2017-05-13 266aaap
“DISSENT EPISODE SIX: THE CLEAN WATER ACT COMES UNDER ATTACK
The outcome of the Supreme Court case Sackett v. EPA may limit the ability to prevent pollution of our nation’s waters and combat climate change.”
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“Early detection of anthropogenic climate change signals in the ocean interior”
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“The Collapse of a Major Atlantic Current Would Cause Worldwide Disasters
An important marine process is slowing. If it shuts down completely, a study finds, La Niña could become permanent—and that's just the start of the trouble.”
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“What Does Glacial Melting Tell Us About Our Changing Planet?”
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“Offshore Wind Supporters Angered by ‘Misleading’ Information from R.I.-Based Opposition Group”
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Jovanna Smith \ Extinction Education on FB:
Below is a thorough, if not total, list of various ways that human overshoot, climate change, and extinction are manifesting, which I compiled in response to a friend recently asking:
“Do you suppose the future may turn out to be different than people expect?”
The implication being that any of us, myself included, could be wrong. I acknowledge that my being wrong, mistaken or misinformed is always possible. That said, I replied at length. I find writing to be a good way to clarify my own thoughts and understanding. My response begins here:
Different people expect different futures. They can’t all be right. The future will likely be very different from what most people expect. Yes.
I realize that anything I read or data that I see could be fake. But I have no reason to doubt that the human species is about to get a real taste of habitat loss due to their having overshot the carrying capacity of their environment—in this case, the entire planet. There’s too much direct evidence to deny this. I have no reason to doubt, as I’ve read, that humans and their livestock now comprise 96% of mammalian biomass on earth. I have no reason to think that such biodiversity loss doesn’t portent an ominous future on earth.
Local overshoot of a species is not uncommon. Bacteria grown on petri-dishes and in wine bottles do it. Overshoot refers to a species overshooting the carrying capacity of its environment due to its own resource depletion. Overshoot has historically resulted in the extinction of a species locally, as happened to St Matthews deer and the humans of Easter Island who felled every last tree.
We can see historically what happens when overshoot occurs: die-off is the end result of resource depletion. What’s unique about the current overshoot of a species—our species in this case—is that it’s global rather than local, and we’re taking complex life along with simple lifeforms out with us. The Mass Extinction currently underway is the first of six that can be attributed to the activity and expansion of a single species.
Humans are destroying their habitat in numerous ways. That’s not to mention the habitat of other species that have already been destroyed, nor the many species that humans have already driven to extinction. As insulated as most humans are from the natural world, to include their own resource origins, it’s easy to forget that human life literally depends on a healthy, supportive habitat—one that includes biodiversity—no animal can. And humans are no different than other animals in that all species will overshoot (deplete the resources of) an environment to their own detriment whenever given the opportunity. Indications are that we are not such “wise” apes after all.
Do you imagine that the extensive pollution we’ve caused, and continue to cause everyday, is a lie? Do you imagine that the rise in green house gases and their devastating effects is a lie? Do you imagine that the stable climate of the Holocene—vital for reliable agriculture—is not being disrupted, indeed, ending, as we enter a new climate-era dubbed the Anthropocene? It’s not possible to grow grains at scale when the project is continuously thwarted by weather conditions at odds with that endeavor. No life can continue without a consistent and reliable food source.
We are seeing the effects—it’s happening now. It’s not a future thing.
Do you imagine that biodiversity loss is a lie? Do you imagine that ocean acidification or ocean warming are lies? Do you imagine that oceanic-life is not disappearing? A warming planet puts plankton, which is vital to planetary oxygen production, at risk of extinction. Do you imagine that seafood won’t continue to be ever-more polluted and increasingly unavailable? Do you imagine that the demise of corral reefs and the ocean life that depends on them is not happening before our eyes? Do you imagine that the loss of arctic sea-ice is a lie? Or that seas are not rising or that they will not engulf and obliterate a vast swath of human settlements? Or that the coming BOE (blue ocean event) will not portent exponential feedback loops? Do you imagine that, as the Arctic Ocean continues to heat, the AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) will not cease its stable flow-pattern with devastating weather effects? Do you imagine that the coming El Niño won’t trigger an Increase in catastrophic weather and global-temperature events? Do you imagine that methane eruptions from warming sea floors won’t continue to increase, triggering a calamitous rise in global heating? Methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas—more than twenty times more potent than carbon dioxide. Although methane doesn’t stay in the atmosphere as long, that fact would be irrelevant after the damage—extinction—is done.
Do you imagine that the increase in global temperature and its effects is a lie? Have you noticed this warming trend accompanied by a proliferation of unpredictable weather patterns where you live? Do you imagine that the jet stream has not been destabilized with weird and devastating weather effects resulting? Do you imagine that permafrost is not melting with further catastrophic release of methane, and the ruin of villages as their roads and buildings collapse? Do you imagine that thousands of other species have not gone extinct or that many more are not on the verge of extinction as a result of human overshoot? Do you imagine that bird and insect populations have not been significantly reduced or that their numbers won’t continue to plummet? Do you imagine that our very lives do not depend on pollinators?
