Tom Toles for June 03, 2019

The canaries in the coal mine are there as a warning to us, and THEY ARE DYING.

The dying of canaries, of delta smelt (tiny fish ridiculed by anti-environmentalists) and other species large and small are warning that we, too, will have our day.

Almost all large mammals that existed at the dawn of human civilization have been hunted to extinction, and the few large mammal species that still remain (elephants, rhinos, hippos) are all teetering on the brink.

Previous mass extinctions were caused by external forces.

The mass extinction now in progress is caused by human activity.

Humans are killing off our fellow earthlings of other species.

Ask not for which species the bell tolls, it tolls for thee…

Extinction is forever. Investors in destroying the environment don’t realize they won’t be making any interest when they are dead too.

I look forward to eating rich people

A wonderful image and visual metaphor for the consequences of catastrophic environmental and ecological damage. Sure, the Earth will likely continue to change and evolve after we are gone. Many have theorized that the next Age on Earth will be the Insect Age. We’ve had sea creatures and fish, lizards, and mammals. Who or what else is left if not the insects? We know that some of the oldest surviving species are insects. Cockroaches have been forever and survive everything short of vaporization.

I feel like Mankind is going to earn itself a Darwin Award, but there won’t be anyone around to award it.

Contrary to the comment in the lower right corner, that’s exactly what people are doing.

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” (John Muir). Nice one, Tom.

Odd how some people feel that self-destruction is the only path forward … too hard to cooperate and sustain the planet.

After the Great Flood, Yaweh promised He would never again destroy the Earth. What Noah didn’t hear was the Almighty chuckling sotto voce, “I shall let thee doeth it for me.”

Homo sapiens have caused massive extinctions for thousands of years.https://news.unl.edu/newsrooms/today/article/unprecedented-wave-of-large-mammal-extinctions-linked-to-ancient-humans/

It’s about time.

It’s the old saying: “Eat, Drink and be merry for tomorrow we die”.

Since the first spec of life emerged on earth.. its success has led to its eventual extinction. We.. are foolish to think we will be the exception.

We’ve sullied our air, water and earth. We are drowning in our garbage. Our extinction is coming too.

“The Dominos are falling, hurrah hurrah” Marching to extinction with pipes and drums.

Republicans continue to foul the nest.

For those eternal optimists who think it’ll all work out OK in the end, check out Jared Diamond’s book Collapse, about half a dozen human cultures who saw the end coming from decades away, did nothing about it, and ended up perishing (invariably in misery and squalor). Just because those were all local doesn’t mean it can’t happen on a planetary scale, and then we’ve got nothing else to fall back on.

We’re a species too. :-(