Lyle Lewis
@race2extinct.bsky.social
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
https://race2extinct.com
Pinned
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 👇
A thread on what you’ll find in my work and website 👇
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
“Hell Is Here.”
Hundreds of thousands of species are already gone.
Millions more are in the extinction pipeline.
Sophia Pineda Ochoa’s new documentary “Greenwashed” exposes that truth with rare honesty.
youtu.be/XjWUKFUaoL4?...
Hundreds of thousands of species are already gone.
Millions more are in the extinction pipeline.
Sophia Pineda Ochoa’s new documentary “Greenwashed” exposes that truth with rare honesty.
youtu.be/XjWUKFUaoL4?...
GREENWASHED | Full Documentary [Official]
YouTube video by Dr. Sofia Pineda Ochoa
youtu.be
November 26, 2025 at 5:00 AM
“Hell Is Here.”
Hundreds of thousands of species are already gone.
Millions more are in the extinction pipeline.
Sophia Pineda Ochoa’s new documentary “Greenwashed” exposes that truth with rare honesty.
youtu.be/XjWUKFUaoL4?...
Hundreds of thousands of species are already gone.
Millions more are in the extinction pipeline.
Sophia Pineda Ochoa’s new documentary “Greenwashed” exposes that truth with rare honesty.
youtu.be/XjWUKFUaoL4?...
Wolves didn’t “fix” Yellowstone because ecosystems aren’t machines. Elk, beavers, bison, drought, trails… everything interacts.
What remains consistent? Human impacts still drown out ecology. Yellowstone exposes the myth of ecosystem resilience.
insideclimatenews.org/news/2211202...
What remains consistent? Human impacts still drown out ecology. Yellowstone exposes the myth of ecosystem resilience.
insideclimatenews.org/news/2211202...
Reintroduced Carnivores’ Impacts on Ecosystems Are Still Coming Into Focus - Inside Climate News
Yellowstone has long been a mecca for scientists studying how predators affect everything from elk grazing to vegetation height. They are still debating how to make sense of what they’ve learned.
insideclimatenews.org
November 26, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Wolves didn’t “fix” Yellowstone because ecosystems aren’t machines. Elk, beavers, bison, drought, trails… everything interacts.
What remains consistent? Human impacts still drown out ecology. Yellowstone exposes the myth of ecosystem resilience.
insideclimatenews.org/news/2211202...
What remains consistent? Human impacts still drown out ecology. Yellowstone exposes the myth of ecosystem resilience.
insideclimatenews.org/news/2211202...
“Hell Is Here.”
Hundreds of thousands of species are already gone.
Millions more are in the extinction pipeline.
Sophia Pineda Ochoa’s new documentary “Greenwashed” exposes that truth with rare honesty.
youtu.be/XjWUKFUaoL4?...
Hundreds of thousands of species are already gone.
Millions more are in the extinction pipeline.
Sophia Pineda Ochoa’s new documentary “Greenwashed” exposes that truth with rare honesty.
youtu.be/XjWUKFUaoL4?...
GREENWASHED | Full Documentary [Official]
YouTube video by Dr. Sofia Pineda Ochoa
youtu.be
November 26, 2025 at 5:00 AM
“Hell Is Here.”
Hundreds of thousands of species are already gone.
Millions more are in the extinction pipeline.
Sophia Pineda Ochoa’s new documentary “Greenwashed” exposes that truth with rare honesty.
youtu.be/XjWUKFUaoL4?...
Hundreds of thousands of species are already gone.
Millions more are in the extinction pipeline.
Sophia Pineda Ochoa’s new documentary “Greenwashed” exposes that truth with rare honesty.
youtu.be/XjWUKFUaoL4?...
This is increasingly common.
Coal ash, nuclear waste, industrial toxins… all sitting in “temporary” sites engineers swear are safe.
But time, technology, & luck always run out. Ohio isn’t the exception. It’s the rule.
www.wcpo.com/news/local-n...
Coal ash, nuclear waste, industrial toxins… all sitting in “temporary” sites engineers swear are safe.
