Many people dismiss Facebook as a waste of time. For some people that may be a true statement. For me, the opportunity to interact with old and new friends has been priceless. Also, Facebook has exposed me to political discussion and scientific articles and information that I surely would not have seen otherwise. I feel that I have been much better informed in general since I joined Facebook. Today, I saw three articles that I reposted on Facebook. One quoted a study by the World Wildlife Federation that found that we have lost 52% of the world's wildlife in a little over 40 years since 1970, including fish, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds. Another reported a scientific study done with satellites that found that Antarctica and Greenland combined are losing 500 cubic kilometers or ice per year. Kilometers as in 2/3 of a mile. They report that this would equate to the island of Manhattan three-and-a-half miles high. The study predicted that sea levels will rise by several feet in the next few hundred years at the current rate of melting. A third article suggested that population growth is out of control and heading towards 9 billion people by 2050. This article suggested that the current UN conference on climate control should consider the related issue of projected rapid increases in population,particularly in places where resources are scarce already like sub-Saharan Africa, where the population is expected to DOUBLE by 2050.
Nobody likes to think about, talk about, or be seen talking about big problems like these. But I have come to think that people have to stand up and be heard if we are going to have any chance of avoiding catastrophe in the foreseeable future. I would rather be known as a guy who posts pictures of his dinner than as a scold or one who preaches. But I think we are about at the tipping point where continuing to ignore these converging problems will at the least drastically alter the quality of life for all of us, if not cause an out-and-out extinction event of life on Earth. Maybe we have already reached the tipping point on climate change. But if we can't halt climate change, we can at least mitigate the consequences. If blogging about this makes me appear to be a crank in my old age, then I guess it will just have to be that way.
I am having a hard time believing that people, and particularly national leaders, can't see what's coming. Global warming is clearly producing dramatic climate changes. We all know from 8th grade that the climate shifts as time goes on. But, hey, it doesn't shift this rapidly on its own. We are not looking at gradual changes in climate over hundreds of years, we are looking at relatively huge changes taking place in a few decades, not centuries. And if you don't think man's activities are the primary cause of all the change, then you have had your head stuck in the sand. The implications of continued global warming are far more serious than Miami Beach being submerged by rising sea levels. Scientists predict severe l droughts and food and water shortages the world over. Combine that with sharply increasing populations in the poorest areas of the world. Some political scientists have predicted wars in the near future just over water. Losing half the non-human living creatures on Earth since 1970 should certainly be enough to shock the public and governments into the realization that we are on a very precarious path. Not only does this have serious ramifications for the food supply for humans but also for ecosystems already beset by drastic changes in the climate. We are losing all of our bees. Bees pollinate plants. No bees, no plants. Science. Not rocket science.
To sit by and do nothing while all these things happen to our planet is absolute insanity. And the American government has led the world in foot-dragging and denial. I am not at this point in my life a religious person. I have come to believe that ORGANIZED religion is one of the worst aspects of human life. A few years ago, a substantial effort was made to provide birth control information and supplies to Africans. According to reports, representatives of the Catholic church came right behind telling the unsophisticated Africans that using birth control was a sin against God. In Africa today, a child is born every 20 seconds I am told. A continent already overpopulated and barely able to sustain its population with food and clean water continues to make the problem worse and worse. It's been said for centuries and is certainly clearly the case today that more wars have been fought in the name of religion than anything else. I cannot imagine that a God in Heaven would desire to have human beings reproduce to the point that human life becomes unsustainable on His good Earth. I can understand religious objections to abortion but for the life of me I cannot understand religious objections to family planning, particularly in the face of our exploding global population.
My point being that a number of truly ominous trends are combining to make the near future look very scary to me. Of course, I won't be here to have to endure it. But my granddaughter will be. I hate to think what her future might hold if we cannot reverse or at least alter the current trajectory of these trends.
We have heard a lot of Ayn Rand the past few years and her philosophy of the "virtue of selfishness." Randians relish the freedom of the individual and capitalism, decrying the "collectivists" as attempting to control people and limit their freedom. Paul Ryan the Koch brothers spring to mind. Of course, this "philosophy" that most of us get over by our sophomore year in college, is pretty silly when you break it down. First of all, if we did not operate collectively today, we would have no common means of exchange or division of labor. The brain surgeon or the hedge fund manager would be home on the farm trying to grow enough food to feed his family. So, operating collectively first of all allows us to have division of labor and, hence, modern American society. If we didn't operate collectively, we wouldn't have roads, bridges, policemen, or firemen. If each of us rugged individuals insisted on keeping all we earn and not paying any taxes, we would not have a civil society in the first place. Now, there can of course always be adjustments and certainly no tax payer wants to hear that his hard-earned tax money is being wasted. So vigilance is certainly warranted. However, the basic of idea of paying taxes in exchange for government services seems to me to be a pretty fundamental requirement of operating a society.
If we are going to deal with the converging problems of radical climate change, an exploding world population, and a startlingly rapid decline in animal life other than human life, with all the obvious implications of those changes, we are going to have to operate collectively and decisively and in the very near future. If learning that we have lost half of the animal life on Earth in the past 40 years, that glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate, and that the world's population will have gone from 2 1/2 billion in 1950 to 9 billion in 2050 is not enough to motivate the world's people and governments to take meaningful action, then the Earth is going to be a far less hospital place in very short order. Even if we are not facing another Extinction Event, as some scientists are implying, we are clearly facing a very different and not very inviting future.
What can America do now? We need to have government use every available tool, including tax policy, to shift production and use of fossil fuels to renewable energy. Germany is well on the way to proving that this can be done. Is there a short term cost to this shift? Of course there is. We need to bite the bullet and do it. After all, fossil fuel is a non-renewable resource and we are going to have to make this shift at some point anyway. As individuals, we need to go green ASAP. Our family is looking at solar panels. In Europe this summer, it seemed like the roof of every house was covered with solar panels. If they can do it, so can we. The costs can be recovered over time. We are probably looking at limiting access to water resources. Fracking seems to use up an unwarranted amount of water resources for one thing. Next, we need to start disseminating birth control information and resources worldwide right now. We need to push past religious objections and just get this done. We simply have to be practical about this issue or we will overpopulate the world to an extent that life is compromised to an unacceptable extent. Next, we need to do everything possible to guard and perpetuate wildlife. We certainly need to keep commercial interests such as the lumber, mining, and oil and gas industries out of National Parks and wildlife areas. Missouri recently denied a permit for a wind farm near a protected area for migrating birds. Wind energy is certainly a good thing in general but this seemed like a good decision. The wind farm can certainly be relocated to a place where the heavy damage to migrating birds won't be a consequence of going green. Bees are dying by the millions. Some have attributed this to the use of chemicals on crops. If that is the case, then we need to take drastic action to stop the manufacture and sale of these type of chemical products. Many countries have already done so.
Having said all of that, I am somewhat resigned to the fact that we may not be able to summon the collective will to deal with problems this big, which would require a worldwide resolve and cooperation unprecedented on the Earth. Maybe we will all just shrug and much on chips and salsa and watch the NFL until the lights go out. Instead of worrying about problems that are too big for mere individuals to solve, we could just post pictures of cats. I hope not but I wonder.
No comments:
Post a Comment