Tea at Trianon: Real Story Behind the Disappearance of Earth’s Largest Animals

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, August 10, 2024

Real Story Behind the Disappearance of Earth’s Largest Animals

From SciTechDaily:

Researchers at Aarhus University have concluded that human hunting, rather than climate change, was the primary factor in the extinction of large mammals over the past 50,000 years. This finding is based on a review of over 300 scientific articles.
Over the last 50,000 years, many large species, or megafauna, weighing at least 45 kilograms have gone extinct. Research from Aarhus University suggests that these extinctions were predominantly caused by human hunting rather than climate change, despite significant climate fluctuations during this period. This conclusion is supported by comprehensive reviews incorporating evidence of human hunting, archaeological data, and studies across various scientific fields, demonstrating that human activity was a more decisive factor in these extinctions than previously dramatic climate changes.
The debate has raged for decades: Was it humans or climate change that led to the extinction of many species of large mammals, birds, and reptiles that have disappeared from Earth over the past 50,000 years?

By “large,” we mean animals that weighed at least 45 kilograms – known as megafauna. At least 161 species of mammals were driven to extinction during this period. This number is based on the remains found so far.
The largest of them were hit the hardest – land-dwelling herbivores weighing over a ton, the megaherbivores. Fifty thousand years ago, there were 57 species of megaherbivores. Today, only 11 remain. These remaining 11 species have also seen drastic declines in their populations, but not to the point of complete extinction.
A research group from the Danish National Research Foundation’s Center for Ecological Dynamics in a Novel Biosphere (ECONOVO) at Aarhus University now concludes that many of these vanished species were hunted to extinction by humans. (Read more.)