Environment & Economics: Biological Annihilation
Biological Annihilation sounds like a sensational, attention-grabbing, perhaps alarmist title of the next apocalyptic natural disaster film title out of Hollywood staring Bruce Willis or Dwayne Johnson. But the claim made by the authors of the recent National Academy of Sciences study (July'17) is that it would be irresponsible for them not to use strong language. So what are we talking about?
Biological Annihilation is based on the principal that we are in the sixth mass extinction event of Earth's history. The previous five mass extinction events were cause by natural phenomenon, such as the asteroid-caused dinosaur die-off. This 6th extinction event is human-caused. Human activity has depleted habitat through; deforestation, dumping chemicals into the environment, and of course anthropogenic climate-change (human-caused global warming).
The truth? Who of us can question people of a science that most of us know little about? It fits the pattern of human history. We have evolved to compete which has driven us to both secure and then convert natural resources into something that benefits us. In such endeavors we have been destructive, in our ignorance this has sometimes met with catastrophic results, think the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression. The whole premise of the Abrahamic religions is that we possess inequity and need such religions to become worthy individuals. Some call it original sin. So it is an easy sell to convince us that we are inherently bad for the Earth, it is already philosophically ingrained into our culture and history supports this with an unflattering track record on humanity. Those that oppose such theories that our own self-serving destructive prowess will ultimately lead to our own ruin usually have a big stake in opposing the acceptance of such positions. They oppose it because they have political interests that conflict with the methods involved in addressing the associated concerns, or they have a direct monetary stake in 'business as usual'.
If we did not already have precedent such as tobacco companies creating doubt as to the harmful effects of their products and other nefarious corporate greed-driven corruption of truth we might be able to more easily dismiss this particular issue as "tree-hugger alarmism". I personally usually take the stance that the truth lies somewhere in between the alarmists and the deniers, however, when what's at stake is the lives of our children it would seem wise to give a careful ear to what the biologists are asserting.
There is another human-caused-disaster issue that we could look at; anthropogenic climate change. I have been on the fence on this one. Again, here we have deniers and alarmists and the people that are more moderately on either side of this debate. What the deniers have working against them is that the doubt campaign waged against the idea of human-cause global warming has been waged by some of the same people that served the tobacco company's war on truth. The denier effort has all the same hallmarks of the tobacco lies, even using some of the same "scientists". This does not necessarily prove that their position is a false one, but it does serve to blemish their credibility. What the alarmists have working against them is that some of the scientists involved in promoting the global warming theory have skewed data and misrepresented truth to further the message. Truth is a good product all on its own, it should not require deception or misrepresentation so when we encounter such misrepresentations we build doubt regarding the whole cause. Whats more, those that help fund such studies have political ends that benefit from it... just as the deniers do. So an issue of science has become an issue of politics. I have resisted picking up the cause of either camp because this particular issue offers more information every day. I look at new evidence as it becomes available and revise my views accordingly. I can say that as a life-long resident of the Sierra-Nevada's I have in recent years observed anomalous behavior in local insect populations that were the direct result of warmer winters, which paired with an extended drought lead to a higher susceptibility in pine trees to the exploding population of bark beetles. The forest fires of 2017 were fueled by massive pine-tree die-off. But even back in 2015 my family and I observed an explosion in the population of a silk-worm that bores into acorns. Our oaks produced zero viable acorns that year. On our property in 2017 (10 acres) we lost about 65-70% of our Ponderosa Pines to the bark beetles. My property does not look the same as it did just a few years ago. Incidentally we have also lost about 15% of our Douglas Firs and 25% of our Cedar trees. It certainly looks like things are going south, but then again our life cycle is pretty short and what we see over a few decades is not a very long time geologically. We need to consider much longer periods before we make any assertions. Climate scientists have spent much time and effort trying to reconstruct the past climate, but again the politics have tainted the science on numerous occasions.
But we are not talking about climate change here, we are talking about the population reductions of numerous species of land vertebrates. The habitat loss impact my dead pine trees presents to the fauna in my area remains to be quantified (to my knowledge). Biologist are quantifying the biodiversity loss on a biblical scale across the globe, using real numbers from the field. They have not found a geologically recent population explosion of land vertebrates that might explain that a reduction of other populations is an act of natural equalization, so we must assume that this is a trend that will not level out or correct on its own. In fact the opposite is more likely, as each species dies off it affects another species that it either predates upon or predates upon it.
