Nats 1510 Topic 1

docx

School

York University *

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Course

1510

Subject

Geography

Date

Oct 30, 2023

Type

docx

Pages

Uploaded by JudgeCatPerson689

How to measure human impact: 1) Reduction of green space 2) Amount of pollution 3) Extinction of species ● martins reading is looking for ancient species extinction and finding the cause for it - in present species extinction it’s easy to figure out ● There isn’t a credible argument that it has happened - how did the extinction happen ● Martin's thesis: why so many large mammals became extinct - everybody agrees upon it but why? ● Half of large mammals became extinct and disappeared over the last 50,000 years ● He is convinced that larger mammals went extinct because of human actions ( human hunting) according to him - his argument ● Extinctions have happened over a long period of time (human based actioned extinctions) - he states the we were causing extinctions before technology ● Also claims we disrespect nature even without industrialization ● He takes a look of at the record of migration from large mammals - as human beings migrate from place to place, extinctions follow them around (so he claims) known as the overkill thesis ● If you add human hunting to the mix of natural extinctions it is overkill and pushes extinction over the edge ( overkill thesis) - basically migrating to new continents = wiping out large mammals & migrating to small islands = wiping out smaller mammals (birds too) ● Humans domesticate animals - larger mammals eat the same portion that humans do ● Animals can co evolve at the same time but not when humans come after them ● Radiocarbon dating narrowed data down to 100,000 years - huge new pool of data for when extinctions could happen ● New evidence can change existing theories - not always right away, but overtime in history it does happen ● The extinctions of species happen over a long period of time ● Radiocarbon dating has given spikes and that allowed him to make a conclusion that when humans migrate they cause extinctions ● Correlations between human migration and mammal migrations - have they caused these extinctions though? Cannot assume that ● There is other explanations as to why these extinctions are happening ● As climate change is changing (weather, environment) - that is why these extinctions are happening (these are anthropologists that are arguing this) it takes years for

those impacts to happen for extinctions to happen and could also overlap with the spikes that show that ● We have some evidience of human hunting but not as far as back as 50,000 years ago but we have evidence 15,000 (pits that were dug, etc) - martin makes an assumption that because human hunting happened 15,000 years ago then it has happened 50,000 years ago (there is no evidence to prove that) ● There are gigantic gaps in fossil records - anthropologists can predict if there's fossil to be found in the future ● One piece of evidence fits to what martin is saying - according to him it’s not the same as what happened with dinosaur extinctions ● Majority of extinctions that he is talking about is closer to the present (10,000 yrs ago) not the past ● The extinction spikes don't correlate with extinction (have to argue that in paper) Conclusion: ● He is making it an argument that 50,000 years ago human were causing extinctions because of their hunting but doesnt say to blame them for it ● They may have not be aware of hunting in a particular area has caused the extinction to happen (humans) ● With this argument it changes the perspective of things - suggests we are dangerous without science or technology ● Martin states that If we would have been aware of the large extinctions happening - then we would have more sympathy with animals like us ● Not accurately - but we have enough information to show us migrations that have happened over the last couple of years In summary (martins argument): when we migrate from place to place - more mammals become extinct and humans have been hunting for the last 15,000 years but he assume that they have also been hunting for the last 50,000 years For the summary and critique: Use page numbers and also use the proper academic citation (be consistent) doesn’t matter what style

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