A new
UN Study out today shows what we already know, but are frightened to admit. The natural systems of the Earth aren't just getting a little worn around the edges, it's suffering deep fractures and could soon collapse completely.
The study, by 1,360 researchers in 95 nations, the biggest review of the planet's life support systems ever, said that in the last 50 years a rising human population had polluted or overexploited two-thirds of the ecological systems on which life depends, including clean air and fresh water. "At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning," said the 45-member board of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. "Human activity is putting such strain on the natural functions of earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted."
We talk so much about global warming these days that it's easy to forget all the other issues that are pushing the planet toward the breaking point. Overfarming. Overfishing. Overpopulation. Depletion of irreplaceable resources. Destruction of habitat. While we've had some minor successes here and there, all of these forces are racing forward at an ever increasing pace.
The resulting effect on Earth is about what you'd expect.
"This report is essentially an audit of nature's economy and the audit shows that we have driven most of the accounts into the red," Jonathan Lash, a member of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment board, said in London.
What does the UN report predict for our near future?
- Increased disease, as warming brings malaria and cholera to new areas.
- The disappearance of many familiar birds, fish, and mammals as their habitats and breeding grounds are developed.
- A further loss of forests, decreasing the ability of the planet to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and possibly increasing the rate of global warming.
- More health care strains from pollution and new diseases. Already, these ecological strains are getting the blame for failure to meet targets for reducing disease and poverty in Africa and elsewhere.
Earth gets a flood of solar energy from the Sun, but in many ways, it's essentially a closed system. And like all closed systems, it has its limits. Many people have assumed in the past that we would reach those limits gradually, and that the increased effort as we approached those edge conditions would be enough on its own to roll back the tide. For example, it's often said that we will never run out of oil, not because it's unlimited, but because rising oil prices will force us to use some other commodity. These same folks are prone to pointing at the Whale oil - oil transition as a model.
But as has already been point out here on kos, the story of "when whale oil got above the price of other fuels, people switched" is a myth. It was government intervention that moved consumers to petroleum products, not some natural flow of the market. Left on it's own, the market will farm until there's a dustbowl, fish until the fishery is exhausted, and mine until the last nugget is unearther. Every time. Count on it. We will club the last mammoth and then wonder why there are no more.
In these days when it seems that every government has swallowed an equal dose of John keynes and Ayn Rand, there has come to be a mystical belief in the power of "free trade" and "the market" to cure all ills. The idea that governments should cooperate to limit growth and dictate availability of resources strikes people as worse than communist -- it's heresy. At the very time when the natural systems are tumbling toward collapse, we're weakening our environmental laws, not strengthening them. We're trusting in the very forces that have caused our problems to generate an end.
People talk about the dangers of fundamentalist Christians. Those problems are nothing compared to the danger we face from fundamentalist capitalists.
The Earth has survived major blows in the past. Many times, some disaster has struck that altered the distribution and type of organisms on the planet. I have no doubt that the Earth will survive us, as well. It will go on as a living system. But several of those previous disasters saw the loss of 50, 75, or even 90% of all the species on the planet. At least two saw the loss of all land animals greater than 50kg.
The idea that Earth will ultimately survive our excesses is of little comfort. We won't be hear to see it.