But time, technology, & luck always run out. Ohio isn’t the exception. It’s the rule.
www.wcpo.com/news/local-n...
'Should scare the hell out of everybody'| Concerns about former Beckjord coal plant reach Gov. DeWine's office
Officials are worried about drinking water safety and the lack of emergency readiness at the former Walter C. Beckjord power plant, where billions of tons of leftover coal ash sit on the Ohio River.
www.wcpo.com
November 26, 2025 at 12:09 AM
This is increasingly common.
Coal ash, nuclear waste, industrial toxins… all sitting in “temporary” sites engineers swear are safe.
But time, technology, & luck always run out. Ohio isn’t the exception. It’s the rule.
www.wcpo.com/news/local-n...
Coal ash, nuclear waste, industrial toxins… all sitting in “temporary” sites engineers swear are safe.
But time, technology, & luck always run out. Ohio isn’t the exception. It’s the rule.
www.wcpo.com/news/local-n...
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
Now here is a great idea: Instead of Black Friday consumption, "let’s mark the post-Thanksgiving date as Extinction Friday" ~ don't consume, as an act of recognition of the impacts consumption has on the world and all beings on it. therevelator.org/extinction-f...
Let’s Rename the Day After Thanksgiving ‘Extinction Friday’ • The Revelator
The annual Black Friday ode to overconsumption sits at the core of our destruction of Earth’s ecosystems. We can flip the script.
therevelator.org
November 20, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Now here is a great idea: Instead of Black Friday consumption, "let’s mark the post-Thanksgiving date as Extinction Friday" ~ don't consume, as an act of recognition of the impacts consumption has on the world and all beings on it. therevelator.org/extinction-f...
Gee! Who could have seen this coming?
A water crisis in a rapidly warming, overpopulated, overdrawn, mismanaged region?
Completely out of the blue! 🙄
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11...
A water crisis in a rapidly warming, overpopulated, overdrawn, mismanaged region?
Completely out of the blue! 🙄
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11...
As the dams feeding Tehran run dry, Iran struggles with a dire water crisis
Iran spends 90 percent of its water on low-yield agriculture in a pursuit of self-sufficiency that exacerbates drought.
www.aljazeera.com
November 25, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Gee! Who could have seen this coming?
A water crisis in a rapidly warming, overpopulated, overdrawn, mismanaged region?
Completely out of the blue! 🙄
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11...
A water crisis in a rapidly warming, overpopulated, overdrawn, mismanaged region?
Completely out of the blue! 🙄
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11...
A Permian “buildout” is a biodiversity collapse plan — more rigs, more pipelines, and less habitat for dunes sagebrush lizard, lesser prairie-chicken, and Texas hornshell mussel. And more contamination of aquifers already polluted by decades of extraction.
finance.yahoo.com/news/permian...
finance.yahoo.com/news/permian...
Permian Gas Wave Sparks Biggest Pipeline Buildout Since the Shale Boom
Surging demand from LNG exporters, data centers, and manufacturing is driving a $50 billion investment boom.
finance.yahoo.com
November 25, 2025 at 12:59 AM
A Permian “buildout” is a biodiversity collapse plan — more rigs, more pipelines, and less habitat for dunes sagebrush lizard, lesser prairie-chicken, and Texas hornshell mussel. And more contamination of aquifers already polluted by decades of extraction.
finance.yahoo.com/news/permian...
finance.yahoo.com/news/permian...
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
“Behind the numbers lies the same fear that drives the agency’s restraint: the terror of appearing ineffective. In a political culture that rewards optimism and punishes honesty, extinction has become an embarrassment to be avoided, not a truth to be faced.”
The Endangered Species Act lets us measure our virtue even as the world empties around us.
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
November 24, 2025 at 8:19 PM
“Behind the numbers lies the same fear that drives the agency’s restraint: the terror of appearing ineffective. In a political culture that rewards optimism and punishes honesty, extinction has become an embarrassment to be avoided, not a truth to be faced.”
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
This is the hidden genius of bureaucratic optimism — it converts loss into evidence of success.
