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sixth mass extinction
Discovering Intelligence in Unexpected Places
If our human intelligence has discerned over thousands of years which plants are edible and nutritious and healing, wouldn’t the evolutional ingenuity of plants which feed and sustain us and all life also constitute intelligence?
Aug 27, 2024
From the largest to the smallest and the oldest to the youngest creatures on Earth—Antarctic blue whales and coastal redwood trees, minute bacteria and human beings—we are all enmeshed in layers of relationships. We need each other, though some more than others.
Plants evolved hundreds of millions of years before the first humans and transformed the Earth—through their creativity in surviving predators—into a livable environment for all animals, including humans. We needed plants for our evolution and need them now for our survival from climate disaster. They, however, did not need us for their existence and would survive without us.
Putting humans at the top of the evolution chain as the crown of intelligent life, a Western worldview, is—as some keenly grasp—mistaken. The baleful consequences of this simplistic hierarchy are everywhere: out-of-control climate change; accelerating rates of animal and plant extinction; dead zones in the oceans and mass mortality of coral reefs; the vast pollution of land, air, and water; and the mounting likelihood of human extinction with nuclear war. All caused by humans, humans with financial and political power much more egregiously than others.
Perhaps you have you noticed that late summer asters and goldenrod tend to grow as companions. Why? Together—their combined beauty—attracts more pollinators.
Certain scientists who study plants—from the simplest to the exotic—are stirring controversy with their “ Are plants intelligent?” Consider that we humans owe our lives to plants for their food, medicines, and critical balance of 21% oxygen in the air we breathe. If our human intelligence has discerned over thousands of years which plants are edible and nutritious and healing, wouldn’t the evolutional ingenuity of plants which feed and sustain us and all life also constitute intelligence?
Studies have found that elephants recognize themselves in a mirror, crows create tools, dolphins demonstrate empathy and playfulness, and cats exhibit similar styles of attachment as human toddlers. The given explanation is that they have brains with neurological capacity for consciousness and intelligence.
But plants do not have a central brain. Could their mode of learning to evade insect predators and maximize their growth come from a diverse form of intelligence, possibly be distributed across their roots, stems, and leaves? Could the whole plant, then, function as a brain? Recent studies of plants have stirred the possibility that they are conscious and intelligent. Take communication, something we humans claim as our domain through language and more recently acknowledge that animals also possess.
Botanists have found that not only do alder and willow trees alter their leaf chemistry to defend themselves against an invasion of tent caterpillars, but that leaves of faraway trees also change their chemical composition similarly. Warned, as they are, by airborne plant chemicals released from the original trees under attack. Goldenrods signal an attack by a predator through strong chemical communication sent to all other goldenrod neighbors, just as humans warn their neighbors about a nearby fire or flood or crime.
Without any recognizable ears, plants sense sounds. The vibration of a predator insect chewing on its leaves causes a plant to make its own defensive pesticide. Beach evening primrose responds to the sound of honeybees in flight by increasing the sweetness of its nectar to attract them for pollination. Tree roots grow toward the sound of running water, including in pipes, where the roots often burst through causing great difficulties for municipalities. How do the various plants hear these stimulating sounds?
Plants have memory, some anticipating from past experience when a pollinator will show up for the plants’ pollen. Plants express social intelligence: Members of the pea family form relationships with bacteria living in their roots to have the bacteria supply beneficial nitrogen for the plants’ growth. Several kinds of plants provide a home and food for compatible ants who then attack the plants’ ant pests. Perhaps you have you noticed that late summer asters and goldenrod tend to grow as companions. Why? Together—their combined beauty—attracts more pollinators.
In finishing, I express my immense respect for the Indigenous worldview where wind, rocks, air, and rain are our kin, together with plants and nonhuman animals. We, humans, the most recent beings, depend on all of these elder kin; and this awareness, this worldview of connectivity among all beings, is our path back to Earth well-being.
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No, It’s Not the Anthropocene; Try ‘The Great Burning’
It’s probably better to think of the geological moment of human techno-transformation and population explosion as an event—like a global conflagration—rather than a durable new regime.
Mar 13, 2024
Early this month it was reported that members of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (which is part of the International Union of Geological Sciences), who had been tasked with adopting or rejecting a proposal to declare that we are in a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene, declined the motion. This comes after years of lobbying by many Earth scientists to formally acknowledge that humanity is in the process of changing the planet in ways that any future geologist would find obvious and undeniable.
My first reaction to the news was disappointment. I’ve been using the term “Anthropocene” for years, and had the impression that the main opposition to its formal adoption came from those who believe that humanity is incapable of changing Earth systems in ways that will make a difference for thousands or millions of years to come. Assuming that humans are too puny to alter the planet significantly is a mental pathway habitually trodden by climate change deniers, and it’s an excuse for doing nothing to avert a hellish future.
However, it turns out that the dispute among the roughly 20 scholars on the subcommission was mainly about whether humanity’s impact on Earth should be viewed as an event—like a mass extinction or an asteroid impact—or as the start of a new epoch. The majority favored the former; and, even though the legitimacy of their decision is being questioned, I think they’re right.
