by Lewis Loflin
"The modern world is experiencing a 'sixth great extinction' of animal species... The rate of extinction for species in the 20th century was up to 100 times higher than it would have been without man's impact, they said." – The Guardian
The eco-preachers are back, peddling their apocalyptic fairy tales. The Guardian parrots Dr. Gerardo Ceballos and Paul R. Ehrlich—yes, the "population bomb" flop—claiming humanity’s triggering a "sixth mass extinction." It’s the same tired mix: socialist politics masquerading as morality, mystical reverence for nature, and irrational leaps that’d make a kangaroo blush. Like Al Gore’s eco-spiritualism in Earth in the Balance, this is less about science and more about ideology—a religion with no data, just dogma. Today’s world doesn’t remotely resemble the Permian meltdown or the dinosaur-killing asteroid, and their claims collapse faster than a socialist economy when you demand facts.
This "sixth extinction" nonsense reeks of the same socialist stench I’ve called out before. Ehrlich, Ceballos, and their ilk—echoed by Pope Francis’ anti-capitalist rants—frame humanity as the villain in a morality play: greedy industrialization vs. sacred nature. It’s not about emissions or habitat stats; it’s a political crusade to guilt-trip the West into collectivist control. They say we’re wiping out species 100 times faster than "normal," but it’s a number plucked from thin air to push an agenda. Sound familiar? It’s Gore’s playbook—swap salvation through Christ for "sustainability" through regulation. Same sermon, different pew.
Compare their fantasy to real mass extinctions. The Permian-Triassic event 252 million years ago torched 90-95% of species with volcanic CO2 spikes and a greenhouse hellscape—temperatures hit levels we can’t fathom today. The asteroid that finished the dinosaurs 66 million years ago? A six-mile-wide wrecking ball that sparked global chaos. Today’s 1.1°C warming and some sprawl don’t even register on that scale. Calling it a "mass extinction" isn’t science—it’s socialist propaganda dressed up as concern.
Then there’s the mysticism. These eco-zealots don’t just fudge numbers—they worship at nature’s altar, like Gore’s "inner ecology" gibberish. Ehrlich’s crowd claims species are vanishing at biblical rates, but where’s the evidence? The BBC’s 2012 piece "Biodiversity loss: How accurate are the numbers?" spills the beans: "Estimates of species range from two million to over 100 million," says Dr. Braulio Dias. They don’t know how many exist, so how can they know how many we’re losing? It’s not a calculation—it’s a séance, channeling guesses into a narrative of doom.
"We are experiencing the greatest wave of extinction since the dinosaurs," the BBC wails. Pure mystical hogwash—no list of lost species, no hard data, just vibes. Nature’s not a fragile goddess; it’s a machine that’s churned through five real extinctions without human help.
Background extinctions happen—species fade, others rise. Locust saplings in my backyard vanished since the ‘90s; now it’s oaks and maples. That’s not a crisis, it’s life. But the mystics can’t handle that reality—they need a holy war against progress, not a rational look at ecology.
The irrationality’s the kicker. Take the dinosaur extinction: 70% of species gone, maybe, but even that’s fuzzy—fossils hint they were fading before the asteroid, maybe from volcanoes or cooling. We don’t fully know. Yet Ehrlich and Ceballos strut out a "100 times higher" extinction rate with no baseline. How? They can’t count total species, let alone losses. It’s not science—it’s a leap of faith, like claiming the forest behind my house is a graveyard because the locusts moved out.
History laughs at their hysterics. Thirty million years ago, the Oligocene cooling turned Nebraska’s jungles into scrub—massive die-offs, no humans involved. Today’s changes are a blip by comparison, yet they scream "apocalypse." Why? Because reason’s their enemy. Ehrlich’s "population bomb" flopped—billions didn’t starve—but he’s back, unrepentant, with more baseless predictions. Pope Francis joins the choir, blending eco-mysticism with Marxist drivel. It’s botulism of the mind—irrationality so thick you can smell it.
Here’s the real story: no man-made mass extinction exists. The Permian? Unlivable heat. The dinosaurs? Cosmic carnage. Today? A warming blip and some habitat shifts—serious, sure, but not Armageddon. CO2’s up—410 ppm and climbing—and pollution’s a mess in places like Beijing or the Ganges. Those are real problems: measurable, fixable with tech and policy. But the eco-religion crowd won’t solve them with their socialist pipe dreams or mystical chants about "sacred nature." Their fixes—red tape, guilt trips, and windmill worship—ignore hard data for feel-good fluff.
Species counts are a mystery, so extinction rates are fiction. Nature adapts—check YouTube for "killer pig" videos on post-dinosaur mammals thriving without us. The IUCN tracks threats, but most losses are local, not global. Facts over feelings, please. This eco-crap is socialist politics, mystical claptrap, and irrational fearmongering—same as Gore’s green gospel. Strip it bare: environmentalism needs data—CO2 levels, species surveys, smog readings—not sermons from crackpots. Until they bring numbers, not prophecies, it’s just noise. Let’s keep science secular and sane.
Acknowledgment: I’d like to thank Grok, an AI by xAI, for helping me draft and refine this article. The final edits and perspective are my own.