Extinction Studies

What are the implications of how we talk about human extinction?

A new philosophical field has emerged. “Existential risk” studies any real or hypothetical human extinction event in the future. This movement examines catastrophes ranging from runaway global warming to nuclear warfare to malevolent artificial intelligence, deploying a curious mix of utilitarian ethics, statistical risk analysis, and, controversially, a transhuman advocacy that would aim to supersede almost all extinction scenarios. The proponents of existential risk thinking, led by Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom, have seen their work gain immense popularity. They have attracted endorsement from Bill Gates and Elon Musk, millions of dollars, and millions of views.

'Calamity Theory' is the first book to examine the rise of this thinking. In a time of pandemics, global heating, and the proliferation of new super-technologies that put the whole planet at risk, we must all become existentially conscious. But Schuster and Woods’s three critiques of existential risk address the field’s failures to acknowledge how some communities and lifeways are more at risk than others. They ask what such omissions imply about the role of human extinction in political and scientific worldviews, while suggesting alternatives grounded in critical theory and ecological thought.

https://manifold.umn.edu/projects/calamity-theory

This chapter examines the perverse utopianism in Chinese author Liu Cixin’s science fiction novel 三体 (literally Three-Body, English translation The Three-Body Problem). It argues that the text’s exploration of the desire for human extinction functions as a critique of the utopian belief in scientific progress, evident in earlier Chinese science fiction and the aesthetics of socialist realism. Extinction becomes a way of mapping the decline of the idea of utopia. The threat of extinction allegorises a number of threats to the human species, particularly climate catastrophe and the future solar death of the Earth. In Three-Body, extinction pushes allegorical writing to its limit. This chapter argues that in reaching the limits of allegory, the text reaches a utopia that is radically inconceivable and refuses inscription.

This chapter examines material published in the field of animal studies in 2018. Following on from concerns highlighted in last year's account, we find an amplified urgency and pressure being brought to bear on the conservative ideological foundations of much of today's pro-animal theory, along with increased emphasis being placed on guarding against an unwitting affirmation of certain normative functions as well as potential recuperation by incumbent power structures. Similarly, the pejorative charge of Kantian correlationism as reactionary and normative is coming under increasing pressure, with the indictment of conservative reaction being turned back against such scholars who employ the concept of correlationism in an attempt to bypass theory altogether. By way of contested conceptions of extinction and the diverse fables to which they give rise, I argue that animal studies has reached a point in its rapid evolution and growth whence it becomes imperative that we reconsider the directions and methodologies of the field as a whole, and as an academic discipline emerging from the era of high theory in Continental thought. In order to facilitate this, I have divided the chapter into four sections: Extinction (I), Extinction (II), Extinction 2.0, and Fragility.

Astrological insights of planetary archetypes are statistically correlated to human history by Dr. Richard Tarnas in his book, Cosmos and Psyche, to reveal human predilections in the same way insurance underwriters use statistics to predict mortality correlations; They both use past human behavior to predict future behavioral outcomes. These correlated historical insights are used to understand the past as it aligns with planetary movement through space and time. The correlations are statistically significant: The archetypes of the planets align with history. The author compares her personal history with the zeitgeist of two historic periods, the 1960s and the time of the French Revolution to acknowledge the correlation of Tarnas’ analysis of the effect of planetary alignments with her own human behavior and experience.
"Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust - we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper." ~ Albert Einstein

This article explores the representation of anthropogenic extinction in Harri Kallio’s The Dodo and Mauritius Island: Imaginary Encounters. Making a case for the symbolic logic of extinction imaginaries (developed from Lewis Carroll’s literary and mathematical writings and from the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense), I argue that Kallio’s creative practice reanimates animal atopias: the placeless places of extinct animals. In returning the extinct dodo bird (Raphus cucullatus) to its original habitat on the island of Mauritius, Kallio’s project furthermore serves as a case study for the expressive postures of extinction, which make the systemic phenomena of extinction both thinkable and figurable in Kallio’s extinction imaginary.