A species on permanent life support still counts as "recovered" if its managed population meets… a numerical threshold." - by @race2extinct.bsky.social
2•2
#Collapse
A species on permanent life support still counts as "recovered" if its managed population meets… a numerical threshold." - by @race2extinct.bsky.social
2•2
#Collapse
The Moral Comfort of Numbers
How the Endangered Species Act turned survival into a statistic—and why our faith in numbers may be blinding us to loss.
open.substack.com
November 24, 2025 at 4:34 PM
This is the hidden genius of bureaucratic optimism — it converts loss into evidence of success.
A species on permanent life support still counts as "recovered" if its managed population meets… a numerical threshold." - by @race2extinct.bsky.social
2•2
#Collapse
A species on permanent life support still counts as "recovered" if its managed population meets… a numerical threshold." - by @race2extinct.bsky.social
2•2
#Collapse
There’s a ‘staggering disconnect’ between racing to see natural wonders before they vanish and ignoring the damage we cause by racing to see them.
Glacier NP is a mirror. We overwhelm what we love… and annihilate what we don’t.
apple.news/AHnqFdP3zRc-...
Glacier NP is a mirror. We overwhelm what we love… and annihilate what we don’t.
apple.news/AHnqFdP3zRc-...
Travelers are being warned not to visit this popular US site in 2026 — The Independent
The spot is congested, garbarge accumulates fast and wildlife there is being disturbed, according to one group
apple.news
November 24, 2025 at 12:19 PM
There’s a ‘staggering disconnect’ between racing to see natural wonders before they vanish and ignoring the damage we cause by racing to see them.
Glacier NP is a mirror. We overwhelm what we love… and annihilate what we don’t.
apple.news/AHnqFdP3zRc-...
Glacier NP is a mirror. We overwhelm what we love… and annihilate what we don’t.
apple.news/AHnqFdP3zRc-...
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
"What we’ve built in the name of conservation is not a refuge but a mirror—an architecture of reassurance. The Endangered Species Act, the IUCN Red List, ... all reflect our need to see progress, not life. They allow us to measure our virtue even as the world empties around us."
The Endangered Species Act lets us measure our virtue even as the world empties around us.
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
November 24, 2025 at 1:36 AM
"What we’ve built in the name of conservation is not a refuge but a mirror—an architecture of reassurance. The Endangered Species Act, the IUCN Red List, ... all reflect our need to see progress, not life. They allow us to measure our virtue even as the world empties around us."
Fifteen days in the wild, and this truth feels sharper than ever:
We are drying up the fountains of life….forgetting they’re what quench both body and soul.
We are drying up the fountains of life….forgetting they’re what quench both body and soul.
November 23, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Fifteen days in the wild, and this truth feels sharper than ever:
We are drying up the fountains of life….forgetting they’re what quench both body and soul.
We are drying up the fountains of life….forgetting they’re what quench both body and soul.
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
I was doing wildlife monitoring. Making sure it's empirical. Sadly we use numbers for stories of hope "not extinct yet", not as senses of reality. I quit. Lyle summarizes my own feelings better than I could: "way to declare the patient stable while ignoring that the heart no longer beats on its own"
November 23, 2025 at 3:18 PM
I was doing wildlife monitoring. Making sure it's empirical. Sadly we use numbers for stories of hope "not extinct yet", not as senses of reality. I quit. Lyle summarizes my own feelings better than I could: "way to declare the patient stable while ignoring that the heart no longer beats on its own"
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
"This transformation of extinction into administration mirrors the larger logic of modern life. We don’t end destruction; we regulate it."
The Endangered Species Act lets us measure our virtue even as the world empties around us.
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
November 23, 2025 at 2:10 PM
"This transformation of extinction into administration mirrors the larger logic of modern life. We don’t end destruction; we regulate it."
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
November 23, 2025 at 2:25 PM
The Endangered Species Act lets us measure our virtue even as the world empties around us.
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
November 23, 2025 at 12:49 PM
The Endangered Species Act lets us measure our virtue even as the world empties around us.
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
This is an excerpt from a larger piece about what protection means….and what it fails to capture.
open.substack.com/pub/lylel/p/...
