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Originally Posted by IamIan
What is your basis for this rather extreme type of catastrophic extraordinary conclusion/expectation ??
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Well...
Biodiversity is a resource we're rapidly exhausting. While most people won't mind the loss of species that were already uncompetitive and unfit... those that were fit and competitive before human development destroyed their habitats, invading species introduced by humans crowded them out or human economic activity hunted them to extinction... we might just miss.
*Biodiversity is a resource because having our eggs in a whole lot of baskets helps the biosphere survive environmental shocks like asteroid strikes and Ice Ages. Humanity is one of the biggest environmental shocks to hit the Earth in recent times... if, say, an Ice Age, catastrophic temperature rise or an asteroid strike were to occur in the near future, it's a fair bet the effects would be much worse than otherwise.
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Larry Niven's "Time Traveller" series, as collected in the book: "Rainbow Mars" has a very cheery take on this. Basically the only species left on Earth (outside of zoos and arboreums) are people and food yeast.
Not a very cheery way to live.
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Long story short: we're already in the midst of a mass extinction event. While some species have recovered in isolation thanks to conservation efforts, there are several high profile species that may not see the next decade.