The only debate I have found thus far is over the amount of time we have to correct this die off. Ranging from 0-30 years. I have not found debate regarding the prognosis, in other words the only critique I've found of the NAS study was that it was far too optimistic with regard to our ability to do something about it.
My intent here is not to take a side or cast doubt, but only to inform, to bring this up and discuss it to find out what others have found out. Let's start a discussion!
I've asked a friend who is a biologist to weigh in on this study, I am hoping to hear from him soon at which time I will update this post. In the meantime I've included some links below including the original article.
Main Article = http://www.pnas.org/content/114/30/E6089
https://www.panthera.org/new-study-confirms-cambodia-s-last-leopards-brink-extinction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLprrfOdlCo
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/climate/mass-extinction-animal-species.html
https://kevinhester.live/2017/10/05/biological-annihilation-on-earth-is-accelerating-nature-bats-last/
https://www.opendemocracy.net/robert-j-burrowes/biological-annihilation-and-sixth-mass-extinction
http://prn.fm/nature-bats-last-10-03-17/
Biological Annihilation is based on the principal that we are in the sixth mass extinction event of Earth's history. The previous five mass extinction events were cause by natural phenomenon, such as the asteroid-caused dinosaur die-off. This 6th extinction event is human-caused. Human activity has depleted habitat through; deforestation, dumping chemicals into the environment, and of course anthropogenic climate-change (human-caused global warming).
The truth? Who of us can question people of a science that most of us know little about? It fits the pattern of human history. We have evolved to compete which has driven us to both secure and then convert natural resources into something that benefits us. In such endeavors we have been destructive, in our ignorance this has sometimes met with catastrophic results, think the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression. The whole premise of the Abrahamic religions is that we possess inequity and need such religions to become worthy individuals. Some call it original sin. So it is an easy sell to convince us that we are inherently bad for the Earth, it is already philosophically ingrained into our culture and history supports this with an unflattering track record on humanity. Those that oppose such theories that our own self-serving destructive prowess will ultimately lead to our own ruin usually have a big stake in opposing the acceptance of such positions. They oppose it because they have political interests that conflict with the methods involved in addressing the associated concerns, or they have a direct monetary stake in 'business as usual'.
If we did not already have precedent such as tobacco companies creating doubt as to the harmful effects of their products and other nefarious corporate greed-driven corruption of truth we might be able to more easily dismiss this particular issue as "tree-hugger alarmism". I personally usually take the stance that the truth lies somewhere in between the alarmists and the deniers, however, when what's at stake is the lives of our children it would seem wise to give a careful ear to what the biologists are asserting.
There is another human-caused-disaster issue that we could look at; anthropogenic climate change. I have been on the fence on this one. Again, here we have deniers and alarmists and the people that are more moderately on either side of this debate. What the deniers have working against them is that the doubt campaign waged against the idea of human-cause global warming has been waged by some of the same people that served the tobacco company's war on truth. The denier effort has all the same hallmarks of the tobacco lies, even using some of the same "scientists". This does not necessarily prove that their position is a false one, but it does serve to blemish their credibility. What the alarmists have working against them is that some of the scientists involved in promoting the global warming theory have skewed data and misrepresented truth to further the message. Truth is a good product all on its own, it should not require deception or misrepresentation so when we encounter such misrepresentations we build doubt regarding the whole cause. Whats more, those that help fund such studies have political ends that benefit from it... just as the deniers do. So an issue of science has become an issue of politics. I have resisted picking up the cause of either camp because this particular issue offers more information every day. I look at new evidence as it becomes available and revise my views accordingly. I can say that as a life-long resident of the Sierra-Nevada's I have in recent years observed anomalous behavior in local insect populations that were the direct result of warmer winters, which paired with an extended drought lead to a higher susceptibility in pine trees to the exploding population of bark beetles. The forest fires of 2017 were fueled by massive pine-tree die-off. But even back in 2015 my family and I observed an explosion in the population of a silk-worm that bores into acorns. Our oaks produced zero viable acorns that year. On our property in 2017 (10 acres) we lost about 65-70% of our Ponderosa Pines to the bark beetles. My property does not look the same as it did just a few years ago. Incidentally we have also lost about 15% of our Douglas Firs and 25% of our Cedar trees. It certainly looks like things are going south, but then again our life cycle is pretty short and what we see over a few decades is not a very long time geologically. We need to consider much longer periods before we make any assertions. Climate scientists have spent much time and effort trying to reconstruct the past climate, but again the politics have tainted the science on numerous occasions.