The Extinct Birds Project started in 2015 after I saw a drawer full of extinct
birds at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History. On the clean white paper were the bodies of seven extinct birds and around a dozen other threatened species. A tremendous veil of sadness laced every one of the specimens and countless questions immediately ran through my mind: How did the institution get these extinct birds? Why did they go extinct? Should they have been collected if they were in danger or going extinct? Where were these birds collected? Have the bodies been gutted and filled with cotton? How is that done? Who collected these and how was this done? What were the collectors’ lives like?

This book, with its accompanying exhibition and website extinctbirdsproject.com, tries to answer these questions and several others about seventeen extinct birds species. The publication examines at least one individual specimen and the ornithologist who collected it from each of these species. The essays and illustrations present complicated global environmental and societal issues in an accessible and intriguing manner.

For more information on this project, go to:
https://www.extinctbirdsproject.com.

For more information on Alberto's other projects, go to: www.albertorey.com

In the Productivore’s Dilemma three overarching claims are explored in a manuscript of chapters split into two parts: First, that human and more-than-human life is not only threatened by extinction but is more importantly threatened by systemic extermination. Second, utilizing the coast redwood tree (Sequoia sempervirens) as an object for analysis, I seek to show that one of the largest known plant species is not only threatened by extinction, but by negative production of space, a concept theorized throughout the manuscript. The coast redwood tree is a remarkable example of the fact that there are important differences between extinction caused by natural processes and extinction caused by Anthropogenic systems. Third, using the analytical apparatus of systemic extermination helps to clarify a long-unfolding and intensifying species-level crisis, which I identify as the Long Extermination, an historical event – highly stretchable in its temporal coordinates.  At the center of this critical re-framing of the debate about the so-called sixth mass extinction and its epochal designation the Anthropocene, is what I refer to as the Productivore’s Dilemma: born of the realization that the main difference between the human species and all other species on the planet is not merely that we can consume and use for fuel a wide variety of plants, fibers, and animals, due to our omnivorous nature, but that we can consciously produce our habitats and our food. Hence, we are productivores. A dilemma then arises: are humans destroying the planet or are the systems that direct our productive capacities destroying the planet? If it is the latter, then we are witnessing systemic extermination. If it is the former, we are causing a mass extinction. The answer will please nobody, and thus it is a dilemma. That said, there is an answer. In providing an answer, this manuscript, while broad and synthetic in its structure and scope, takes aim at a set of ideas and historical processes that deserve to be critically interrogated. Critiques of the Anthropocene and the sixth mass extinction move freely between the internal and external, leading to one central counterpoint: That we are not witnessing the sixth mass extinction, but the maturation of a long-term extermination event that is systemic much more than it is species oriented.

—It will not be extraterrestrial impacts, disease, or other extrinsic agents that will cause the extinction of Man, but rather the collapse of his artificial economy. We argue that there is no productive category of the economy beyond the Service Sector in which to shift the global work force. As the Agriculture, Manufacturing, and Service Sectors continue to shed workers in a bid to reduce costs, this inevitably feeds Unemployment. A global economic regime in which an ever decreasing pool of workers subsidizes an ever growing army of unemployed is axiomatically unsustainable and conduces to system breakdown. That fateful day, profit-minded agricultural corporations will have no further incentive to produce food or deliver it to the cities.

On the Italian island of Sardinia at the beginning of the 20th century there was still an established population of the Bearded Vulture (about 35 pairs), Black Vulture (about 150 pairs) and the Griffon Vulture was “very common”. However, in the early decades of the 20th century there was a rapid and catastrophic reduction of the vulture populations on Sardinia, with the extinction of Bearded Vulture (1968-69) and the Black Vulture (1961), and the contraction of the population of Griffon Vulture (1000-1400 birds in 1945 to 100-140 birds in 1975 and 12 breeding pairs in 2007). The collection of skins and eggs, followed by hunting, poaching, killing and the use of poisoned baits for pest control were the main causes of the decline of the vultures on Sardinia. These causes were accompanied by an increase of disturbance at the breeding sites, and by a gradual decrease of pastoralism, which has led to a reduction in food availability. More recently, there have been unsuccessful attempts to reintroduce Bearded Vultures and Black Vultures, whereas after various restocking and greater protection projects, the Griffon Vulture population has increased (to 57 pairs and 230-250 birds in 2019). The Egyptian Vulture bred in Sardinia for the first time in 2019. Currently, collection and killing of vultures, and the legal use of poisoned baits have all been removed in Sardinia and the environmental situation now seems appropriate for new attempts to reintroduce the two extinct species.

