First post

The fight to save the environment must take precedence over battles against terror and tyranny as well as poverty and inequity. Here’s why:

Millions, if not billions of people currently face the serious threat of death from starvation, disease, or war. At the moment, starvation is largely a problem of the poor nations, whose populations increase regardless, and does not threaten the entire human species. Also, as yet even the most virulent diseases can be contained using quarantine, unless they are used in large-scale warfare.

Terrorists have yet to obtain anywhere near enough weapons-grade viruses to pose such a threat. They also have yet to obtain even one nuclear device; it takes at least dozens, possibly hundreds of mushroom clouds to produce nuclear winter and/or deadly global fallout levels.

So, barring improbable celestial events, there are only two main threats to the existence of the human race: global war between nations, and biosphere collapse. This site deals with the latter.

Because the species we use as food are dependent on so many other species, biosphere collapse will make starvation a truly universal problem; if it significantly affects algae populations as well as forests, it will eventually threaten even our air supply. An elite may manage to keep power stations running and use them to produce oxygen and nutrients chemically, but at present there is little hope for the vast majority of humankind if biosphere collapse occurs.

There are a variety of views on the current situation and the necessary counteractions:

1. The root problem is overproduction, i.e. overuse of natural resources. The expansion of production under capitalism must be slowed to a halt. For example, see the film Advertising and the End of the World by Sut Jhally.

2. The fantastic power of technology got us into this mess; it can get us out, if we apply it in the right ways before it's too late. For example, see Rachel Carson's famous book, Silent Spring, and the end of Arthur Clarke and Stephen Baxter's novel, The Light of Other Days.

3. We may not be able to undo the damage we've done, but a large-scale artificial replacement for the biosphere is possible, one that could support at least a sizeable fraction of the current human population. For example, see Stanley Schmidt's novel, Lifeboat Earth.

4. Biosphere collapse is already underway, and the only way to prevent a mass extinction is to dismantle civilization and return to the Stone Age. For example, see www.eces.org.

(originally posted May 24, 2003)

(no subject)

A Basic Trend

1. According to modern “scale” economics, producing more and selling more results in more profits. As a result, corporations tend to produce as much as they can, as fast as they can.

2. Continuing technological development ensures that the maximum production rate keeps going up.

3. The living natural resources used by corporations to make products, however, reproduce themselves at relatively steady rates according to the delicate balance of Earth’s biosphere.*

4. Therefore, beyond a certain point, nature can no longer keep up with humanity’s accelerating use of its resources.

5. These resources are then depleted at an accelerating rate, eventually leading to a spectacular and terrible economic and ecological collapse.


Possible Ways to Alter This Trend

1. Alter the basic nature of the economic system: very difficult. Mass production and economies of scale are part of a global system of intertwined economics and politics which is itself enormously resistant to change, despite the massive changes it is making to this planet.

2. Increase the rate of natural resource reproduction: also very difficult. Since life has covered the planet so thoroughly, an increase in the reproduction rate of one species almost always occurs at the expense of another. If we keep expanding production of the species that are useful to us, we run the risk of destroying enough other species to cause the collapse of the entire biosphere, which is one of the few events that could result in the complete extinction of humanity. Giant space colonies may eventually solve this problem by creating new habitat areas, but don’t hold your breath.

3. Start an anti-consumerist movement, to prevent the corporations from continuing to sell more and more products: difficult, but not as difficult as the first two alternatives. A rising standard of living doesn’t necessarily mean consuming more products faster. If people refuse to buy products that are designed to be short-lived or aren’t useful enough to justify the resources put into them, the corporations will eventually be forced to change their strategies. We need to convince them now rather than wait for them to wake up to the consequences of continued resource depletion and find real solutions.

* The dangers of running out of petroleum, metals, and minerals are minor compared with those of damaging or destroying the biosphere on which we are still dependent.

(originally posted August 4, 2003)

The Sixth Great Extinction

"The Sixth Great Extinction" is not just the way anarcho-primitivists like Derrick Jensen and the folks at eces.org describe what's happening to our planet. Many scientists also believe that's what's happening.*

The reasoning is simple: about 70 more species go extinct every day.** (There is very little doubt that this would not be happening if human civilization did not exist.) This rate could increase or (hopefully) decrease, but let's assume it remains roughly constant for a while. Then 25,550 species will die out in the next year; over the next century, the number is 2.5 million.

