedal (literally) and accelerating the process. The idea that global temperatures would have never climbed without humans empowers denialists by giving them a strawman to point at.
Pretty sure I already specified unnecessary suffering, I didn’t suggest that animals wouldn’t suffer without us.
Nature just wanted plastic.
I feel like more than a few people were clapping at first because they were thinking “yeah fuck recycling and taking care of the environment, we’re gonna be just fine!” Only to be hit with the punchline, “the planet and humanity is not ‘we’. ‘We’ humans are fucked.”
This is the only correct perspective, and there are relatively few people specifically at fault for the lying that’s been done to the public on important issues.
Mother Gaia is a cruel and brutal bitch. Just read up on Darwin. No nazis killed as many beings as natural selection
Or limited and fallible.
yep.
Unfortunately for nature we’re like cockroaches. You can kill the majority of humans with a big enough asteroid, but actually wiping us out while persevering vertebrate life is a tall order. Hell it was a tall order before we even got out of the neolithic.
“We’re a virus with shoes.” – Bill Hicks
“Humanity survives adversity well” is not not something I would think of as “unfortunate.”
Unfortunately for nature but depending on your perspective it’s unfortunate for humans as well
I suppose from the perspective of misanthropes it’s unfortunate, but I discount the opinions of misanthropes.
How is it unfortunate for nature? We’re part of nature. In the long term humanity is nature’s best mechanism for enduring long term, since eventually Earth is going to become uninhabitable due to the Sun’s aging process.
We’re part of nature.
This is the whole crux of the comic that I see so many people, even in this thread, misunderstanding. Nature isn’t some “out there” thing, or even something we “emerged” from. There is no emerging! This is it. Me on my phone eating a second veggie dog while scrolling on my phone is part of nature. You reading it - also nature.
Yes, well that’s tautological, isn’t it? Nature is everything, so everything is nature. What’s the point of having the word if it doesn’t carry any meaning?
Got to call the world as we see it by some name
We already have plenty. The universe. Reality. Existence. Creation. The world, as you said. What does the word nature bring to the table?
Fun fact: the Oxygen Catastrophe wasn’t a one-time event. It happened repeatedly in waves until life finally evolved a way to use the Oxygen.
When humans emerge from their bunkers, they’ll quickly rediscover nuclear weapons and greenhouse pollution.
Are we? We haven’t been around that long enough relative to the planet. We won’t be here in another billion years.
Nothing will be here in a billion years. Setting aside the fact that no species lasts that long anyway, Earth only has a few hundred million years of habitability left, if “nature” has its way. The sun’s steadily brightening as it ages and tectonic processes are causing changes in Earth’s atmosphere that will eventually prevent photosynthesis from operating, at which point Earth become the domain of a few hardy strains of bacteria again.
That is, unless humans (or our very distant descendants) decide to do some meddling to keep Earth alive. There’s various ways to do that, from solar shields reducing the solar influx to moving Earth’s orbit farther out to stripping material from the Sun itself to moderate its output.
“Gaia” has no foresight. She will sorely miss humanity’s technological descendants once the planet gets in that situation, there’s nothing she can do about it herself.
There were things here a billion years ago. There will be things a billion years from now.
Humanity is a blip that will be forgotten.
There were things here a billion years ago. There will be things a billion years from now.
No, there really won’t be. The Sun is getting brighter as it ages, in just a few hundred million years Earth will either cook to death or every single molecule of carbon dioxide will have to be taken out of the atmosphere to counteract the effect. Either way photosynthesis ends at that point.
Unless something technological intervenes.
Also, a billion years ago the only “things” that were around were bacteria. The Cambrian explosion didn’t happen until 530 million years ago.
Humanity is a blip that will be forgotten.
Unless our descendants are still around, which they could easily be. Humanity doesn’t need Earth to survive long-term. The reverse is not true.
Self centered human.
Yes, that’s the original idea I made the comment to.
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I’m saying even humans with the ability to make pottery were able to survive in niches that our pests can’t even survive in, from the desert to the artic. We outcompete everything even without industrial technology and can survive on some pretty crazy diets. Invertebrate life could survive an extinction event that wipes us out, but I can’t imagine any vertebrate doing so (including the ocean ones).
Self centered human.
We were the one bipedal line out of 7 or more, that only almost died out. We are made to be more adaptable.
We won’t be here in another billion years.
I don’t know about you, but I sure won’t be
Don’t wanna be around now, a billion years may as well be hell.
I’ll take your spot if you don’t want it.
Welcome to hell!
This is so fucking stupid.
No seriously. Stop. Think. This is SO FUCKING STUPID.