OMG - THIS  PROVES THAT THE EXTENT OF OUR COLLECTIVE AND INDIVIDUAL CONSCIOUSNESSES EXCEEDS THE CONFINES OF THIS MULTIVERSE

THEY CONFIRM THAT HUMANITY KILLS ITSELF OFF ENTIRELY AND THEN STARTS OVER, THAT CYCLE IS ABOUT TO CHANGE VIA THE COMING EVENT, WHICH WE CAN CAUSE VIA ORGONE BUBBLE TECHNOLOGY.

Written for the online platform of a series of three exhibitions curated by Katarina Stenbeck, this paper was published online in early November 2016. Ecocide and Genocide are knotted processes in the endgame of capitalist modernity. This essay wrestles with the emotions triggered by anthropogenic extinction and human species supremacism, and argues for collaborative project of productive, politicized, decolonizing cultural mourning. Online at: http://lostfuture.net/chapter-1/texts/gene-ray/

Now available in paperback. 30% discount with the code PAPER30
https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-animal-to-come.html

—Thinking the politics of animals and animality beyond the critique of anthropocentrism and the concerns of biopolitics

What happens to political thought if we take the problematic nature of the human-animal distinction, not as something to be demonstrated, but rather as a given? What sorts of animal-existential possibilities are derived by tracking not the animal but the animal-to-come through the inherited traditions and institutions that continue to shape prevailing concepts of culture and politics?

In THE ANIMAL-TO-COME, Robert Briggs lays out an original interpretation of Derrida’s work which takes the ‘question of the animal’ beyond the critique of political and philosophical anthropocentrism. Eschewing approaches grounded in animal vulnerability, Briggs reviews theories of power, politics and culture in terms of their capacity to enable novel images of ‘zoopolitics’. Along the way he engages with recently translated work in the emerging field of philosophical ethology, including Vinciane Despret’s What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions? (2016) and Dominique Lestel’s empirical and constructivist phenomenology of human-animal relations.

Through these and other interventions, THE ANIMAL-TO-COME departs from well-established positions in animal studies to develop new ways of thinking animal politics today.

Extinction matters. It is not just an evolutionary inevitability or an apocalyptic obsession but a confronting, annihilating event. It demands more than quantifying lists and managerial interventions, more than appeals to save species and genes. It calls for the invention of modes of multispecies scholarship and storytelling capable of articulating the full diversity of subjects, relationships and responsibilities involved. In particular, what extinction reveals is the fragile labour that goes into the reproduction of unique forms of life: both animals’ own modes of intergenerational cultural transmission, and the anthropogenic apparatuses that work to protect them. To become adequate to the problem of extinction, animal studies must tarry at these extremes and make itself a space of truly interdisciplinary innovation. Paying attention to the cultures of extinction – both the human cultures that produce, understand, articulate and resist it, and the often objectified animal cultures that are so crucially threatened and trickily secured – reveals the complex interconnections of humans and nonhumans in the making and unmaking of meaningful worlds.

This paper presents the results of a pioneering experimental study into how extinction stories impact the affective, cognitive, and behavioral aspects of our attitudes toward endangered species. Combining insights from the environmental humanities with methods from the social sciences in an approach known as empirical ecocriticism, the paper shows how the sensory modalities of extinction stories and the gender of their audience may influence their social impact in often surprising ways. It also indicates how the use of drastic imagery may backfire by diminishing the persuasiveness of extinction narratives, and problematizes their reliance on interspecies empathy.

