The Sixth Extinction

In Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, the author concludes that human behavior is on the verge of causing (or may have already caused) a mass-extinction—the sixth in the history of the planet.

Not my fridge.

It is amazing that our species has not already gone extinct. I don’t think there is a single thing derived from nature in this photo.

Imagine no power and no Internet. If civilization as we know it collapsed, we wouldn’t last a month. My ex once punched a hole in the wall when the cable went out for a few hours. How far a leap is it for Man to go from no sports-on-demand to raping and pillaging? I don’t want to find out.

Survival information is no longer passed down from generation to generation, so most people have a very limited concept of how to survive without modern conveniences, and Pop Culture is no help. No one really pays attention to #Nature. How to fight the #WalkingDead or dragons won’t help you. If you can’t Google which plants are poisonous, you are SOL.

#McGyver skills are very important. I never sent back my #Samsung Phone. I can make fire.

One thing television and movies do get right is what will happen to dogs. You stop feeding him and Mr. Sqiggles is joining his neighborhood canine gang and coming for you. #MansBestFriend becomes everyone’s worst nightmare.

And why is there always this underlying premise that the human race must be saved at any cost, as in the movie Interstellar and TV show Salvation?

What if God, or The Creator, or L. Ron Hubbard (take your pick) decided, “Ah no. Look humans, you had your shot. For the last 10,000 years you have totally trashed this planet, caused mass extinctions and are hell bent on killing each other. So, you know what? This little experiment is over.”

Although Kolbert paints a hopeful picture for Humankind's future, I am pretty sure any deity would agree that our species is not really worth saving. We ruin everything. So, prep all you want, but it could be time for a new dominant species. My vote, for what it is worth, would be manatees. They are vegan and seem nice.