The Endangered Species Act lets us measure our virtue even as the world empties around us. Tomorrow I’m sharing an excerpt from a new article that pulls at the threads we don’t like to see.
November 23, 2025 at 12:23 AM
The Endangered Species Act lets us measure our virtue even as the world empties around us. Tomorrow I’m sharing an excerpt from a new article that pulls at the threads we don’t like to see.
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
"The Beef Industry Plan doesn’t strengthen the West — it destroys our fragile ecosystems and puts wildlife at risk while treating every ungrazed acre as a missed opportunity to squeeze and extract." oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2025/11/12/u...
USDA’s beef industry plan sells out public lands • Oregon Capital Chronicle
The Beef Industry Plan doesn’t strengthen the West — it destroys our fragile ecosystems and puts wildlife at risk while degrading recreational experiences like hunting and fishing.
oregoncapitalchronicle.com
November 13, 2025 at 7:16 PM
"The Beef Industry Plan doesn’t strengthen the West — it destroys our fragile ecosystems and puts wildlife at risk while treating every ungrazed acre as a missed opportunity to squeeze and extract." oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2025/11/12/u...
Reposted by Lyle Lewis
In case you have missed our new episode on the weekend! @fisherdanar.bsky.social @climatenews.bsky.social @race2extinct.bsky.social @drpauldorfman.bsky.social @paulhbeckwith.bsky.social
youtu.be/FAD8DwOYZs0?...
youtu.be/FAD8DwOYZs0?...
How to Save Ourselves from Climate Crisis I Dr. Dana Fisher on Resistance and Climate Action
YouTube video by Science Talk
youtu.be
November 12, 2025 at 2:31 AM
In case you have missed our new episode on the weekend! @fisherdanar.bsky.social @climatenews.bsky.social @race2extinct.bsky.social @drpauldorfman.bsky.social @paulhbeckwith.bsky.social
youtu.be/FAD8DwOYZs0?...
youtu.be/FAD8DwOYZs0?...
Time offline reminded me what writing can’t imitate: the resilience of living systems still holding on.
Thanks for sticking with my posts while I was off-grid.
New ESA piece tomorrow. Catching up this week….and here’s a moment from the wilderness.
Thanks for sticking with my posts while I was off-grid.
New ESA piece tomorrow. Catching up this week….and here’s a moment from the wilderness.
November 22, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Time offline reminded me what writing can’t imitate: the resilience of living systems still holding on.
Thanks for sticking with my posts while I was off-grid.
New ESA piece tomorrow. Catching up this week….and here’s a moment from the wilderness.
Thanks for sticking with my posts while I was off-grid.
New ESA piece tomorrow. Catching up this week….and here’s a moment from the wilderness.
The IUCN calls the extinction crisis a mix of “hope and concern.” But hope thrives in the absence of honesty. Humanity would rather lie to itself about endless growth than face the reality of limits.
November 21, 2025 at 5:00 PM
The IUCN calls the extinction crisis a mix of “hope and concern.” But hope thrives in the absence of honesty. Humanity would rather lie to itself about endless growth than face the reality of limits.
Weirdos and outliers often survive where “normal” individuals can’t — especially at the edges of a species’ range. Behavioral diversity is evolutionary insurance. As populations shrink, we lose not just numbers, but the quirks that could help species survive a shifting world.
November 20, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Weirdos and outliers often survive where “normal” individuals can’t — especially at the edges of a species’ range. Behavioral diversity is evolutionary insurance. As populations shrink, we lose not just numbers, but the quirks that could help species survive a shifting world.
To say plants or invertebrates perceive and respond to their world is still considered sentimental or unscientific. But not long ago, we said the same about animals…..and we were wrong then too.
November 19, 2025 at 5:00 PM
To say plants or invertebrates perceive and respond to their world is still considered sentimental or unscientific. But not long ago, we said the same about animals…..and we were wrong then too.
We’ve shredded the planet’s carbon-capture machinery. The atmosphere isn’t the disease….it’s the symptom.
November 18, 2025 at 5:00 PM
We’ve shredded the planet’s carbon-capture machinery. The atmosphere isn’t the disease….it’s the symptom.