Extinction challenges our thinking and writing. Such overwhelming disappearance of ways of being, experiencing and making meaning in the world disrupts familiar categories and demands new modes of response. It requires that we trace multiple forms of both countable and intangible loss, the unravelling of social and ecological communities as a result of colonialism and capture, development and defaunation and other destructive processes. It brings forth new modes of commemoration and mourning, and new practices of archiving and survival. It calls for action in the absence of hope, and for the recognition and nourishment of new generativities: new modes of assemblage and attachment, resurgence and reworlding, commoning, composting and caring for country.

This paper examines polygynous birds-of-paradise in New Guinea and their relationship with their changing environment, with other birds, endemic fruit trees and local Papuan people.  It focuses on the possibility that at least a few bird-of-paradise extinctions occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century before the species were known outside New Guinea. Amongst the reasons identified for the possible extinctions of a small number of bird-of-paradise species are the collecting of skins and feathers for the fashion industry and for scientific study during this period, the way that bird-of-paradise courting, mating and reproductive behaviour confounds the rigid boundaries of species and species extinction, and the way that New Guinea has been perceived, conceptualised, and represented internationally.  This loss of species may suggest reasons for losses in ecologically related species, in particular endemic fruit trees.  However, debate has continued for at least the past one hundred years over the taxonomy of a number of bird-of-paradise specimens observed and collected in colonial New Guinea and in European warehouses. The epistemological gap between those species of birds-of-paradise recognised as “true” species and those accepted as hybrids have produced a field of speculation regarding hybridity and hypothetical or lost species.

The fate of Elliot’s Bird of Paradise exemplifies the way in which the lives and deaths of rare birds of paradise have been obscured by persistent colonial representations of New Guinea and its wildlife.  The narrative of a paradise beckoning hunters and collectors holds no place for stories of dispossession and extinction.  Just as historical and geographical representations of New Guinea continue to depict the island as a space of colonial desire, scientific representations of birds of paradise persist in conflating a subjective, aesthetic response to the plumage and behaviour of the birds with an implied scientific objectivity.  In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries European representations of New Guinea started to emphasise it as a space of production, a space in which the slaughter of birds of paradise for the plume trade was justified and written over.  This chapter argues that the cultural demands of history, commerce and science have worked to conceal and deny the possible loss of bird-of-paradise species, and the conditions leading to that loss.

Love in a Time of Slaughters examines a diverse array of contemporary creative narratives in which genocide and extinction blur species lines in order to show how such stories can promote the preservation of biological and cultural diversity in a time of man-made threats to species survival. From Indigenous novels and Japanese anime to art installations and truth commission reports, Susan McHugh analyzes source material from a variety of regions and cultures to highlight cases where traditional knowledge works in tandem with modern ways of thinking about human-animal relations. In contrast to success stories of such relationships, the narratives McHugh highlights show the vulnerabilities of affective bonds as well as the kinds of loss shared when interspecific relationships are annihilated. In this thoughtful critique, McHugh explores the potential of these narratives to become a more powerful, urgent strategy of resistance to the forces that work to dehumanize people, eradicate animals, and threaten biodiversity. As we unevenly contribute to the sixth great extinction, this timely, compelling study sheds light on what constitutes an effective response from a humanities-focused, interdisciplinary perspective. McHugh' s work will appeal to scholars working at the crossroads of human-animal studies, literature, and visual culture, as well as artists and activists who are interested in the intersections of animal politics with genocide and Indigeneity.

Returning to the contentious trope that single-handedly drove discussions of modernism in the (early) twentieth century, this paper speculates on how modernist difficulty might offer a unique site for approaching the thought of extinction in the twenty-first century. I explore the intellectually complex, formally experimental, yet little-studied prose/poetry of the British-Indian writer Bhanu Kapil to illustrate one particular version of modernist difficulty that manifests itself in contemporary poetry: entan

As the first collection focused on fiction and extinction, this volume takes up the collective insistence on the centrality of story to extinction studies. In various and disparate ways, each chapter engages with the stories we tell about extinction, about the extinction of animal and plant life, and about the extinction of human life itself. Performatively answering the call to action of extinction studies, these chapters explore what kinds of humanity caused this event and what kinds may live through it; what cultural assumptions and values led to this event and which ones could lead out of it; what relationships between human life and this planet allowed the sixth mass extinction and what alternative relationships could be possible. Moreover, the scholars collected here look to the future, to what may be and to what must be as this extinction event plays out.

