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Page added on December 6, 2014
There Are A Hundred Flashing Red Warning Signs Coming From The Environment
Following up on the previous chapter focusing on human-caused resource depletion, the other disheartening part of the story of the environment concerns the things we humans put back into it, and the impact they have on the ecosystems that support all of life — ours included.
Like the economy, ecosystems are complex systems. That means that they owe their complexity and order to energy flows and, most importantly, they are inherently unpredictable. How they will respond to the change by a thousand rapid insults is unknown and literally unknowable.
Like any complex system, an ecosystem will tend to remain in a stable form until the pressures become too great and then they will suddenly shift to a different baseline and exist there for a while. That is, instead of having some magical preferred equilibrium, they have many — and some of those will be decidedly less or more awesome for humans to exist within.
If the world tips from a stable climate to a less stable one, as it has done many times in the past, then growing enough food for everyone will become difficult if not impossible.
An ocean acidified will remain that way for possibly hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. Overly-depleted cod fisheries will take many decades to recover, if and only if they are not fished in between. A species wiped out remains that way forever.
An overpumped aquifer may take thousands if not tens of thousands of years to recharge.
There are a hundred flashing red warning signs coming to us from the environment, the Earth, and all of its supporting ecosystems. Either we get off the ‘growth at any cost’ express train or we risk wrecking important, valuable, essential and beautiful species, ecosystems and support systems that we rely upon for our health, our wealth, and our happiness.
Once again, you and I do not have any particular need for constant exponential economic growth. It is only our money system that has that demand.
Either we figure out a way to live on our own terms or we’ll simply default into doing the things that our money system demands of us. The former has a possible future; the latter does not
25 Comments on "There Are A Hundred Flashing Red Warning Signs Coming From The Environment"
Plantagenet on Sat, 6th Dec 2014 7:01 pm
No worries, mate. Obama and Chinese Premier Xi just signed an agreement saying China can pollute as much as they want until 2030.
GregT on Sat, 6th Dec 2014 7:13 pm
Once again, it is our monetary systems that are at the root of most, if not all of our problems. Infinite exponential growth in a finite environment, is a mathematical, and physical impossibility.
There is no good reason for interest to be attached to loans, other than to make the bankers filthy rich. The money never existed in the first place. It was crested out of thin air.
Debt is a claim on future human labor. Indebting the vast majority of a population with loans with compounding interest attached, is nothing more than an act of slavery.
As long as the bankers are allowed to continue to get away with usery, (once considered a sin) the worst the situation will become for all life on earth.
End the FED.
GregT on Sat, 6th Dec 2014 7:25 pm
Sorry, created out of thin air, and the worse the situation will become.
GregT on Sat, 6th Dec 2014 7:29 pm
Once again Plant,
You have failed to understand what you have just read, and somehow managed to find a reason to blame Obama. Good job!
Dave Thompson on Sat, 6th Dec 2014 8:19 pm
Planetary hospice.
Makati1 on Sat, 6th Dec 2014 9:07 pm
The human species is a “dead man walking”. There is no turning back at this point. The huge vessel is steaming towards the iceberg full steam ahead, and even if something spun the wheel, momentum would take us into the mountain of ice. All we can do is individually build our life boat and hope it is enough when the time comes.
Dave on Sat, 6th Dec 2014 10:16 pm
I guess Plant would trust the health of the environment to Congress before Obama.
The guy’s not perfect but, let’s get some perspective fella.
theedrich on Sun, 7th Dec 2014 3:27 am
Excellent presentation. Of course, virtually all of it has been shown and said countless times before, with absolutely no effect on the larger picture. Political correctitude is a major block to any movement on the issue. The idea that all featherless bipeds have equal rights to survival, and that rights themselves must continually increase and multiply, is the unquestioned assumption ultimately underlying the explosion of environmental pollution.
