An extinction event is some catastrophic occurrence which destroys many species of life on the planet. Of course, it's normal for a few species to die-out all the time. But in an extinction event there's a sudden and drastic loss of very many species of living things. The World has endured perhaps six of these events. The last one was about 65,000,000 years ago when the dinosaurs and thousands of other species died. But a new extinction event is already underway! The extinction of the dinosaurs at the so-called Cretaceous- Tertiary boundary at the end of the Mesozoic Era was very quick in geological terms. In about 100,000 years, about 65% of all the species in the world vanished, a lost of about a million species or ten species being lost per year. That's nothing compared to the new extinction event! Forget about your comet or climate change, your disease or meteor shower. None of those catastrophes can compare to the present killer. Human beings are the new comet of death. Our technology and virulent biological toxicity kills off more species in one day than were destroyed in a year during the last extinction event! While scientific estimates vary, it's safe to say that whereas the dinosaur-killing commit (or whatever it was) annihilated not more than 150 species per year. Humans have, for the past twenty years killed more than 12,000 species per year! Some authorities put the death rate as high as 30,000 species per year. Not only are we extinguishing the other species on the planet, but we will surely destroy ourselves. The Earth weighs an estimated six sextillion tons. By the year 2150, at present population rates, the human population will weigh more that the planet! Clearly an impossible condition. As we become more and more successful as a species, it's at the expense of other species and at our own expense. As there qets to be more and more of us, we treat one another worse and worse. Human life becomes cheaper and cheaper. Like a cancer we will destroy ourselves. There is no apparent way to prevent it. At this late stage, even enforced birth control could probably not prevent the unavoidable disaster. The present population of the Earth is about 6.3 billion persons. While growth rates vary and political lying prevents obtaining reliable growth figures, it's about 1.3% per year. Of course the rate compounds like interest on a debt. At that rate, world population will be about 11.9 billion in 50 years. At the maximum, the Earth can likely support about 140 persons or fewer per average square mile of land area (4.5 acres/person). That's a maximum sustainable human population of about 8.1 billion persons. At present growth rates that number will be exceeded in the fall of 2020, but factor in a generous margin of error. For the sake of argument, say 2030. But, of course, that's not the way it will be. You've watched movie versions of the great prehistoric predators like the T. rex. But the worst Mesozoic monster was nothing compared to you - and me; us! We are, by far, the most deadly animal which has ever existed and there are more of us than there are blades of grass in Pennsylvania. Not to worry, we'll obliterate ourselves long before 2030. We've started in the prisons. More and more there will be persons who are expendable, disposable, fodder so that others can cling to existence for a few more years. We are a predatory instead of a cooperative species. We compete instead of coexisting. We lust to kill everything we see, but pretty soon the target is the guy in the mirror. My personal advice is to treat one another better. There's no fighting the guys like Bush's Republicans who are crazy to speed things along.