Do you imagine that Lakes Mead and Powell are not actually on the verge of going dry, or that this loss of fresh water won’t have disastrous effects for millions of people? And once the water level in these lakes drops below the turbines in the dams, there goes electric power for millions of people. Aside from the inconveniences of having no power, the unavailability of air conditioning would mean no protection from deadly wet-bulb temperatures, potentially killing inhabitants of entire cities. Add to that the fact that water delivery and electricity generation are inextricably linked. Do you imagine that the unavailability of potable water will not continue to climb? Do you imagine that immigration and war over remaining resources will not increase in severity and backlash?
Do you imagine that so-called green—supposedly sustainable—energy could possibly replace the fungibility, ease, convenience and diverse uses of fossil fuels? Do you imagine that we’ve not already passed Peak Oil or that remaining oil is not increasingly costly and difficult to extract? Do you imagine that solar panels and the like can be built by using the energy of solar panels alone? Or that the necessary mining required for their creation can be done with no dependence on fossil fuels in the process? Do you imagine that these panels, along with wind turbines, are not short-lived, fated to end in landfills? And what substance might replace the oil necessary for the creation of asphalt? Everything we create, buy, use, play with, wear, heat, cool, landscape, eat, drink, sit on, sleep in, drive, pedal, walk in, shelter in, decorate with, all of it, pretty much without exception, including medical care, has the imprint of fossil fuel imbedded in it. So far global human-population growth marches on, and with it a growing carbon footprint, but the Seneca Cliff looms on the horizon.
Do you imagine that continued mining, to include mountain-top removal, is harmless? Do you imagine that much of the Amazon is not being destroyed for the sake of cattle ranching? Do you imagine that tropical forests across Asia, Latin America and West Africa have not been displaced by palm plantations for the manufacture of palm oil? Do you imagine that the warming world will not continue to kill off trees by various “natural” means (fire, drought, insect invasion, wind and rain that uproot them)? Do you imagine that these very forests are not the earth’s natural means of “carbon capture,” which we are actively destroying as we give lip service to building fantastical carbon-capture machines? The irony.
Do you imagine that the instances of fire, drought, flood and chaotic, extreme weather will not continue to escalate? All of which serves to further kill the trees necessary for life on earth as we know it. Historically, trees and other plant life of the earth have taken up carbon for their own lifecycle and then released the oxygen necessary for animal life. It was a brilliantly-balanced planetary system that’s been thrown out of whack by the excessive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by our species. Coupling that with our ongoing massive destruction of trees, the once perfectly-balanced carbon cycle of the earth is no more.
Although we do hear about methane burps from cattle, It’s never mentioned that all breathing animals exhale carbon dioxide with every breath. That doesn’t seem inconsequential when there are 8 billion people exhaling 16–20 times a minute all-day, every-day on average. All breathing animals breathe in oxygen and release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, to include mammals, reptiles and birds. Even fish release carbon dioxide into the water after taking in oxygen through their gills. In concert with oxygen generation, the carbon-uptake side of the equation is now sorely lacking.
Do you imagine that the warming world might not release new (as well as ancient) pathogens that spark new pandemics and plagues? Do you imagine that a warming atmosphere doesn’t hold more water or that it won’t continue to create and dump more atmospheric rivers on populated and agricultural areas? Do you imagine that viable agriculture can persist in a chaotic, unstable, unpredictable climate? How then shall we eat? Do you imagine that a warming ocean won’t continue to birth larger, more powerful and more severe hurricanes? Do you imagine that power outages won’t continue to increase in scope and frequency? Do you imagine that supply chains won’t continue to be disrupted? Do you imagine that what we call “the economy” and inflation won’t be the least of our worries? Do you imagine that wide-spread death due to wet bulb temperatures won’t become increasingly common? Note that it only takes 95 degrees F (35 C) to be fatal to a healthy animals (humans included) within hours when coupled with high humidity.
Do you imagine that nuclear power plants won’t pose an extreme threat to all life on earth when they no longer have humans tending them to prevent radiation leaks and nuclear meltdowns?
It certainly looks like planetary overshoot by Homo sapiens to me.
Most people seem to prefer denial, to not know the extent of what’s happening, or prefer to imagine that some future technology or “sustainable green-energy” will solve all this. Even if so-called green energy could replace fossil energy and allow business-as-usual sans fossil fuels, it wouldn’t stop human overshoot, which is the crux of the problem from which all the above flows. Business-as-usual, regardless of the energy source, does nothing to curtail the main driver of this deadlock, which is planetary-overshoot by Homo sapiens and the astronomical ill-effects in its wake.
A few of us are very interested in knowing what’s happening and follow it closely. It’s The Greatest Story Ever Told, but there will be no human anthropologists left in the future to unravel and piece together what happened to us—what we did to ourselves and the rest of life on the planet. We can only watch in real time. I have no good reason to doubt what’s happening. Do you?
Feedback loops are gearing up. Next… give a warm welcome to the exponential function.
Besides, in a way it’s irrelevant to the ultimate outcome whether or not human overshoot and climate change are actually happening. That’s in the sense that, either way, one thing is certain—we will all die, and die very soon. All of us. Always have. Always will. A human lifetime, even 100 years, is the blink of an eye.
We’re not such “wise apes” after all. When it comes to a species overshooting the carrying capacity of its environment—and that includes over-reproducing themselves—as it depletes vital resources, humans are not special. What makes human overshoot exceptional is that we’ve managed to destroy habitat on a planetary scale. Surely we should get some acclaim for such a special talent.”
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