Mass Extinction and Rolling Back the Human Race
This article in the Science Daily is interesting, once you read the text and find that it's actually giving the opposite impression to the headline! In short, it finds that the human race caused far more species extinctions, amongst mammals at least, in its pre-civilization phase than it has caused since. This actually makes a lot of sense: a new species has most effect when it first appears, but is the opposite of what most people would assume off the top of their heads. (This was determined by a study of what happened in the Americas, where humans arrived relatively recently to a clean slate. Uncomfortable reading for those who unthinkingly revere native Americans as wiser custodians of the environment than Europeans. But not actually a reproach to native Americans, who simply did their best to adapt to and survive in, a new environment. Someone is going to post an angry comment about the white men killing all the Bison, or the Passenger Pigeon, but the study is about the disa...