That the current climate change is nonlinear in its ferocity seems to have escaped notice. Inattention to this certain fact means that humanity is most likely to be extinct by the turn of the 22nd century.
Category: Environment
The operational definition of intelligence is a consistent display of appropriate behavior. Behind the behavior is a mental construal of how the world works. Failing to comprehend the environment invariably has negative consequences. In the instance of humans on planet Earth, the diagnosis is clear and the outcome apparent. These creatures face impending extinction and are taking much other life out with them.
The tipping point of our own extinction was reached in 1940.
The Trump administration and Republicans across America are doing their best to hide the devastation that capitalism has wrought.
The United States space agency NASA has taken a peek at the Earth below, and found: “the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity” as well as “the economic stratification of society into elites and masses (or ‘commoners’).” In that regard, “accumulated surplus is not evenly distributed throughout society, but rather has been controlled by an elite. The mass of the population, while producing the wealth, is only allocated a small portion of it by elites, usually at or just above subsistence levels.”
Pollination is essential to two-thirds of the world’s food crops. Commercial bee hives are often relied upon, but unkempt insects, including bees, beetles, flies and butterflies, are important, as the wild things are more productive pollinators. Pesticides and herbicides, blithely applied worldwide, are indiscriminate killers. Ironically, considering their intended benefit, crop yields are declining because of their use.
Marshes form a transition zone between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Marshes are found worldwide.
Economists refer to pollution as an externality of production. Its cost is not captured in the price of the good produced. Instead, those who suffer the pollution pay with diminished quality of life. Capitalism has been an exuberant exercise in externalities, long tolerated by governments which could have put them in check. Now, the U.S. administration is about to show long overdue notice.
The Wicked Witch of the West has the climate report: “I’m melting. What a world….” The poles are liquefying faster than expected, because it has only recently dawned on scientists that the biosphere is a gyre. Up to now, climate models have not included feedback loops.
Toronto’s skyline began its rise in the 1960s. Gleaming glass towers rose on the northwest shore of Lake Ontario. This shining beacon of civilization has at least one blind spot: it kills more birds than any other city on Earth.