But we are not talking about climate change here, we are talking about the population reductions of numerous species of land vertebrates. The habitat loss impact my dead pine trees presents to the fauna in my area remains to be quantified (to my knowledge). Biologist are quantifying the biodiversity loss on a biblical scale across the globe, using real numbers from the field. They have not found a geologically recent population explosion of land vertebrates that might explain that a reduction of other populations is an act of natural equalization, so we must assume that this is a trend that will not level out or correct on its own. In fact the opposite is more likely, as each species dies off it affects another species that it either predates upon or predates upon it.
The only debate I have found thus far is over the amount of time we have to correct this die off. Ranging from 0-30 years. I have not found debate regarding the prognosis, in other words the only critique I've found of the NAS study was that it was far too optimistic with regard to our ability to do something about it.
My intent here is not to take a side or cast doubt, but only to inform, to bring this up and discuss it to find out what others have found out. Let's start a discussion!
I've asked a friend who is a biologist to weigh in on this study, I am hoping to hear from him soon at which time I will update this post. In the meantime I've included some links below including the original article.
Main Article = http://www.pnas.org/content/114/30/E6089
https://www.panthera.org/new-study-confirms-cambodia-s-last-leopards-brink-extinction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLprrfOdlCo
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/climate/mass-extinction-animal-species.html
https://kevinhester.live/2017/10/05/biological-annihilation-on-earth-is-accelerating-nature-bats-last/
https://www.opendemocracy.net/robert-j-burrowes/biological-annihilation-and-sixth-mass-extinction
http://prn.fm/nature-bats-last-10-03-17/
Updated info:
Supporting die off events: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-1ZgjxCP-0
Predictions made by McPhereson in April 2018
Around Sept 2018-Sept 2019 there will be a collapse induced by the inability to produce or distribute grains at large scale. Example, if we lose arctic sea ice by July of this year the impact to corn crops in the US could be disaster.
The climate induced collapse will be related to grain growing at large scale. He asserts that global dimming is helping to keep us from a more rapid rise, but once there is a collapse of society much of the aerosols responsible for the dimming will stop being produced and the result will be a sudden 1-3C temp rise over just a few weeks (6). Poor quality coal he sites as a source of these particulates, he is worried that clean coal will put out less and contribute more to the warming. My reading has indicated that the dirty coal and automobile emissions do not produce sulfates that reach the upper atmosphere to contribute to this dimming and that this pollution remains at low altitudes which absorb radiation and thus contribute to warming... Supporting the idea of rapid warming was the warming that was observed on Sept 12th-13th 2001 when all planes were grounded from a couple of days. This was due to the lack of condensation trails left by airlines that help reflect some solar radiation, these trails are created above 30,000ft not near the surface of the Earth as coal power is. It also was local to the US, which should be noted. I question whether sulfates produced in coal plants get high enough to block solar radiation before CO2 can trap it?
Predicts that there will not be a human on the planet in 2026, 8 years from now.
8/31/18
I find the above statement hard to believe (no humans by 2026). Maybe impossible to believe, MePhereson might be a conservation biologist but he's also a lefty and I just don't trust them anymore.
Supporting die off events: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-1ZgjxCP-0
Predictions made by McPhereson in April 2018
Around Sept 2018-Sept 2019 there will be a collapse induced by the inability to produce or distribute grains at large scale. Example, if we lose arctic sea ice by July of this year the impact to corn crops in the US could be disaster.
The climate induced collapse will be related to grain growing at large scale. He asserts that global dimming is helping to keep us from a more rapid rise, but once there is a collapse of society much of the aerosols responsible for the dimming will stop being produced and the result will be a sudden 1-3C temp rise over just a few weeks (6). Poor quality coal he sites as a source of these particulates, he is worried that clean coal will put out less and contribute more to the warming. My reading has indicated that the dirty coal and automobile emissions do not produce sulfates that reach the upper atmosphere to contribute to this dimming and that this pollution remains at low altitudes which absorb radiation and thus contribute to warming... Supporting the idea of rapid warming was the warming that was observed on Sept 12th-13th 2001 when all planes were grounded from a couple of days. This was due to the lack of condensation trails left by airlines that help reflect some solar radiation, these trails are created above 30,000ft not near the surface of the Earth as coal power is. It also was local to the US, which should be noted. I question whether sulfates produced in coal plants get high enough to block solar radiation before CO2 can trap it?
Predicts that there will not be a human on the planet in 2026, 8 years from now.
8/31/18
I find the above statement hard to believe (no humans by 2026). Maybe impossible to believe, MePhereson might be a conservation biologist but he's also a lefty and I just don't trust them anymore.
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