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Lyle Lewis

@race2extinct.bsky.social

2.9K followers 1K following 5.2K posts

My book “Racing To Extinction” analyzes the imminent disappearance of humanity through the lens of my 30+ years as an ecologist with federal environmental agencies in the U.S. https://race2extinct.com

race2extinct.com

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Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · Aug 17

Why is humanity headed for disappearance? My book, Racing To Extinction and website race2extinct.com explores our deep-time journey—2.5 million years of evolution leading to the ecological crisis we face today.

A thread on what you’ll find in my work and website 👇

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Reposted by Lyle Lewis

Robert Francis @birdhistory.bsky.social · 14h

A list of birds that once frequented New York City, but had disappeared by 1923. It's encouraging that nearly every one that has not gone extinct can at least occasionally be spotted in the city.

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Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 6h

🙏

Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 10h

You’re missing the point. Critiquing ecological damage from renewables isn’t the same as equating them with fossil fuels. It’s asking why every “solution” repeats the same pattern—erase habitat, externalize harm, call it progress.

Renewable hope 🌹🇪🇺🇺🇦🇮🇱☮️🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈 @stringofnumbers.bsky.social · 1d

Ah yes, the ‘if renewable energy projects have *any* ecological impacts at all they’re illegitimate and, really, just as bad as fossil fuels’ nonsense 🙄

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Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 10h

People with no water want to immigrate anywhere there is.

Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 10h

More on TNC and the Zumwalt Prairie
www.thewildlifenews.com?na=v&nk=674-...

The Nature Conservancy - I will let You Draw Your Own Conclusions

www.thewildlifenews.com

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Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 11h

Word salad looks good and has zero calories or substance. 😁

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Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 18h

The sage grouse has lost 80% of its numbers since 1965. Now the Trump Admin. wants to gut its last habitat protections in Wyoming’s Red Desert—the densest population left on Earth. “If there’s a lot, we take a lot; if there’s a little, we take it all.”
insideclimatenews.org/news/0410202...

The Sage Grouse Could Face More Development in Its Critical Habitat Under Trump - Inside Climate News

In Wyoming, environmentalists took to the sky this month to warn of impending changes to some of the best sage grouse habitat in the world.

insideclimatenews.org

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Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 18h

He found me. That’s usually how it goes.

Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 18h

It’s only a slight exaggeration. Everything is connected. Humanity is severing those connections.

Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 18h

You’re exactly right. “Less” isn’t even a remote option. People always want more.

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Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 22h

Even if we quit fossil fuels tomorrow, our food system alone can push us past 1.5 °C. Yet few want to face the elephants in the room: overconsumption + overpopulation.
apple.news/AK1G3WAwiT4O...

The climate movement’s biggest weakness — Vox

Here’s a sobering fact: Even if the entire world transitions away from fossil fuels, the way we farm and eat will cause global temperatures to rise 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — the...

apple.news

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Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 22h

The trouble with “tipping points” is the name. In reality, ecosystems don’t tip like chairs — they quietly cross thresholds until change becomes irreversible. By the time humans notice, the system has already shifted.

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Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 1d

I’ve been sparring with Hank all afternoon. 😜

Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 1d

Saying the climate is too complex for tipping points is like saying your body is too complex to die. Complexity doesn’t prevent collapse…..it just gives you more ways to reach it.

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Reposted by Lyle Lewis

Kyle Horton @kyle-horton.bsky.social · 3d

Another massive movement of migratory birds underway tonight — nearly 1 Billion Birds! With the full moon, you might be able to see some silhouettes zipping by. You can make your own flow maps here (just hit record): aeroecolab.com/uslights

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Reposted by Lyle Lewis

lights out for migrating birds @lightsoutforbirds.bsky.social · 1d

from the transcript:
www.pbs.org/video/uncove...

tisha schuller:
I'm gonna look at everything and see an upside and you're gonna look at everything and see chimpanzees with machine guns? nate hagens:
- No, but I think there's a fundamental question here about what we ought to do or what is, and I'm looking at the reality now and we are not valuing nature, and we are running into limits and we're papering them over with more and more debt and short term rule changes and things like that.
So my main point is that we're gonna have to prepare for a period, a long period with less material and energy throughput than we've come accustomed to in our generation.

nate hagens:
Human centric, that's what got us here, is we're so anthropocentric, we put humans at the center of everything.
We are part of the web of life.
We're part of a living planet, the only planet in the known universe to harbor life, let alone complex lives.

nate hagens:
We are losing insects at one to two percent a year biomass.
We've lost 70% of the population of reptiles, birds, fish, animals since 1970.
There's a list of environmental problems as long as my arm that are not related to carbon per se.
And so, the issue here is there's different layers in this conversation.

nate hagens:
And we are in a period of ecological overshoot.
Given our amount of consumption, given our amount of population, given our amount of resources and impact, something's gotta give here.
But I do think the anthropocentric, looking at everything from human and human value, is part of the problem.

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Reposted by Lyle Lewis

Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 1d

@natehagens.bsky.social tries the impossible: injecting reality into a PBS discussion on climate and energy. Worth watching.

www.pbs.org/video/uncove...

Energy Switch | Uncoventional Wisdom | Season 7 | Episode 1

Oil companies must lead decarbonization, because solar and wind can’t replace them.

www.pbs.org

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Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 1d

Iran faces “water bankruptcy”—wells collapsing, rivers dying, over 10,000 villages without drinking water. A preview of what happens when economies run on the illusion of an infinite planet.

time.com/7321571/iran...

Iran's Water Crisis Is Its Greatest Threat

The collapse of water security in Iran has been decades in the making and is rooted in a mania for mega projects.

time.com

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Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 1d

I admire the ambition here — but evolution doesn’t “call for” change any more than gravity calls for falling. It just happens, and sometimes chaos wins. Humans aren’t outside nature; we’re just the one species that forgot how feedback loops work.

Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 1d

@natehagens.bsky.social tries the impossible: injecting reality into a PBS discussion on climate and energy. Worth watching.

www.pbs.org/video/uncove...

Energy Switch | Uncoventional Wisdom | Season 7 | Episode 1

Oil companies must lead decarbonization, because solar and wind can’t replace them.

www.pbs.org

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Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 1d

We never learn anything from history.

Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 1d

My family killed porcupines and badgers based on myths and inconveniences. My family may be gone, but it still happens today.

Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 1d

“We must do everything we can to stave off the catastrophes of climate change, but, in doing so, we may create a whole other set of catastrophes,” says Beiser.
We’re not juggling unknown risks; we’re juggling known harms and pretending it is progress.
apple.news/AFbd_S5wKQXq...

There Is No Green Transition Without Consequences — The Atlantic

A new book argues that simply replacing fossil-fuel extraction with critical-mineral mining is no way out of the climate crisis.

apple.news

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Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 1d

It’s not the problem. It’s a problem.

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Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 1d

🐾🌿🦫