The nasty answer to the growing planetary destruction is that humans must die in large numbers and our numbers kept permanently low. What regime, what religion, what ideology will admit this? Especially in an age of “compassion” and a demand that there be a chicken in every pot?
What if, from the point of view of Gaia, the answer to anthropic overload is a system like those promoted by ISIL or North Korea?
Death and extinction are laws of the cosmos, and cannot be changed by demands for “social justice” implying that the economic pie be expanded forever. We have already decided to commit genosuicide, and nothing — nothing — is going to change our decision.
Mike999 on Sun, 7th Dec 2014 7:41 am
THE PROBLEM IS THE OIL INDUSTRY, AND HOW IT POLLUTES DEMOCRACY.
The fact that the Right Wing Nut US Supreme Court has CONTAMINATED our Democracy with Corporate Money means the Republican Party becomes the Slave Party for Corporate Interests.
The fact that Right Wing RADIO still panders to Corporate Leadership means the Voice of the People have no Voice.
And Corporate Leadership, like Exxon’s Tillerson, who only believe in Managing a Corporation for Money, means they will continue to make BAD Decisions that Damage America, while the .1% get Richer.
FriedrichKling on Sun, 7th Dec 2014 7:58 am
Right, Plant, everything wrong is Obama’s fault. You and one or two others copy and paste with every new article…….your arguments are so tired and simplistic.
FriedrichKling on Sun, 7th Dec 2014 7:59 am
‘Beware the beast Man, for he cometh from hell as Lucifer’s spawn. Alone among God’s primates, he kills for sport, and lust, and greed. Without conscience, he wrecks devastation upon the good and bountiful Mother Earth. Shun him: If he is permitted to breed in great numbers, he will make a desert of his home and yours. For he is, The Great Destroyer.’ ~~29th Scroll, 6th Verse~~
Dredd on Sun, 7th Dec 2014 8:09 am
This is explained in whole or in part, as is the mutterings of Plantagenet, by The Germ Theory of Government.
Repent on Sun, 7th Dec 2014 8:29 am
I dislike videos that go on a rant, humans are destroying the world without suggesting real, specific, viable alternatives.
We can get our popcorn and watch it fall or change to fit into an alternate way of doing things.
As John Lennon said in his famous song ‘Revolution’, we’d all like to see the plan.
Aire on Sun, 7th Dec 2014 8:54 am
Repent – your screen name is the second part of the plan. First we humans need to admit our sins and crimes against ourselves, other living things and Mother Earth and then repent after we stop the many things we humans do.
Kenz300 on Sun, 7th Dec 2014 9:55 am
The worlds worst environmental problem is OVER POPULATION.
Endless population growth is not sustainable.
Look around…. you can find a food crisis, a water crisis, a declining fish stocks crisis, an unemployment crisis, a drought crisis, Climate Change crisis and an OVER POPULATION crisis making all these problems harder to solve.
Adding 80 million more mouths to feed, clothe, house and provide energy for every year just makes the situation worse.
Access to family planning services needs to be available to all that want it.
J-Gav on Sun, 7th Dec 2014 10:11 am
Yeah, not real clever what we’re doing, is it? Like sawing off the tree branch you’re sitting on.
What will be the first environmental tipping point reached? Water, soil, the oceans, the pollinators? … and how fast will the others follow on? Scary stuff …
J-Gav on Sun, 7th Dec 2014 10:14 am
But, as the man says at the end, this is exactly the behavior that the blindness, destructiveness and idiocy of our economic/financial system commands us to continue.
GregT on Sun, 7th Dec 2014 10:50 am
Even after reading the above, it would appear that most still don’t get it. Not surprising at all.
“The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or be so dependent upon its favours that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests.”
The Rothschild brothers of London writing to associates in New York, 1863.
GregT on Sun, 7th Dec 2014 11:20 am
“I dislike videos that go on a rant, humans are destroying the world without suggesting real, specific, viable alternatives.”
This is a fine example of why we are destined to fail as a species on this planet. Apathy. If I don’t like what I hear so I’ll just stick my figures in my ears and shout la la la la la.