Обсуждается антропогенный биоценотический кризис в сравнении с 5ю массовыми вымираниями прошлого.  Показано сходство по ходу собственно вымирания и "развала" биогеоценозов по функциональным "блокам", но без каких-либо перспектив на восстановление биоты или "складывание" новых биоценозов в "рукотворных ландшафтов". Это не позволяет использовать для их понимания теорию экосистемной регуляции эволюции В.В.Жерихина-А.П.Расницына-А.С.Раутиана.
«В ответ» на действие факторов, обеспечивающих вымирания прошлого, самые разные группы животных независимо эволюционировали так, что оказывались всё более устойчивыми к ним: поэтому «быстрые» группы сменялись всё более медленными. Нынешний биоценотический кризис, вызванный человеком, отличается тем, что все группы биоты оказываются уязвимыми в равной степени: доли угрожаемых видов сравнимы и, пусть с разной скоростью, но все они скорей «движутся к вымиранию«, чем к восстановлению, притом что попадание в эту когорту не зависит от принадлежности к семейству — отряду, а лишь от размера, типа питания и пр. характеристик, определяющих «образ жизни», сравнимый с тем, что исследовался в данной работе.

Или, иначе, вымирания прошлого стали фактором прогрессивной эволюции: группы, которых оно миновало или получившие преимущество после него, оказываются устойчивей к ним, чем «пострадавшие». Поэтому биоразнообразие планеты, ценотическое и видовое, на всём протяжении дочеловеческой истории в целом росло, не только вопреки массовым вымираниям, но и благодаря им. С антропогенным биоценотическим кризисом всё совершенно иначе. Виды (роды, отряды, семейства), пока не «попавшие под удар» а, может, и процветающие именно благодаря успешному освоению «рукотворных ландшафтов» отнюдь не стали устойчивей к факторам изменений, обеспечивающих ускоренное развитие кризиса. На следующей стадии эволюции городских систем, сельскохозяйственных ландшафтов и прочей «второй природы» они могут быть поставлены на грань вымирания теми самыми факторами, которые обеспечивали их процветание ещё вчера.

Лучший пример — «традиционные синантропы» города и деревни (домовый воробей, городская ласточка, сипуха, обыкновенная пустельга, овсянка-дубровник и пр.). Совсем недавно они являли собой эволюционный успех, сегодня оказываются самыми уязвимыми в следующий момент действия тех же самых причин, которые обеспечили их прошлое процветание. И это справедливо для всей биоты Земли: «давление» нынешнего глобального капитализма для неё — катастрофа, сохраняющая уязвимость тех групп биоты, до кого оно пока что не значимо, а то и полезно (а не фактор отбора, увеличивающего их приспособленность к происходящему). Действительно, для амфибий показано, что клады с большим темпом видообразования под воздействием человека и вымирают быстрее (Greenberg, 2017), что прямо указывает на большую опасность для них (а судя по другим данным — и для всей биосферы) нынешнего антропогенного кризиса, чем массовых вымираний прошлого, при сравнимых масштабах.

May, A. (1996a): Relationship among sea-level fluctuation, biogeography, and bioevents of the Devonian: an attempt to approach a powerful, but simple model for complex long-range control of biotic crises. - Geolines, 3: 38-49, 2 figs.; Praha.