We’re still in the midst of the transitory event that is driving the end of the Holocene and the beginning of something else.
Ripples from human actions during the last few decades will spread far into the future. However, the consequences of the activities that are currently having profound impacts on the climate, oceans, and biota will limit those activities, so that humanity’s industrial growth-based economy driven by fossil fuels will be mostly if not entirely gone by the end of this century. There will likely be fewer people on the planet then, and they will have far less power per capita. Earth simply doesn’t have enough resources to enable a continuation of population growth and economic expansion for much longer before a decline commences. We will have the opportunity to shape that decline somewhat—to make it more beneficial by sharing the burden of contraction, or to make it more painful by fighting over what’s left—but the techno-optimist vision of a future of ever-increasing human potency is a mere fantasy, and a dangerous one at that.
So, it’s probably better to think of the geological moment (a couple of centuries at most) of human techno-transformation and population explosion as an event—like a global conflagration—rather than a durable new regime (geological epochs tend to be several million years in duration). The results of human overshoot will persist: If there are people around 10,000 or even a million years from now, they will be able to discern residue from the 20th and 21st centuries in the stratigraphy of lake beds around the world. That’s when the Earth’s climate changed; when toxic chemicals suddenly proliferated through atmosphere, soil, and waters; when glaciers melted; when radioactive particles were dispersed by atomic weapons tests; when untold numbers of animals and plants went extinct; and when ocean currents shifted.
The generations to come will inhabit a different world indeed. Earth’s new regime, once it has stabilized, will surely be classifiable as a new geological epoch—but currently it’s too soon to name it. We’re still in the midst of the transitory event that is driving the end of the Holocene and the beginning of something else.
Perhaps it’s this event that we should be naming. I hereby nominate “The Anthropic Unraveling” or “The Great Burning” as suitable candidates for the title.
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Republicans Put US Species on 'Direct Path to Extinction' With Poison Pill Riders
A Center for Biological Diversity found 27 anti-wildlife measures in FY 2024 appropriations bills, the most since the Endangered Species Act was passed 50 years ago.
Jan 17, 2024
U.S. Lawmakers, mostly Republicans, have inserted a record number of anti-wildlife measures into the appropriations bills for fiscal year 2024, the Center for Biological Diversityreported Tuesday.
The attack comes despite the fact that scientists warn human activity may be triggering a sixth mass extinction, as species disappear at unprecedented rates. A September study found that vertebrate species groups are dying off at a rate 35 times higher than it would be without anthropogenic pressure.
"Republicans have weaponized the appropriations process to launch a full-blown assault on our natural heritage," Center for Biological Diversity senior policy specialist Stephanie Kurose said in a statement. "These heartless attacks would strip away lifesaving protections from our most imperiled creatures—from wolves to whales to freshwater mussels. If passed, these bills would put multiple species on a direct path to extinction."
"I hope the white-nose syndrome wipes all of them out," Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said during a hearing in July. "We won't have to worry about it."
The center's report, titled Paving the Road to Extinction, found that 26 of the 27 "poison pill riders" placed in the appropriations bills were put there by Republicans. The last was introduced by Senate Democrats in an agreement to preserve preexisting measures. The total number of riders is more than Congress has added since the Endangered Species Act was passed 50 years ago.
"Republican members of Congress are trying to kill the Endangered Species Act," the center's endangered species program director Noah Greenwald posted on social media.
The report noted that Republican lawmakers have expressed outright hostility to the survival of endangered species. One rider, for example targeted the recent decision to list northern long-eared bats under the Endangered Species Act. The species has declined by 99% in 20 years due to white-nose syndrome, and human activity puts greater pressure on the survivors. But Rep. Michael Simpson (R-Idaho) added a rider barring any funding from enforcing those protections.
"I hope the white-nose syndrome wipes all of them out," Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said during a hearing in July. "We won't have to worry about it."
Six of the measures—the most aimed at any one animal—targeted two critically endangered species of whales: Rice's whales and North Atlantic right whales. There are only around 50 Rice's whales left, and they live only in U.S. waters, while right whales are dying off so quickly they could be functionally extinct by 2040. Despite this, one rider would prevent the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from finalizing a rule that would protect right whales from ship strikes, while another prohibits protections for Rice's whales from both ship strikes and oil and gas activity.
Another rider would effectively strip most gray wolves of Endangered Species Act protections in the Lower 48 states while a third would both end protections for Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bears and prevent the courts from intervening.
The center noted that most anti-wildlife riders introduced in previous years were rejected before the bills passed. But it only takes a few to do real harm. To return to right whales, in 2022 Congress approved a measure that would postpone conservation efforts to protect the dwindling population from getting caught in fishing gear.
"With each successful rider, we're losing our ability to end extinction in the United States," Kurose said. "These attacks are deeply unpopular with the American public, who want to see our natural heritage protected for future generations to come."
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