There will never be ‘viable alternatives’ until enough people become aware of the seriousness of our predicament. Hiding our heads in the sand because we don’t like what we see, does nothing towards coming up with alternative solutions. It only allows us to continue down the path to our own destruction.
Apneaman on Sun, 7th Dec 2014 4:39 pm
I think everyone makes valid points, but for the big picture view, we are simply following our evolutionary programing. We did not evolve to solve long range problems. 5000 years of civilization(s) has produced a chain of collapses. Industrialization has lead to a global civilization which gets us a global collapse. Collapse has been the rule. It’s built in. I have been keeping an eye on the São Paulo Brazil (20 million souls) water crisis caused mostly by deforestation with AGW for good measure. It’s the rainy season there now, yet they are walking the knifes edge. I think we might see a major shit storm come the dry season. It is just a matter of time for them. The whole whole country is in jeopardy. Of course they will just be the first of many disasters to come.
Drought-hit Sao Paulo may ‘get water from mud’: TRFN
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/29/us-sao-paulo-water-idUSKCN0JD05020141129
Brazil pushes Amazon to the ‘brink of the abyss’ scientists warn
http://amazonwatch.org/news/2014/1104-brazil-pushes-amazon-to-the-brink-of-the-abyss-scientists-warn
Drought bites as Amazon’s ‘flying rivers’ dry up
Scientists say deforestation and climate change responsible for forests not producing vapour clouds that bring rain to Brazil
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/15/drought-bites-as-amazons-flying-rivers-dry-up
ASDF on Sun, 7th Dec 2014 9:45 pm
“The worlds worst environmental problem is OVER POPULATION.”
No – the world’s worst environmental problem is homo sapiens.
The planet would be just fine without any of us.
J-Gav on Mon, 8th Dec 2014 3:47 pm
Thanks GregT for distilling those quotes piecemeal whenever you get the chance.
The whole thing would not have been palatable to very many people.
Richard Ralph Roehl on Mon, 8th Dec 2014 4:45 pm
Aside from acidic oceans inevitably rendering EXTINCT all complex life forms existing therein, humanity will also face the near total collapse of the planet’s biosphere.
Alasď The EXPONENTIAL GROWTH of the global baboony consumer economy will surely poison the Earth’s atmosphere… and thereby destroy the ability of all major complex flora and fauna to propagate.
We presently face the sixth great extinction event in the life cycle of Earth. Indeed! The United States of Perpetual War Profiteering will not exist by 2050-2060. And the rest of humanity (a.k.a.: ewe-man-unkind) will be perched at the edge of EXTINCTION by the end of the 21st century.
Not to worry. Albeit humanity will have died out… the sun will still shine. And countless trillions of star systems visible in today’s night skies will continue to twinkle. No big loss.
redpill on Mon, 8th Dec 2014 7:39 pm
Thanks apneaman, I have recently felt my “doomerism” waning a touch. Your links about the Amazon have cured that!
From the amazonwatch link:
“Rousseff’s re-election victory celebration coincides with the recent report from the Earth System Science Centre, which states that the forest’s “vegetation-climate equilibrium is teetering on the brink of the abyss.
“The tipping point would be when the Amazon, which acts as a huge suction pump that pulls in enough moisture to create the rain clouds that keep it healthy and thriving, can no longer do so.
Then, the giant ecosystem will not need logging to become deforested. It will rapidly begin drying out and eventually turn from a rainforest system to a more arid savanna on its own, warn the scientists.”
Oh well, I’m sure it’s just a bunch of tree-hugging BS to generate “grant money” for the liberal scientists.
Makati1 on Tue, 9th Dec 2014 4:19 am
RRR, you are so correct. We are a blip in the scheme of things. Like a bad virus that eventually dies out when they kill their last host. Kind makes you wonder if the naming of our species “homo sapiens”(wise man) was someone’s sick joke?