Now, I don't know how many species of multicellular life there are, but it's not a bad bet that at this rate, within a geologically very short timespan, a large fraction of them will be gone. How large a fraction depends on how long this can go on before civilization falls, and what lingering aftereffects might continue to cause extinctions after that fall. But it's clearly not a pretty picture.


*From a question at the Quiz Bowl college trivia tournament at UCLA. Some pretty smart people go to these, so the question writers have to check their facts pretty carefully.

**From a t-shirt sold by Northern Sun. Will try to find a better source later.

(originally posted October 15, 2003)

Freedom

I think the problem with some people who deny that there is an environmental crisis, or that its solution requires any drastic societal change, is that they value freedom too highly.

Now, I admit that freedom is definitely an extremely important thing, despite the somewhat nebulous and multifaceted nature of the concept; for example, I think free food for those incapable of supporting themselves should be valued more highly than free trade and free markets, but that's a topic for another post.

The point is that there is one thing that undoubtedly must be valued ahead of freedom: survival. Maybe not individual survival; if your personal motto is "live free or die," I have nothing against that. Nor am I talking about giving up civil liberties in exchange for a little more protection against terrorist attacks. Even a nuclear-armed terrorist can't do anything like the kind of damage that would result from biosphere collapse. As stated in my first post, biosphere collapse quite possibly threatens the survival of the entire human race.

It isn't just that this threat is less immediate or obvious than others that we face. It's also that some people want to persist, at all cost, in believing that nothing should be allowed to restrict their freedom to consume as much as they want, or the corporations' and governments' freedom to do whatever it takes to maximize profits and economic growth. As long as so many people believe this, we as a society will be unable to face the threat of biosphere collapse or counter it in any meaningful way.

(originally posted October 23, 2003)

(no subject)

"Production is more important than profits: Essentially, all manufacturing would lose money without massive subsidies from the public by way of the state..." -Derrick Jensen, The Culture of Make-Believe, p. 353

If Jensen is right about this, it means that all we have to do to curb overproduction is get the government to cut those subsidies. Not that this is easy, but it's easier than Jensen's solution, which is to dismantle civilization. It may even be easier than curbing consumerism, which is a very deeply entrenched aspect of our culture.

(originally posted September 2, 2003)

Irrational, Easily-Refuted But Mildly Amusing Reasons Why Megacorporations Are Sauron

1. They want to feed the forests into the fires of industry.

2. They can only mock, they cannot make. (Biotech, frankenfood, etc.)

3. The world's tallest towers are all corporate headquarters.

4. We have to stop them from covering the world in a Great Darkness/Extinction.

5. Their ring of power, the global market system, does nothing for the little people except make them invisible.

6. If you're a Marxist, you believe that the force which gave them their power, the workers, can also destroy it. I'm not convinced that that's possible, but then, Frodo didn't have very good odds either...

(originally posted November 29, 2003)

(no subject)

"God has appointed the great American people to mechanize the universe."

This is Olaf Stapledon's 1931 prediction of the future of American philosophy, from his science-fiction novel Last and First Men. It's scary how nearly accurate he was.

(originally posted December 1, 2003)

Survival guilt

What if humanity handily survives the death of the biosphere? What if we sustain ourselves with vat-grown yeast and algae and live in Asimov's Caves of Steel beneath a nearly lifeless landscape, with the blood of trillions or quadrillions of creatures on our hands?

It seems like it should be said that this would be worse than letting the human race die that the biosphere may live, but I can't say it. It's too hard to give up the notion that Intelligence, Technology, and Civilization are somehow more important that Life, to say nothing of simple species loyalty. And there are attractive excuses: without some kind of intelligent intervention, everything on Earth will surely die as the sun gets hotter; wouldn't that be worse than a mass extinction now, from which the biosphere may eventually recover?

So our task is to fight for a third alternative, to convince people that the human cost of the Caves of Steel is too high or the risk of failure too great, that we must either continue to depend on the biosphere or separate ourselves from it before we do any more damage. The latter solution is next to impossible to implement, so the real alternative we have to choose is learning to live with nature rather than against it.