Humans can live IN SPACE. We are NOT destroying ourselves. We are HYPER ADVANCED COCKROACHES. We will easily survive whatever damage we cause to the planet.
The problem with destroying the planet is not that we’re destroying humanity. What a stupid, egocentric take. The problem with destroying the planet IS THAT WE’RE DESTROYING THE PLANET.
“Mass extinction? Eh who cares” is a FUCKING STUPID TAKE and I have no clue why so many people here are okay with it. What the fuck is wrong with all of you? This is NOT OKAY. MASS EXTINCTIONS ARE NOT OKAY.
Is this a fucking psyop? What the fuck?
I think you might have misread the message of this comic. It’s not saying mass extinction is ok, or that we shouldn’t try to preserve the environment. It’s saying nature doesn’t need us, and we are killing ourselves. Nature and life will go on long after climate change kill us all. It’s saying humans are so egocentric they use the words “destroying the planet” when they only destroy themselves.
Also as far as I know we can’t live in space for very long currently.
We might be able to evolve and adapt to the harsh condition of space… in a few generations of breeding in space.
You see the Catch-22
Nature needs us to stop destroying nature.
Well, survive yes. But self-sufficiency is a big problem. The world is nowadays so interconnected that even a problem in only one region can severely affect all of humanity (e.g. semiconductors from Taiwan). So yes, a collapse of our modern society is certainly possible.
Destroying the planet is not really a thing. Mass extinctions in the past were a big deal but at the same time: Earth recovered. We only have a big problem because the plants/animals we need might go extinct.
Obviously valuing nature and wildlife diversity in and of itself is good but it doesn’t have any intrinsic value in regards to supporting society.
Destroying the planet is not really a thing
Also, can everyone please shut the fuck up with the “Well ACKSHUALLY, you’re not destroying the literal ball of rock and magma so you’re not destroying the planet”. Fuck you, you know what it means.
Sorry, I meant “destroy the planet” as in lifeless/only single celled organisms.
And you can kind of see humanity as “just another big asteroid impact”. Nature will recover competeley over the next million years or so. That’s what I meant with mass extinctions being kind of inconsequential for the planet as a whole on geological time scales.
Obviously mass extinctions are also bad besides their effect on human society, I just meant that that is mostly a spiritual one thats hard to measure, about lost potential and eradicating a species. As a thought experiment, is eradicating a disease, a form of life, inherently negative? Mosquitoes? Do you agree that it’s a big achievement that we eradicated small pox? What if we eradicate all existing diseases?
Mass extinctions are different. We should be aiming to never have any more mass extinctions ever.
Yeah, I guess that was a bit of a strawman. Obviously mass extinctions are bad.
Mass extinctions are BAD. Not because of how it affects human society, Jesus Christ. They’re just bad because we shouldn’t be fucking up the planet. That should be a baseline moral understanding and it’s terrifying that none of you are seeing it.
Just to touch on a problem but there.
Humans can live IN SPACE.
Ahhh no… We can habitat space. We really really can’t live there.
We can’t really give birth or develop in space, gravity unlike ours will eventually deteriorate our bodies, even on Mars you will go blind and start developing clots before too long just from the slightly lower gravity. And that’s nothing of the radiation we are blocked from here on Earth.
The list is long and bad. We are adaptable but mostly on Earth adaptable. Able to survive climates and regions not everything ever. We can probably eventually figure out space but we can never just live there.
So when we destroy the planet we might really just take ourselves out too.
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It’s a conversation. Are you really this upset just cause reality is less magical than science fiction?
It’s not a peanut gallery. It’s the rest of the users on this site. The whole point of being here.
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The idea of living in space was on topic that you brought up.
You were wrong about it.
If you are upset then get off the Internet don’t take it out on other people assuming you are the only one who is right.
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Of course we can. We could build a giant rotating shielded space station. We have all the technology, we just haven’t done it because it’s expensive.
I studied theoretical astrophysics as part of an earth and space exploration field.
Trust me, we really don’t just have all the technology. That doesn’t answer a lot of problems and you are assuming our level of science.
We might be able to figure out a good chunk of it if money is of no cost but that’s no guarantee.
Man not even to talk about material cost. It would take us decades.
Name a few problems.
Yeah I am not inspired to actually bother answering that if you are coming into this without an expectation of an actual conversation.
It sounds more like you want a fight and that’s not what I’m doing.
Space is not an easy answer. Even if you just want it to be.
I don’t really like “trust me bro” takes on things.
Yeah and you are doing the same. I pulled my credentials you just don’t want to be wrong cause it hurts your feelings.
story of my life, i hope.
I think it’ll be funny to have a well known legacy, but without people having any idea of who the fuck i am.
God speed humanity, you fucking suck.
Mother Gaia is Savage 😳