ABSTRACT. Connections among changing sea-level, development of marine biogeography and appearance of bioevents in Devonian times are emphasised. Decreasing Devonian provincialism of the marine fauna reflects rising sea-level of global ocean. Whereas the Emsian sea-level lowstand was accompanied by strong provincialism of the marine communities, the Frasnian highstands were linked to an unusual decrease of provincialism. As generally documented, the partial but intensive transgressional events (often related to bioevents) were usually associated with a decrease of the provincialism. The best explanation for the majority of Devonian bioevents is the effect of oceanic anoxia. A model suggested herein operates with a fast transgression related to fast ocean sea-level rise. A direct consequence of this fast transgression was the increased primary biomass production (caused by both increased infiux of nutrients and increased total surface of shallow seas). Decreased oxygen supply of oceans continued this process being caused by the global temperature increase which resulted from the albedo decrease. These consequences of these combined factors produced an oceanic anoxic event which started the extinction processes of the bioevent. The well-documented pattern of intensified biological crises during the Devonian, time-slice by time-slice (from Emsian to Frasnian), is explained as a direct result of decreased provincialism of the marine fauna. Both decrease of the provincialism and increased intensity of the Devonian bioevents can be deduced directly or indirectly from changes of global sea-level. This simply constructed but very complex explanation yields two advantages: first, it needs only very few infiuencing factors, second, it can basically renounce incalculable influences (e.g. meteorite impacts). The suggested concept of oceanic anoxic events can explain also other major bioevents of the Earth history.

KURZFASSUNG: Der Artikel versucht, Zusammenhänge zwischen den Veränderungen des Meeresspiegels, der Entwicklung der marinen Biogeographie und den Bioevents im Devon herauszuarbeiten und zu erklären. Die Entwicklung des Faunen-Provinzialismus im Devon ist ein Ergebnis der Entwicklung des globalen Meeresspiegels. Im Emsium war der Meeresspiegel niedrig und der Provinzialismus der Meeresfauna gross, im Frasnium war der Meeresspiegel hoch und der Provinzialismus sehr gering. Insbesondere einige Trangressions-Schübe, die sich auch als Bioevents bemerkbar machten, führten zu schnellen Abnahmen der Grösse des Provinzialismus. Die beste Erklärung für die meisten devonischen Bioevents ist das Auftreten von ozeanischen anoxischen Events. Das hier vorgestellte Modell setzt bei schnellen Transgressionen an, die durch schnelle Meeresspiegel-Anstiege verursacht wurden. Die Konsequenzen einer schnellen Transgression waren gesteigerte Primär produktion organischer Substanz und geringere Sauerstoff- Versorgung der Ozeane, was zusammen zum ozeanischen anoxischen Event und zum Bioevent führte. Der Umstand, dass die Intensität der Bioevents vom Emsium zum Frasnium zunahm, wird durch die Abnahme des Provinzialismus der Meeresfauna in dieser Zeit erklärt. Sowohl die Entwicklung des Provinzialismus der marinen Fauna als auch das Auftreten und die Intensität der Bioevents im Devon lassen sich direkt oder mittelbar aus der Entwicklung des globalen Meeresspiegels ableiten. Dieser sehr umfassende Erklärungsansatz hat den Vorteil, mit sehr wenigen Einfiussfaktoren auszukommen und auf unkalkulierbare Einwirkungen (wie z.B. Meteoriten-Einschläge) völlig verzichten zu können. Vermutlich ist das hier entwickelte Konzept eines ozeanischen anoxischen Events auch auf andere Bioevents übertragbar.

KEYWORDS: Devonian, Kellwasser Event, ecosystems, biogeography, sea level fiuctuation.

In the fall of 2016 charges against a Sinixt (Lakes) hunter from the Colville Confederated Tribes in Washington state were heard in BC Criminal court. This case is significant as Sinixt were classified as "extinct" by the Canadian government in 1956. An anthropologist expert witness for the prosecution argued that an acre of land, a milk cow, and a garden were sufficient to support a family, while BC government officials referred to hunting rights as a "pie", which was insufficient to further share. The prosecution proposed hunting was no longer "integral to Sinixt" and that they moved south to "enthusiastically pursue farming" and, by doing so, had given up their rights to Sinixt təmxʷúlaʔxʷ (traditional territory) in BC. This paper will explore the use of (in)sufficient foods as justification to limit Sinixt Aboriginal rights and title in British Columbia, Canada.

is one of 50 poets who are featured in the highly acclaimed poetry anthololgy "Poems from the Edge of Extinction". Each poem appears in its original form, alongside an English translation, and is accompanied by a commentary about the language, the poet and the poem-in a vibrant celebration of life, diversity, language, and the enduring power of poetry. One language is falling silent every two weeks.