(originally posted December 24, 2003)

Some clarifications about the extinction rate

"No one knows how many other species are this close to extinction. We don't even know how many species of animals and plants there are altogether in the world. A staggering 1.4 million have been found and identified so far, but some experts believe that there are another 30 million yet to be discovered.
. . .
Many animals and plants are disappearing before we are aware of their existence, perhaps hidden away somewhere in the depths of an unexplored sea or in a quiet corner of a tropical rainforest.
. . .
As zoologists and botanists explore new areas, scrabbling to record the mere existence of species before they become extinct, it is like someone hurrying through a burning library desperately trying to jot down some of the titles of books that will now never be read.
. . .
For millions of years, on average, one species became extinct every century. But most of the extinctions since prehistoric times have occurred in the last three hundred years.
. . .
It is the sheer rate of acceleration that is as terrifying as anything else. There are now [in 1990] more than a thousand different species of animals and plants becoming extinct every year.*
. . .
Even so, the loss of a few species may seem almost irrelevant compared to major environmental problems such as global warming or the destruction of the ozone layer. But while nature has considerable resilience, there is a limit to how far that resilience can be stretched. No one knows how close to the limit we are getting. The darker it gets, the faster we're driving."

-Mark Carwardine, Last Chance to See


* Keep in mind that today, the estimate is well over 20,000 species per year. I still don't know how that estimate is arrived at, i.e. whether they only count known extinctions or whether they try to factor in the ones we didn't observe directly.

(originally posted December 27, 2003)

(no subject)

"Man is the driving force behind what could well prove to be the last and greatest mass extinction, as species are lost at a several hundred times the 'natural' background extinction rate.

Nonetheless, we can be reasonably certain that we will survive, even if we drive the majority of all other species out of existence. And if the study of mass extinctions has taught us anything it is that life will always continue and, in time, even flourish."

-www.bbc.co.uk/education/darwin/exfiles/biotom.htm

I don't think we should be so sure that humanity will make it--at any rate, if we do survive, I have to believe there will at least be some kind of disaster that wipes out a fair number of us. If that makes me sound like I relish the idea, I assure you I don't--but if no such disaster is necessarily ahead on our present course, it's going to be a whole lot harder convincing people that biosphere collapse is something to be avoided at all costs.

(originally posted February 8, 2004)

(no subject)

A site every more-than-casual environmentalist should visit: The Great Turning

One quote that jumped out at me, from the "Three Dimensions" section: "When we see how this system operates, we are less tempted to demonize the politicians and corporate CEOs who are in bondage to it." The blame-the-system-not-the-people mindset has some problems, but it's probably a good idea overall.

(originally posted February 22, 2004)

And now, some comic relief...

This is my comic strip for The Collage campus newspaper, about some college students in the year 2047 who build a time machine and bring a Harvey Mudd student from 2003 into the future.

Apocalypse in 2070...or earlier

If you've watched the movie Advertising and the End of the World and were confused by the graph showing the curves representing "natural resources" and "production" intersecting in about the year 2070, here's an explanation.

"Probably the best index of the scale of the human economy as a part of the biosphere is the percentage of human appropriation of the total world product of photosynthesis. Net primary production (NPP) is the amount of energy captured in photosynthesis by primary producers, less the energy used in their own growth and reproduction. NPP is thus the basic food resource for everything on earth not capable of photosynthesis. Vitousek et al. calculate that 25% of potential global (terrestrial and aquatic) NPP is now appropriated by human beings (BioScience 1986 vol. 34, no. 6, pp. 368-73). If only terrestrial NPP is considered, the amount rises to 40%. The definition of human appropriation underlying the figures quoted includes direct use by human beings (food, fuel, fiber, timber) plus the reduction from potential NPP due to alteration of ecosystems caused by humans. The latter reflects deforestation, desertification, paving over, and human conversion to less productive systems (such as agriculture). Taking the 25% figure for the entire world, it is apparent that two more doublings of the human scale will give 100%. Since this would mean zero energy left for all nonhuman and nondomesticated species, and since humans cannot survive without the services of ecosystems, it is clear that two more doublings of the human scale would be an ecological impossibility, even if it were arithmetically possible. Assuming a constant level of per capita resource consumption, the doubling time of the human scale would be equal to the doubling time of population, which is on the order of 40 years."

1986 + 40*2 = 2066, which is close to 2070. But wait, there's more.

"Of course economic development currently aims to increase the average per capita resource consumption and consequently to reduce the doubling time of the scale of the human presence below that implicit in the demographic rate of growth. Furthermore the terrestrial figure of 40% human appropriation is really the more relevant one since we are unlikely to increase our take from the oceans very much. Unless we awaken to the existence and nearness of scale limits, then the greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion, and acid rain will be just a preview of disasters to come, not in the vague distant future but in the next generation."

-Herman E. Daly and John B. Cobb, Jr., For the Common Good.

For some idea of what such a future might be like, see the novel A Friend of the Earth by T. C. Boyle.