The end of the world as we know it*
October 26, 2007 at 1:30 pm by Scott Freeman in News*… and nobody gives a damn.
The United Nations released a devastating report yesterday that says mankind has basically laid waste to the planet and that it may be too late to turn the tide. It is so dire that “humanity’s very survival” is at risk, according to the report.
And this isn’t from some left-wing wacko group. The report was put together by 400 scientists from all over the world, then peer-reviewed by 1,000 others.
And yet, the report has gotten virtually no play in the United States.
Lead story in the New York Times? Nope. That would be the California wildfires and a story on how the disaster has brought our president closer to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Perhaps he got an autograph from the Terminator?
Lead story in the Washington Post? Nope. It talks about how a U.S. strike on Iran would screw up the oil supply. And there’s a piece on Rudy Giuliani’s political guru.
Lead story in the AJC? Nope. That would be Georgia’s battle for water.
WTF?
Here are some of the report’s findings:
— The world’s population has grown by 34 percent to 6.7 billion in the last 20 years.
— Each person in the world now requires a third more land to supply his or her needs than the Earth can supply.
— Expect a global collapse of all species being fished by 2050, if fishing around the world continues at its present pace. The report says 250 percent more fish are being caught than the oceans can produce in a sustainable manner, and that the number of fish stocks classed as collapsed has roughly doubled to 30 percent globally over the past 20 years.
— Thirty percent of amphibians, 23 percent of mammals and 12 percent of birds are under threat of extinction. Species are being forced into extinction at a rate 100 times faster than any in fossil records.
— Annual emissions of CO2 from fossil fuels have risen by about one-third since 1987, and the threat from climate change now is so urgent that only very large cuts in greenhouse gases of 60 percent to 80 percent could stop irreversible change.
— If present trends continue, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity by 2025, and two-thirds of the world population could be subject to water stress.
Ironic that the lead stories in the Times, the Post and the AJC all touch on microcosms of environmental issues raised in the report. But none of the papers step back for a longer-range look at what’s happening to the planet. And what appears to be happening is that mankind is slowly but surely killing its own habitat and, thus, killing itself. We have too many people and too few resources.
The mathematics are pretty simple. There’s only so much air, water, food and fossil fuel to go around. And humans are depleting those natural resources at a pace that is going to deplete them. Very soon.
Two books I recommend on the topic:
The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It’s Too Late by Thom Hartmann
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Send to a friend:
October 26th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
>And this isn’t from some left-wing wacko group.
That’s debatable.
Can’t wait to read the next issue of Creative Loafing, which will surely feature this on the cover. This will be your paper’s lead story, right?
October 26th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Thanks for stepping up, Eugene, to personify the arrogance of mankind that has gotten us into this position.
October 26th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Stringer - Scott Freeman mocked the hell out of the newspapers that failed to make their lead story the UN report.
Surely it’s fair, then, to expect his newspaper to step up to the plate to make the report its own next cover story.
If global warming (ooops, I mean climate change) is such a big threat, Creative Loafing would quickly call a halt to decimating trees to turn into landfill-clogging newspapers that all have to be distributed via fossil fuel-burning vehicles. Right?
Why exactly should I feel arrogant?
October 27th, 2007 at 12:18 am
Eugene - have you even READ the stories in European newspapers? Have you even READ the UN report that you so casually dismiss?
Why should you feel arrogant? Because it bothers you not that mankind has intruded on nature to the point that species are going extinct at rates never before seen, that we are taxing the natural resources that keep us alive, water and fossil fuels and food. You don’t see it coming because you believe that mankind rules nature. It doesn’t. That is the folly that will be our undoing.
It’s arrogance to think we control nature. And that’s why you personify mankind’s arrogance.
October 27th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Stringer - Did you even READ my comments? Nowhere did I say the predictions are wrong. Please get with the program. You say it’s arrogance to think that we control nature. OK, but if you READ my comments you’ll see that I never implied that we did.
Now that you mention it, though, if we don’t control nature I guess fretting about temperature fluctuations won’t do do us much good anyway, especially since the activities of man account for less than 4% of the CO2 in the global atmosphere anyway.
October 29th, 2007 at 9:19 am
You still fail to address my point: Have you even read the news stories about this report? Or the report itself?
You’re right, it’s not man, it’s nature killing itself. Man has nothing to do with destroying the rain forests. Man has nothing to do with the fact we are seeing rates of extinction never before seen in the history of the world. Man has nothing to do with the exhausts of cars and electrical plants and chemicals that are forever altering the atmosphere. Man has nothing to do with the over-population of the world that is causing us to catch more fish each year than are replenished naturally. And, of course, it won’t be mankind’s fault when there are no more fish to catch.
You’re right, man cannot control nature. But we are mighty damned good at destroying it.
My bad, Eugene.
October 29th, 2007 at 10:08 am
Stringer - that’s OK, you’ve studiously ignored my points as well, so we’re even!
Hey, on your overpopulation point you may be onto something. I see that the list of the 25 countries with the highest birth rates are, in order: 1. Congo 2. Guinea-Bissau 3. Liberia 4. Niger 5. Afghanistan 6. Mali 7. Angola 8. Burundi 9. Uganda 10. Sierra Leone 11. Chad 12. Rwanda 13. Burkina Faso 14. Somalia 15. East Timor 16. Malawi 17. Benin 18. Nigeria 19. Guinea 20. Mozambique 21. Eritrea 22. Zambia 23. Kenya 24. Tanzania 25. Equatorial Guinea.
If you want to dish out some overpopulation grief, that list should come in pretty handy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_birth_rate
October 29th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Eugene, a lot of those countries have the highest death rate as well.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2066rank.html
Interesting.
October 29th, 2007 at 10:47 am
>Eugene, a lot of those countries have the highest death rate as well.
Higher than the 100% death rate we have here in the US? Damn, that’s grim!
October 29th, 2007 at 10:50 am
I wish to officially retract my juvenile attempt at humor.