The California Academy of Sciences, located in San Francisco’s
Golden Gate Park, is one of the finest natural history museums in
the country. If you get the opportunity to go there, I urge you to
do so. Unfortunately, not everything in the museum deserves to be
called “science.”
The following statement is one of the informational
posters that’s part of an area called “Climate Change.” It is like
other such claims I’ve seen numerous times in similar venues over
the past several years. The poster is titled, “Rushing to
Extinction,” and has been part of the exhibit for at least two
years that I know of.
Today, we are living through the sixth mass extinction of
life in Earth’s history. This is due in part to climate change
triggered by the carbon dioxide we pump into the air as we burn
fossil fuels for energy. The resulting greenhouse gases are
altering the biosphere, which is causing the loss of plants and
animals around the world. If we don’t change our actions, we could
condemn half of all species to extinction in a hundred years. That
adds up to almost a million types of plants and animals that could
disappear.
I urge you to read the statement again and consider what
it says. Although the statement is extreme and sensationalistic, it
is not unusual. It is typical of the conventional wisdom. It is
ironic that it is found in what is called the California Academy of
Sciences. It is reckless fear-mongering propaganda, not science. It
cannot be substantiated and is a total distortion of
reality.
For example, it is simply not true that “Today, we are
living through the sixth mass extinction of life.” About 770 plants
and animals have been identified as having gone extinct in the past
800 years. That’s about one per year. We are discovering far more
species we did not know about than identifying
extinctions.
The poster implies there are a total of two million
species now existing. Biologists don’t actually know how many
species there are. Educated guesses range between five million and
fifty million.
Even if the total number of species is only two million,
it means that if half go extinct in the next hundred years, the
rate of extinction will have to increase from one each year to
10,000 each year. What’s the probability of such a massive change?
How, specifically, is that going to happen?
Previous mass extinctions were the result of asteroids or
ice ages. Have we had one of these lately that I didn’t hear
about?
Is the statement defensible? It’s a statement made in a
certain context, the Academy of Sciences. Apparently it’s an
assertion that is supposed to be accepted based on authority. If
you’re going to make such a cataclysmic prediction, shouldn’t you
provide a little documentation and support? Is it supposes to be
self-evident?
To this point “climate change” has not increased the rate
of extinction. We definitely are not currently “living through the
sixth mass extinction of life.” To say we will in the future is
speculation, about which there is much disagreement, to put it
mildly. There is definitely no “consensus.”
The poster is worded as if what it says is beyond dispute.
The statements are not qualified in any way. I assume the designers
of the exhibit intend for it to be taken seriously.
“If we don’t change our actions, we could condemn half of
all species of life on earth today to extinction in a hundred
years.” You can get away with about any outlandish prediction you
want to make if you hide behind the word “could.” In the context of
basic scientific protocol, any such statement should be presented
in terms of probabilities as well as a discussion of the specific
preconditions to such an event.
Judging from the numerous groups of children I see when I
go there, the Academy of Sciences is possibly the most popular
destination for Bay Area schools’ field trips. The statement, which
is truly frightening if you believe it, is seen by hundreds of
school children almost every day. What kind of impact do you think
such statements have on young, impressionable minds? It verges on
emotional child abuse. The Academy staff should be ashamed of
themselves, but I doubt they are.
Environmentalists are so fanatical about their Armageddon
beliefs that they think terrifying school children is justified. Do
these people ever think about the implications of what they say? Do
they care?
The purpose of the “Rushing to Extinction” poster and
similar statements is to deliberately frighten whoever reads it.
Environmentalists apparently get a perverse thrill from scaring
people and making them feel guilty for being members of the human
race. The California Academy of Sciences is allowing itself to be
used as a venue for manipulative propaganda.
The natural world is fascinating and magical. The best way
to illustrate that is to stick with the facts. It’s too bad natural
history museums don’t do so.
